Nice guy, but one of the worst teachers ever. Can barely read off of the slides.

Joe lectures are very unclear. He struggles to clarify basic concepts to students and the fact that he still struggles with the language makes him even harder to understand at times. Asking questions is virtually useless, because he will hardly ever give you an answer that makes sense/is related toyour actual question.

Horrible accent that makes understanding him hard. Lousy at communicating. Teaches purely from the slides. Offers nothing beyond that I can get a Coursera or edX now. I can't believe I'm paying this much in tuition and have such poor quality professor.

He has the absolute worst English and doesn't deserve to teach this course. There are SO MANY mistakes in anything he writes. He wrote one new project for our semester and it had the WORST documentation ever. He wrote a midterm with an unholy amount of mistakes and ambiguities. His accent is bad. One has to scout Piazza for everything.

Joe Chiu is one of the worst professors Ive ever had. Hes not helpful at all and those who say he is most likely have prior knowledge about C programming or are overconfident in their abilities. He isnt lenient with most things like due dates and hes very cynical towards you when you try to ask simple questions. Dont take his class.

I think the guy is really smart but it's impossible to understand him because of his thick asian accent. I'm trying to learn and I can't understand him. Take another comsci professor if possible.

Joe is a terrible professor and this class has been awful.

The fact that a "flipped classroom model" was implemented after this class was taught online is not lost on me. It seems like he was able to cut down how much he actually contributes to the course by having students learn on their own and pretending that a single synchronous meeting in which you are quizzed is called teaching. I call it lazy.

What a hilarious prof. Tries to cover up for his incompetency with a soft animals like people will not find out he's not doing anything and reusing recorded videos from the summer. Truly a letdown for Robert and Donna Manning College Of Information and Computer Sciences.

Dead from the class. My GPA will not recover from this blow! The class is not hard, but he did not teach anything throughout the semester.

Very bad professor. Don't take him.

CS230 is about making projects. Projects need documentation (guide of what you need to do) so he can grade it. If not, you will create arbitrary projects yourself. Joe's doc are often missing things. In short, he deducts your score based on what he hides/forget to add to doc.

Instead of lecturing, he uses old and outdated lecture videos that are either in low quality (480p) or riddled with mistakes (which he never address). Moreover, he couldn't even speak English properly, therefore his videos are extremely hard to follow. He gets defensive and would clap bank at students who express doubts or question his teaching.

I believe that Joe is genuinely a nice professor, but he's being super lazy!!! He is reusing old video lectures, has converted one of our 2 lecture sessions to an office hour WHICH SOLVES NOTHING, doesn't even teach in the other lecture, and has us take way too many quizzes each week (project, weekly, lesson). Has a minimal curve to the grade.

Does not provide specificity with how he wants work done. Unnecessarily rigid and a poor explainer. Taking his class means relying on zyBooks in order to learn anything, and his Kahoots do absolutely nothing for anybody. I've never been so dissatisfied with a teacher as I have with Chiu, and I would never recommend him to anybody. You can do better

One lecture a week, and it was solely for Kahoot/worksheets; no content. Discussions were just us sitting in silence in a room taking ONLINE quizzes with questions we've never seen. Projects were marred by project quizzes that were 40% of our project grade. The final exam was just the removed quiz questions; average was a 59. Terribly run course.

Very poor course management alongside lack of physical lectures should make 230 a hard pass if Joe teaches it. Take 230 with Tim if he’s teaching.

Joe Chiu used to be the sweetest professor during COVID, but his recent inability to take criticism after the switch from online to in-person learning and the lack of physical in-person lectures really darkens the respect I have for him as a professor. It sucks because he was very nice and helpful when he co-taught 220 with Marius in spring 2021.

Joe Chiu must quit his job as not only did he get a bad name from students for his poor management of 230 in-person, but after the switch to in-person learning, he’s also a perfect example of a professor who has zero respect towards students with disabilities. Good thing he's on leave for the fall of 2022.

I think Joe is a nice guy but 230 under him just has a horrible structure, basically just an online course and you only have to show up for the exams. Projects are cool but stressful because Joe's responses on piazza are unclear and not helpful. Exam is just reused quiz questions too, very lazy.

He doesn't know the material and doesn't know how to explain it. No effort is put for students to succeed. Isn't helpful in his responses when you ask him or reach out to him. UCA's are incompetent and the TA's as well. The whole structure of the class needs some change.

This course section taught by Joe is down right awful. I thought Joe's teaching style for 121 was mediocre, but his 187 lectures were so bad I went to the first 2 and then NEVER AGAIN. The course is run at an unrelenting pace so you're always doing the projects back to back... it's a truly miserable experience. Beware taking 187 with Joe!

Joes lectures were never really helpful. Most of the time it would just be explaining concepts through zybooks that's you can easily just read yourself. In addition, I went to officer hours one time and asked how something was supposed to work and he ended up just yelling at me for not knowing how it should work. I never went again.

Extremely difficult for a 1 credit class. Requires 10+ hours per week. The recorded videos are insufficient and you will need to teach yourself C and EdLab. Don't be fooled by the simplicity in the first few weeks - it gets VERY hard. Joe is disorganized and never answers questions well. Had to withdraw for mental health.

Joe is a prime example of someone who recently began his villain arc. He doesn't listen to students or care about them anymore, he's being super lazy when it comes to running a class, and his Piazza posts fail to clarify information or fill important knowledge gaps. Good thing he's going to be on sabbatical for the fall of 2022.

230 under Joe is a class that is just poorly structured with an incompetent teacher. Joe makes no effort to teach his students, his projects have unclear documentation, and he was even called out for not running his classes well. If you can, just take 230 with either Marc Liberatore or Tim Richards. They do a better job running classes.

For my year, Joe decided to screw everyone up and redo the course content that was not reviewed by the board. The content was not something that could be covered in one semester. Additionally, Joe, TAs and the student volunteers were not on the same page and would give confusing answers to literally everything. Different answr for the same question

5 words: a lazy CICS faculty member.

Lectures are so boring I can't even pay attention (even recorded ones on moodle). I can't really tell if we are learning anything either?

If you are not a CS major, do not take this class because the professor only knows how to speak to CS majors, who already know the material, which messes up the grading curve. The class moves incredibly fast so much that the dep't is getting rid of this class next semester. Example problems are NOTHING like the exam problems.

I grew up in a country where Chinese was spoken. You would think I'd get used to hearing a Chinese accent by now but I still have trouble understanding what he says. He's a nice guy and the topics in this class are interesting, but he's not a great teacher.

Professor Joe was honestly one of the worst professors I have ever had. His lectures don't offer any help with the difficult exams and overwhelming projects. And anytime you ask for help he comes off as rude and makes you feel stupid for asking any questions. He only knows how to teach people who already know how to code. This class was the worst.

He is absolutely one of the most unforgiving and uncooperative professors I have had the displeasure of having in my lifetime. Going to his lectures are the largest waste of time. Even if you could understand the words coming out of his mouth, his methods of explanation and lecture are horrible. He NEVER gives extensions. Period. 0 forgiveness.

187 with Joe is one of the worst classes I have ever taken. In lectures, he is not motivated or good at teaching. His pronunciation of some words made this class even harder for me. It took me a couple of classes to understand what word he was talking about. Also, the projects were super hard compared to what he thought during the class.

Lectures arn't even worth going to, just study the material on your own and it would be better. I also had him for CS187 and remember him yelling at me when I went to his office hours to ask for help on a project. Not a pleasurable experience taking any of his classes.

Just overall poor. Boring lectures, unclear projects, etc.

Joe has got to go.

Pre-recorded lectures strayed very far from quiz questions and exam content. In-person lectures were boring and not very helpful. Often left class feeling just as confused as I went in. The only learning I actually did was through the projects. Worst instructor I've had at UMass so far imo.

He is a terrible speaker and very unclear about assignments, really impossible to listen to.

Marius cares about his students' learning, puts in effort to make sure his projects/expectations are clear, and is very approachable. Joe Chiu cannot do any of these things. CS230 is a chaotic mess of unclear, fuzzy instructions with equally chaotic grading criteria. Projects are bad and you don't learn much. Worst 200-level I've taken.

Bad lectures where Joe often just rambles. Projects aren't good either.

I hated CS 230. Horrible class.

Horrible class, I hate CS 230. and I am very disapointed in the way this class is set up and taught. thanks for nothing

I found the subject boring in general, but the way the lectures were done did not help. He is a good guy and it seems like he tries. I watched the lectures they had little relation to the homework and weekly assignments. I'm a senior now and this is still the most poorly taught class I have taken.

Joe Chiu is maybe the worst professor I've had at UMass. His teaching and course set up is decent at best, but his attitude is horrible. He seems to find joy and glee in rooting out academic dishonesty. Collaboration on projects (which is encouraged on the syllabus) is treated like a life sentence. Take 230 with anyone else.

Had this guy for CS110.Terrible system, barely responded to emails. SO MUCH HOMEWORK. I got 100%s in all assignments, 93% on the midterm but failed the final miserably (was egregiously ill the entire week of finals). This man calculated my final grade to 66% and then curved it DOWN to 60%?? Attendance weighs A LOT so show up (or don't, better off)

Too much for this class. 2 exercises due each week, bigger projects due every two weeks, mandatory attendance, mandatory lab attendance, mandatory group-meeting at office hours attendance, semester-long group project that forces you to use Github, for this week's "milestone" we have to not only code front-end but make a 20-slide presentation.

worst class ever. do not take it with him. i'd rather switch majors than take this class if i were you right now. it's structured in the worst way any class could be structured. worst class at umass undergrad.

avoid for your mental health

For the life of me, I couldn't understand a word he said, take anyone else.

Unorganized class, practice test was nothing like the final. Likes to ask super arbitrary things and is very difficult to understand. Homework had little guidance and his videos are useless.

The concepts taught are not hard, but the class is structured to make it feel as hard as possible. Exams are fair. There are no reliable lecture notes. They look chaotic without context. And when you need to listen to lecture, he is pretty hard to understand. You want to learn, but you need to dig your way through. You're on your own, use YouTube.