The worst prof in computing science. Not even fit to be a TA.

This course is suppose to be easy, but he made it like 275, and was very tedious and not very helpful. I'll take it with another prof is I were you. The class can easily fail, and require more work than necessary. I wonder why he's still teaching. Breaks my self-esteem when I ask a question, make me look stupid every time. :(

He asks you to choose what to do for the project, but he has specific project topics he prefers. Lectures were pretty boring, and he didn't teach the material very well, although the midterm/final wasn't that hard. tldr - not very good at teaching, only take this course with him if you want to work on a project cmpt275-style.

Keep away from us! No demonstration of rational thought or constructive criticism. Guard your name, he make you do anything! Also, in denial as he believes enough time for semester group project. Start mid Feb after 7+ futile negotiations! Is project "open idea"? Unchanged when enter-left this course. Can't believe he's teaching another CMPT course

I would stay away from this instructor. I hate how he likes to call out people in class. He is not really clear on what he expects for the class project.

Worse prof in my university experience. He reads off his slides, expects you to memorize definitions from the text's glossary and has ambiguous expectations. He used our class to gain fame and publicity (built an iPhone app). Does not coordinate with the TA at all. I do not recommend taking 275 with him at all.

Worst professor I have had in my post secondary career. All notes taken from textbook and other professors. Assignments taken from Toby Donaldson. Completely unfair marker for tests. Herbert could not answer even how to make a string for his selected language. SUGGESTION: never go to class and just buy textbook. P.S. prof has a big ego.

I'm so tired of imbeciles who can't teach. Herbert is yet another example: promises things about exams but breaks them, lectures are totally ambiguous and contradictory, he is full of himself and can't see his own flaws. How can he not see how ridiculous his tests are? Doesn't test main concepts, just things mentioned once in lecture or text.

He's boring, the worst prof I have ever had. He knows nothing about OpenGL, and he said we should do something interesting in this course but force us to do things everybody thinks it sucks.

Never ever take any course taught by this stupid fool! Trust me, and I'm serious! He really knows nothing at all and his course is so boring. The only thing he can say is "You need to think about it"! If you want to try his courses yourself, best wishes and good luck!

Irrelevant assignments, Use someone else's slides and randomly skips all over the place, knows nothing about programming himself, project is way off in another field. If you have interest in graphics or have plans for your GPA, then avoid him at all cost. Oh right he calls giving negative points for wrong answers on the final as "Lots of fun".

My GPA was 3.2 before this course, and understand I've written mostly positive reviews of profs before this guy. Herbert Tsang is just clueless. He demands formal English when he can barely speak it himself, he hasn't once given an assignment description worth damn, he doesn't answer questions by e-mail and is equally as useless in person. AVOID.

Useless slides, pointless lectures, posts assignments late, condescending, jokes at expense of students, bullying attitude, speaks poor English though expects perfect English, and is deliberately ambiguous and unhelpful. First professor I've had that deliberately doesn't answer midterm questions and the worst professor I've had.

Screwed the students by making us sign a syllabus to have the final on the last day of class. When he's in trouble with the administration, you pay his price. He is very unclear and rude, lecture notes are horrible. He does have good stories about working in the field, but those do not make up for his unprofessional conduct in class.

This prof is the worst prof I have ever seen in my entire life. I attended his class last year . He will make u stand in front of all and ask irrelevant question and make you embrassed. Teaching style pathetic, never knew himself what is he teaching exactly. GOT C- , IGNORE, DROP HIS COURSE. ELDER BRO ADVISE GUYS!

His powerpoints are combined from 12 textbooks. The assignment descriptions are full of errors that you have to make assumptions for because he doesn't reply to emails unless it interests him. He doesn't actually teach software engineering, but spends time telling stories and explaining to you why your project sucks. I regret not taking 276.

Publicly bashed students during their presentations, did not give helpful emails, did not give proper study material. The worst prof I've ever had at SFU. He is not apathetic or lazy. He is actively rude and incompetent. He CONSTANTLY wastes time in class whenever he feels like. Don't take his class. Wait until he isn't teaching, or take 276.

we just get our final mark, the final average is 49%. and he told us it is not curved, u need 50% for D, so the class average is F. yo, whoever reading this comment. save ur GPA, take it next semester with someone else.

Reprimanded the class about plagiarism, yet every single slide in his notes was plagiarized off of other universities & uncredited. He CONSTANTLY comes up with arbitrary logic to defend his horrible decisions, usually ending in him repeating himself. I haven't even finished the course, but our 25 person final project team is already a gong-show.

He's condescending, and has really poor teaching skills. He knows nothing about Objective C either. The lectures are boring and total BS. Nothing to learn there except for participation. His anecdotes are generic and mostly useless.

worst teaching skill and slides are incredibly long (100- 170 slides). His exams and notes are unrelated. Lectures are boring despite that he tried so hard to amuse us with his "jokes" "past experience" but they are just all BS. If you have the money to waste and you think your gpa is too high, he is the prof you want to choose.

Poor instructor abilities, worse personality. Cannot take criticism. Prides himself on industry knowledge, yet asks ridiculous and outdated questions on software methodologies. Creates an unsafe environment for students to ask questions: actively puts people down, comments on your appearance, and many more.

He is so arrogant and rude with the worst way of teaching ever

This course is about ethics and be professional. however the prof doesn't to have those. He kinda enjoys making students suffer for his useless assignments. I believe if he was in charge of a country, he would be a great dictator.

Horrible professor. Avoid at all costs. Puts people on the spot infront of the class and embarrasses them. Picks at people's grammar for in class essays when every single canvas announcement he made is filled with grammar mistakes. Misunderstands questions and answers them with hostility. Worst professor in my 3 years in SFU. AVOID

Not a friendly teacher. He seems really proud of himself, but he isn't really teaching well. Attendence is madatory, since there are quizes during lectures, which I hate. The materials covered in midterm contain quite a lot of minor historical facts, needing so much memorization, which really makes me it's a history course or law course. Boring.

Not a good teacher. The concepts you learn can't really be applied, and the way he teaches by attacking students and trying to force them to be wrong is ridiculous.

Horrible attitude towards teaching. He teaches in an authoritarian manner where everything he says is 100% correct even if he is clearly in the wrong. Tries to embarrass students constantly. Avoid if at all possible.

I recommend avoiding this professor at all costs. He is extremely rude and condescending. He asks you for an opinion and then does his best to humiliate and mock you publicly. Any opinion that does not agree with his is immediately wrong and you are on the receiving end of some really horrible comments. Irony is he is teaching an ethics class.

At the start of the semester, Herbert suggested that maybe the reviews on sites like this are incorrect; they are correct. Herbert will call out students during class and ridicule ideas he disagrees with. Also, every lecture has an in-class exercise (18% of grade) and you get zero feedback. Overall, I would not take a class with Herbert again.

Incredibly condescending to students and does not explain why he thinks you are "wrong." He is a very hard marker and will take off marks for the smallest things. Unless you really need to get a course done, avoid him.

Assignments require external knowledge which is never provided in class. You have to learn application development entirely on your own. Clear disconnect between the teacher and students extremely condescending towards students. He does not care about the students. Avoid at all costs.

The worst prof. How to prepare his test: memorize the whole book.

Working on a project with a team is nice, but it just isn't worth it since you legit have to memorize 900 slides of disorganized material for the mid term and 1600 slides for the final. This is more material than my other 4 classes combined. So if you don't want to be stuck memorizing thousands of slides, avoid at all costs.

This professor is amazing, you can have over 1000 PPT and two whole books to review at the end of the semester. You will write 500 words in class exercise every class. Two paper with specific word requirement (2200-2500 not a word more or less) Anyway, this teacher is amazing. Hope you have fun

Look at all other reviews. They will tell you how nice this course is.

Worst professor I have ever had. Massive amount of disorganized slides to sift through. Almost irrational when grading, takes marks off for things that weren't asked for. Students required to learn everything practical by themselves. Exam questions can be poorly worded and the "correct" answer is the subjective opinion of the prof.

One of the most frustrating professors I've ever had. I wouldn't take a class with him unless it was necessary. His exams are essentially memorizing the entire textbook, and they ask random trivial facts instead of testing understanding. He gives confusing writing prompts. He says not to believe his ratemyprof reviews, but they are pretty accurate.

feels like he is trying to revenge haha

Worst Prof. The major project of this *CS* course had us interview priests, asking how technology has affected religion. Legit felt like a thinly-veiled attempt to get us darn atheist youth to find god. One student had uploading issues, emailed the prof, was told itd be unfair to other students if he accepted email submission, and lost 27%.

He is one mean a.h, and he taught his TAs to be mean too

His tests are not easy at all! Lots of times he straight up gives 0's for questions that could be out of 12 - 15. The group assignment is very iffy as well, as long as you get a good group you will be fine, but if you have bad luck , you may be looking at having to retake this class!

Gives us creative assignments which I like, but specification are not clear and marks gets deducted for not meeting them. Exam questions are not tough but hard to prepare as he asks meaningless detail no one cares about. who likes 100 multiple choice for programming exam? his lecture slides are all copy of textbooks. does he care about teaching?idk

Very arrogant and shows little respect for students time. Is always late to class and spent more time talking about his own projects/awards because his lecture slides are a mess. Any questions asked are dismissed with more questions from him. His idea of studying is read everything over again, but tests are fairly easy. Won't learn anything, avoid.

This class was horrendous. It focused around a term-long group project with randomly selected members that was to be coded in a language no one knew and was constrained to an OS that not everyone had steady access to. Yeah, no. Get me out. Oh, and it was worth 50%. Tests were verbatim mind dumps from the 2000 slides. Absolutely awful.

AVOID AT ALL COSTS! AVOID AT ALL COSTS! AVOID AT ALL COSTS! ITS VERY IMPORTANT, SO I REPEAT THREE TIMES!

PLEASE DROP WHATEVER CLASS YOU HAVE IF THIS PROF IS TEACHING. He will make you feel stupid with his condescending responses and is never there to help you when you need it. I would give him a negative rating if I could

Believe the other reviews, this guy is absolutely terrible. His group project, which is worth 53% of your grade, is on a topic that a second or third year student would have never been taught. He consistently takes marks off for things not asked for, and when students question him, he flat out denies questioning and forces students to back down.

This guy cannot teach to save his life. Please remove him from SFU for the sake of future computer science students.

Absolutely terrible. Herbert himself is a nice sociable person but he is not a good instructor. He's very unorganized and has unrealistic expectations. We were given a week to self-learn Java and make an app. There was 0 talk of any sort of coding during the semester. Just 3 hour long lectures about the proccess of software development.

Has to be the worst CS professors at SFU. You will learn absolutely nothing of consequence from his lectures. You will be expected to learn how to develop a fully-fledged Android application from scratch and with absolutely zero guidance, in a single week. He assumes full proficiency in software engineering in a class that's supposed it teach it.

Terrible. Poorly organized, awful lectures with no hands-on development. Mistakes made in release forms and specifications. Expects 3 assignments to be handed in within the same week, and a first app version within this same week after telling us not to code for 2 months. Completely out of touch with the student experience. Avoid at all costs.

Avoid at all costs. We were given a group project and expected to learn a vast variety of coding techniques and software without any direction. After asking multiple times, he provided no resources. I have emailed SFU and I'm in contact with their QA team about removing this guy from teaching. I actually am painful in the chest from the stress.

man this guy is really rude and would not recommend if someone is looking to enjoy this class... rest of the comments are true to atleast some degree

If your only option is to take this class with Tsang, don't. He doesn't understand how to teach and provides no learning resources. Discouraged coding for the first 2 months in a course where many students had never used Java. Everything we learned in this class was self taught - google + stackoverflow. Avoid at all costs, don't waste your money!

As a third year student, this professor is the worst prof I've ever taken. He expects you to create an app in less than a week without having taught you a line of code. Lectures are useless because they're too fast and you won't have any time to take notes or absorb information. He sees his students as employees, which is an awful thing. Fire him.

Think of it this way. The ONLY course material you're provided with is lecture slides and videos which don't include even a line of code. Think of the course project as a personal project with a group where you're not provided anything relevent from the course and you'll be graded on it very tough. I've never experienced anything like this.

Taking his lecture is depicting the current situation in the world. When you are taking his class, you will know how wonderful your life was before taking his class. No free time, have to read 1000+ slides and have to learn all by yourself. We should rather pay Youtube for the tuitions.

Simon Fraser is harming the future careers of students by having such an incompetent, egotistical and out of touch instructor. Doesn't teach and boasts about his accomplishments all semester. This class was a complete waste of money, and SFU doesn't let even you evaluate Tsang's performance - not that he'd take advice or ever admit fault. REFUND!!!

AVOID AT ALL COSTS! Stay waitlisted for a different prof, take it next semester, transfer schools, do whatever it takes to avoid him. If you're stubborn enough to ignore this warning, then the best word of advice I can give is to do the exact opposite of whatever he says. Start coding early and don't bother emailing him because he rarely replies.

Taken 3 classes with him, I can say he doesn't know how to lecture. Every class he just blasts through 100 slides/hour, skipping about half of them, and reading off of the rest. He adds no additional insight over the slides, which are copy-pasted from the textbook anyway. He does in-classes quizzes solely to keep people attending which is just sad.

Really bad class. Course material does not have anything to do with the required semester project which takes all of your time. Makes it really difficult to manage learning the course material and focus on making a project at the same time.

Are there any options for negative ratings? I think 1 is still too much for this class. MUST AVOID!!

This guy does not consider technical problems as an issue and was not aware of prerequisite knowledge students had before making us learn a new language and code an entire app in a few weeks. We submitted an assigning but due to a system problem, he gave us a 0, when we had proof of the technical issue. Had to cram the textbook for the exam

It's one thing to be a mean person, and another to be bad at your job. Dr. Tsang is both, unfortunately. Besides belittling his students and having a condescending attitude, he makes irrelevant and arbitrary decisions with which to deduct marks and then blames students for not addressing these issues. I have never once had an instructor like him.

Forces you to sign a consent form to give away all your privacy rights. "I agree that all such audio recordings, including any reproductions thereof and all digital files,.. I waive all claims to compensation based on the use of my recordings by Dr. Tsang. I also waive any right to inspect or approve the audio recording after my interview."

Someone needs to tell this professor that things are easier said than done. No matter the difficulty of the task given, he always makes it seem like it's simple and straight-forward. He won't give you any guidance on your tasks. Whenever something from his end requires extra work to do, he makes it a big deal. This prof is lazy and uncompassionate.

The prof gives the most boring and longest lectures ever. He reads off slides taken from a textbook and is very unorganized. He's a hypocrite because he grades you on things like pronunciation and enthusiasm both of which he clearly lacks. Also he can not answer a single programming related question. He only knows theories memorized from the text.

In his lecture, you get 40% time just literally read out the slides, 30% time for terrible jokes, 5% for skipping 95% of the slides, and the last 25% talking about how good he is. AVOID, or regret like me.

one of the worst professor in BC. That's all you need to know.

After taking a class with Dr. Tsang I decided to drop out - realized I was wasting my money paying for classes like this and then ending up self-studying anyway due to poor teaching from those without industry experience/success. Complete waste of time taking this class - everything you will learn is self taught. The man is completely out of touch.

The assignments and lectures are not related at all. He doesn't teach anything useful that you need for the group project worth 50%.

Awful, boring lectures, Tsang does not explain grading criteria clearly and also doesnt really teach anything, the majority of the course is a group project in which you need to teach yourself everything. Felt like a waste of a course. Avoid.

I did not enjoy Professor Tsang's course at all. He is not very nice to students. He sent an email to my class explaining what "action words" are in a question when we didn't answer his discussion question the way he wanted. This is insulting for students at this education level, especially when most students can speak English better than he can.

Prof Tsang helped me make a great decision - to drop out and learn everything myself. Provided no coding instruction whatsoever, and is completely out of touch with the state of contemporary software development. He helped me decide that SFU was a complete waste of my time and money. Now I work on personal projects and pursue certifications.

Pure Definition of a Grade A+ Butthole. He never taught the required codes or information required on completing the course. Lectures are relevant to the end outcome but no where near relevant on how to get there. 10/10 would not take again or recommend anyone to take if you don't have too. One of the many reasons why not to go to SFU.

Avoid this guy at all cost. He is not a professor. I don't want to believe it. He is incapable of doing that. Just a pure stupidity. He cannot speak English well, cannot teach, reads the slides and does nothing, careless, and is not accessible. I have no idea how these people pass the interviews and become instructors at universities. What a shame

To say that Dr. Tsang is a professor is an insult to all professors. His lectures have little substance and are just word-for-word readings of the slides, ones that aren't even the same as the slides uploaded on Canvas. His midterms are completely unfair, with coding components designed to take 1.5 hours with a 40 minute time limit.

If you computer has a short charge, remember to "go to a dollar store, buy one of those 100ft long extension cord, and run it out of the lecture hall" during labs. His instructions on the labs / the midterm isn't clear so have fun wasting your time trying to figure out what he wants.

Absolutely disgraceful professor. An embarrassment to SFU. Doesn't show up to labs, lectures are not helpful, midterm and test questions are poorly worded (ie Bad English), overall lack of care towards class. TA's absolutely carried the class, they ran the labs and provided the best quality teaching.

His extra credits are a joke. No matter how much effort you put into it, you will get a 1/3 and he doesn't tell you what's wrong. This means you will never improve or fix your mistakes and thus will always get that mark. His quizzes are "reasonable" according to him, take his class and you will know what "reasonable" really means.

Ironically the greatest professor I ever had. Thank you Herbert H. Tsang, P.Eng, Ph.D, M.Mus.

Probably a decent human, but definitely a traditional and non-flexible professor. Doesn't release results and solutions for quizzes and labs, and makes difficult assignments. Skips through 20 of the 60 slides he makes for each lecture and only posts a third of them. Note taking is enouraged. No opportunities are given to learn from past mistakes.

If the format stays the same, with 2hr lectures, both the midterm and the final are two hours long... except they aren't. He cuts your time at 10:15, even though exam period ends at 10:30. Not approachable and expects students to do high value factorials in their heads, no papers allowed. I've never had such an insufferable teacher in my life

Never recommend him for ENSC 180.He taught ensc 180 this semester and it was a total disaster. Unclear instructions, tough quizzes which require a scientific calculator in your head and the main software(Matlab) is not allowed for use.

The rating is partially due to the terrible TAs. When you ask them a question about the assignment they made, 75% of the time their response is "uh I don't know" then walks away. The quizzes have ZERO correlation to the lecture content so even if it was a open book quiz, you would be lucky to pass.

Herbert Tsang is an incompetent professor who could not care less about his class or students. Despite being absolutely clueless about the program he is 'teaching', he expects instant proficiency from students based off his convoluted and ultimately useless lectures. Labs and quizzes aren't related to what is 'taught' and have poor instructions :(

Given 2 hours to do a weekly lab on which we have no prior experience. Oh and if it's late by 1 second -30%. Labs and quizzes are guessing and figuring it out on your own unless you find a decent group of friends since the TAs are clueless and the prof doesn't show up to labs. Also, the lab passcode is always posted late and time is not extended.

Prof. Tsang, comes off as very brash during lectures with the sarcastic comments he makes. He packs a lot of slides into his lectures, and goes through them quickly, with posted slideshows having missing slides. Quiz questions are unrelated to the previous week's slides. TA's mostly carry with the marking, but also are not much help during labs.

Lectures are mostly useless as it's just reading off of slides, so don't bother going. Quizzes often had material that was not covered, and sometimes had questions which would need a paper and pen to do, even though they aren't allowed. Instructions are sometimes unclear and have to be clarified by a TA (even on the midterm, 10 minutes in!)

Dr. Tsang is probably the worst professor I have ever had. He may be a very proficient researcher, but as a professor, he is quite lacking. He does not show up to Labs/Quizzes & when his students have issues, he disregards them. His midterm was poorly organized, and his criteria were unclear.

Take Brian Fraser he's a better prof. You're going to suffer in this man's class

He spent 10 minutes complaining about how Rate My Prof is dumb and everyone that writes reviews are just bitter that they didn't do well. He then spent the entire term proving every negative review right. Class wasn't hard though.

Had him in Fall 2022. His teaching was pre bad and almost nothing he taught us was tested in the final exam (which was a joke of an exam, was quite literally a grade 4 English grammar test with fill in the blanks and mcqs). He was also picky with essay topics and I had to find 7 different topics before he approved of the one I chose in the end.

DO NOT TAKE! Tests are all done online and once you submit a multiple choice questions you are unable to go back and change your answer even if there is still time.there are mistakes in the quizzes and midterms and refuse to answer any questions about it, I know they are wrong because I checked with the TAs which are much more willing to help.

He seems to be a bit unfamiliar with the material he teaches and sometimes has difficulty answering questions. He is also generally unwilling to help you after class or in office hours.

Would not recommend this course by this prof the course is fine but I would take it with someone else.

the labs for this course are a complete mess the prof does not show up to the labs so you cant ask him questions, and he literally just ignored my email about the lab.

He marks everything super late and does not release quiz marks on time he does not release quiz questions either so you cant see what you got wrong. He then uses the same questions on the midterm and final. Would not recommend this guy.

Worst Prof ever. Not recommended at all. He makes the 100 level course to 400

Course content is boring but he makes it even more dry than it already is

this class is pointless enough for anyone who has a basic knowledge of english and writing. this guy is insufferable and childish. definitely avoid if you can! the class itself isn't bad, it's easy and the knowledge is very intuitive.

A very problematic instructor. His lectures are very egoistic. Not a lot of useful materials are talked about during class. He would pretend to encourage asking questions, but then ridicule anyone who actually dared to ask. Seems like he really doesn't want to answer any questions at all.

It's just like the other students said, he is a hilariously childish man. Take the course if you're fine sacrificing 5-10% for participation marks, because the lectures will make you lose brain cells. It's also such an easy course, all assignments I was able to do within 5 hours.

He loves taking students prisoner in his class room. You can't leave until he says.... Very scary I almost cried and broke down in class

Beware of Herbert! The class itself is easy but he loves overcomplicating the content. Most of the content is common sense but he makes in-person activities which count to 5% of your grade, forcing you to go to lectures. Final was easy but time got reduced to 1hr and with each question being locked after answering, I got forced to rush through it.

Herbert is an interesting critter that's for sure.His lectures are utterly pointless and a waste of time. His credentials are valid however teaching skills are not included in that range.The final exam is equivalent to an international literacy test and is almost entirely unrelated to the course content.His old-minded ways add to his incompetence.

Generally not a nice guy. Doesn't care whatsoever about this class at all. Total joke of a course, and I don't think he completly understands how much of a circus that this is. He is lazy and lies a lot about generally inconsequential things. Assignment sheets have a lot of mistakes. Some TA's mark much harder than others

My god i have not hated another professor as much as this guy. He teaches like we're elementary students, with ZERO flexiblity its his way or the highway. He also locks the exam questions each time you answer them. WHY in the world would anyone do this? Isnt going back to answer a question a normal part of an exam?? PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE AVOID!!!

This is a prof that you should avoid at all costs. He expects that you read the majority of the textbook, but doesn't quiz on any of it. The assignments and quizzes are repetitive to the point of being useless. He lacks any sort of compassion for the students and demonstrates next to no flexibility in any category. He should be let go.

Nah this guy's weird af.

I don't understand what he wants for the assignments. His words are unclear. The more he talks, the more confusing everything becomes.

this guy is worse than milan tofiloski, genuinely dont know how he has a rating above a 2

Overall an awful human being. Bragged about charging students $20 to use his staplers if they forgot to staple their work. Rarely answers emails. Some TAs mark like you're in an essay writing contest, and others are super chill. No consistency. Assignments unclear. CMPT 105W itself is a easy class, can't imagine having Tsang in Calculus or smt.

nice try diddy.

Go back to your department. Lecture as bad as sfu snap

Boring lectures where you learn close to nothing. Everyone I know either does not attend lectures or just shows up to his lectures to do other work. But he makes 10% of the grade "participation marks" where you HAVE to show up for lectures to do these in class assignments, ridiculous. If I am being generous, I would call them a terrible prof.

PLEASE never take any course with this guy. He is the worst prof I have ever had in any course. Does not respond to emails. Does not care about students. Yes, the course is very dry, but he does absolutely anything to make it even worse. At the start of the course I really wanted to like this guy, but it just seems like he puts on a persona.

Worst prof Ive ever taken. Exams are extremely difficult with nothing to do with the lecture you learned, theres literally no way to prepare for his exams because they are so poorly made and confusing. Has no sympathy, and all he does is yap about useless stuff or himself throughout his lectures. Dry and dosnt care about students situation at all.