Great prof. for an intro class like computer science. Though he constantly tells some of the most unfunny and awkward jokes you may ever hear.

John is a pretty good prof for an intro CPSC class, but I don't think it would work in a higher level course. His classes are entertaining despite his lame jokes. Covers too much theory compared to applications. The class is easy and tests aren't bad but a high standard is needed..(you need 93.5+ to get an A) so a mistake could drop you fast.

Very helpful & talented teacher. The jokes were lame but would've slept otherwise. Excellent class if youre starting cpsc from scratch. Enjoyed learning practical computer skills. For great grades, must work on weekly assignments ahead of lab time because of time constriction & occupied TAs.

John was a pretty good professor, he presented the material well and went through it at a slow pace. His jokes are extremely lame and became very grating by the end of the semester.

This was probably my favorite course I took at the UofC. The assignments were hard but interesting and engaging if you went for bonus marks. His jokes were hilarious in a self-deprecating sort of of way.

Not bad. The assignments where super easy compared to the tests. You could get 100% on the 4 assignments and get 50 on the test and pass with a B. The grading sceam is wacked

He's actually a pretty cool guy. always came into class with energy. His assignments are fairly easy and worth more so if you do good on those, you can pass the midterms/finals and still have a decent mark.

Aycock is the best prof at the UofC for Computer Science. He's always very well prepared for lecture, and you can tell really enjoys the subject and teaching. A good lesson I've learned from him is: You can do things the easy way and get good grades or you can challenge yourself, and get an education which will result in good grades.

John is a great teacher. You can tell he loves computer science just from the way he acts. He deeply cares about his students' success. I strongly recommend taking a class with him if you can (his jokes aren't even that bad!).

John is an awesome professor! Clear interesting lectures that I actually enjoyed going to. Awkward jokes galore. Course is super interesting and informative. It is a huge amount of work though (especially the last couple assignments) and the grading is steep. Wouldn't recommend taking this if you don't have the time to invest.

Most helpful prof Ive ever had. Answers emails super fast and his office is almost always open. Went to see him with assignment questions a million times and he was always patient and provided great help. Lectures can get a bit long, but he has an arsenal of awful jokes to keep you awake. Learned a lot. 100% would recommend.

You can tell he really knows the material. He gives you lots of examples and teaches in a way that is easy to understand. I didn't take any notes in class. Exams are way harder than assignments, and if you have any previous programming experience this class will be easy. And his jokes are hilarious! Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one laughing..

Probably my favourite class and prof to date, lectures were engaging and provided you with the tools you needed to do well in the class. I have no previous experience in cpsc but I was still able to explore and use what was give to challenge most of h bonus work. A really great class for all, that can be challenging if you want it to be and fun!!

Great prof for an intro class in CPSC. Assignments are easy as well as the exam.

I don't understand where some of the lower ratings are coming from. He clearly cares about teaching and wants to share his love of computers and coding to the students. Although the lectures can sometimes be long, he manages to make them interesting and instructional, even sprinkling a number of terrible puns into each.

As a new student ready to learn new things, I found John very open and always available. He is always able to help you and give you the information you need to succeed in his class. He is very punny which makes for fun lectures. (The more you pay attention the more humour you will discover). If you dont want to try and participate you wont do well.

Aycock was a great prof. You could tell he truly cared about the things he was teaching. Although his lectures can be long and sometimes a little boring, I enjoyed the assignments and thought they helped with learning the rest of the material. With the course being transitioned online, everything ran smoothly and his lecture videos were great!

Good prof and lectures are engaging, was the only class i found myself excited to go to. You can pass without going, but it's a bit hard to understand the notes if you don't go to at least a couple beforehand. Projects are not hard but work heavy and require a lot of time, would not recommend if you're taking 5 or more courses.

He is very passionate and takes good care of students. Although assignments seem tough at the first glance, however, they are doable and you just need to combine all the learnt skills in lecture and tutorial. You also spend time to think about logic when doing assignment. Midterms and final are multiple choice and they are very clear also.

John is an incredible professor. I'm not a CPSC major, so this class was exceptionally hard for me. The biggest challenge is you don't know what you don't know, and he can't help you if you don't know what you're missing. My advice is to stay up to date, know what you're lacking, and he'll help you with whatever you need. Really great prof overall.

There are a lot of horror stories about Professors from the CPSC department but I can gladly attest that Dr. Aycock is one of the good ones. You will not be successful in this or any other CPSC class if you don't try to learn to code. The class is straightforward and the Assignments are setup to ensure you learn the basics of Python.

Cool guy.

For starters, Dr. Aycock is hilarious and it's obvious he cares about what he's teaching. The assignments are really insightful and creative, although at times they could be quite time consuming. The midterms were really fair though and the actual mark breakdown is really fair. If you put the time and work in you'll get a good grade.

Dr. Aycock is an awesome prof and person. Has a great sense of humor and you can clearly tell he puts a lot of effort in his online lectures to make them as entertaining as possible. Super accessible outside of class as well. Really recommend him if you are deciding to take a comp sci course!

This course is a great way to introduce yourself to the world of programming. Even with everything online Dr Aycock worked to be available to us and make lectures enjoyable to watch. You definitely need to put some time aside for assignments and start early, unlike an essay, it's difficult to write a program for an assignment the day it's due.

John Aycock is accessible outside of class if you send an email he replies within hours of it being send which is insane. Bad thing is lectures disappear after a week so you can't go back and review them again. 4 Assignments total but last the two were pretty difficult so it essential you keep up with the class and do the daily exercises.

Honestly I thought this guy was great. There was actually quite a bit of work for assignments but the instructions were very clear and I never had much difficulty. His slides were a little bare but if you actually went to lectures everything was explained. I wouldn't call it an easy A but compared to a lot of other courses it was pretty stress-free

This is not the easiest course by any stretch, and you will have to practice to keep up. It is apparent Professor Aycock is very passionate about teaching, between his humor and his responsiveness on d2l discussions and during lecture is very helpful. Definitely had to grind, but learned so much for coding in the future

The class is easy. I didn't attend a single class and very few tutorials and still completed assignments few weeks before the deadline. Even if you don't attend his classes, he posts the videos for you to watch at your own pace. My assignment average was 92%, only the 1st assignment was long, all the assignments were somewhat easy.

Dr. Aycock is a great prof. The content was difficult, but his lectures simplified things a lot and made it much easier. The assignments were all graded to a rubric which was nice, and examples were given. Dr. Aycock also was available for contact by email and responded to questions which was great!

This class and professor are a great intro to programming for anyone interested. But it is by no means easy, if you want to do well, you will have to work for it and grind because not practicing in this course is a recipe for disaster. I practiced a decent amount but still struggled with some assignments. All in all, really solid professor.

I don't know why there are complaints. Honestly he did a great job with explanations, was always accessible, asked for student feedback, and the lectures/tutorials gave all the information necessary for assignments. He also did past paper reviews in class before exams to walk through the thought process you need to succeed. Great prof, great class.

Great class, not super easy, requires you to pay attention in class. His assignments are really well done, a little bit long but needed to actually understand the concepts. And he is really great about helping with the assignments if you have any questions (which I for sure did)

Dr. Aycock was probably the best professor Ive had since everything went online. He used pre-recorded lectures during class but was active in the chat to help answer questions. He gave good feedback and was pretty clear with conveying the information needed for assignment/exams, he also provided examples to help us better understand concepts.

The assignments had a clear criteria for the point system and the exams were nothing surprising. If you attend lecture and practice the codes as you go, it is easy to learn. Also, there were lots of opportunities to practice code that would be needed in the assignments. Dr. Aycock is extremely funny and open to help out in all avenues.

Good class overall. It definitely requires work, especially if you don't have any prior coding experience, so be sure to stay on top of things. The professor is hilarious and does a good job explaining the content. His marking scale is weird, though. A mark of 99 isn't considered an A+. Not sure how that makes sense.

John is a passionate and funny prof. This was one of the most intellectually stimulating classes Ive ever taken, the assignments and tests were tough at times, but manageable if you watch the videos, review and practise. Overall I genuinely enjoyed his teaching style and have grown to love cpsc because of this class. Would high recommend!

He is a super nice guy and good prof, but the course most certainly is not an easy A. He was very considerate with it being in a online platform and made many adaptations to make the students lives easier. You definitely need to pay attention in class and do practice to be able to understand the assignments and tests.

Handled online classes much better than other profs. Lectures were well-made, useful, and run smoothly. Good at examples and getting his point across. Assignments were relevant and well thought-out. Everyone saying the assignments were too difficult either didn't read the instructions/tips he provided, or didn't pay attention in the lectures.

Everyone saying the assignment's were hard didn't pay attention in class. Don't get me wrong the last two assignments were some what difficult but if you stayed up to date, paid attention, and listened to the spoilers you would've got over 85% with ease. There is a clear grading rubric and you can test out your program. Easy to get a good grade.

Anyone who gave him less than a 5 didn't understand his memes.

Very accessible and helpful outside of class, puts in effort to make lectures fun, and answers students' questions. Make sure to attend class and understand the content, as lots of it builds on previous lessons. If you attend lectures and take good notes, you'll have no problem scoring 100s on the assignments. Grading rubrics are very clear.

By far one of the best professors I have ever had in my entire undergrad, very inspirational and motivational. If you are the type of student who attends every lecture and puts effort into your studies you will get a good grade. If you are a slacker or procrastinator this course might not be for you - it's not an 'easy A'.

I'm honestly not sure why anyone would rate Dr. Aycock poorly on here. Lectures are hilarious, he makes assignments interesting (instead of, idk, asking you to perform operations on some arbitrary list, he got us to recreate the classic retro Star Trek game), and he was very generous with the tests in the online format. If you try, you'll do well.

He was definitely my favourite prof for this semester, he was funny and you can definitely tell that he cares about his students. The assignments were time consuming but I found that they helped solidify my understanding and they were actually interesting (plus he gives spoilers!).

Interesting term project that ties in well with the course material. The professor's passion for the subject is inspirational. It was by no means an easy class, but everything you need to know is covered, and being able to re watch lecture recordings was very useful.

The lectures actually got quite hands on with us doing a lot of actual reverse engineering which was pretty neat. As many other courses can suffer from having lectures that are too theoretical and then offloading the practicals to TAs. The grading to me is quite fair, especially because me and my classmates got to do stuff such as self-grading.

This was a really fun, hands on class. This course as a whole is very interesting and extremely useful in the field of computer science. You can tell Dr. Aycock has a passion for this field of study and it is reflected in his teaching! Grading was easy and mostly self assessed. Don't slack, and you will have a great time!

This class was really fun because the curriculum was guided by Dr Aycock's passion for the topic, so he provided fascinating lectures and tools for us to try stuff out with. It taught me lots about low-level programming and reverse engineering. As long as you put the effort in, it's pretty easy to do well. Very hands-on, and CPSC355 will help.

This is the second of hopefully many courses I've taken with John. The course is great, it's an effort-based course. There's a lot of assembly, I'm won't say assembly is fun, it isn't. But, this is a very fun course if you like knowing how things work. Recommend to all comp sci kids. John makes lecture fun, 10/10. RMP 350 char lim bad cant describe

Great professor who structures the course nicely understanding that it is an elective class. Grading scheme was extremely generous and fair making it easier to focus on learning instead. Workload each week for the class was extremely light.

You know that a prof is going to be good when he introduces himself with his first name and tells you to call him John (if you want, of course). This guy is a kind of prof that cares less about grades, and more about the fact that you are learning something. If you put in the effort, you'll get a good grade.

This is my second class with John and he is an awesome professor. This course is not particularly difficult, but the final project does require that you put in some effort. Although it could be a bit dry at times, this course had a lot of interesting material that could actually be applied in the real world, depending on what career path one takes.

Although I didn't personally enjoy the course material (thought it was boring and useless), John was a great professor. His passion for reverse engineering is explosive. The grade is based on weekly mini-assignments and a final project, which was quite cool. If you take this course, don't procrastinate on the final project and you'll do well.

The final term project was a little too time consuming in my opinion, but the professor marked accordingly with that in mind. He is a good teacher, he cares about his students and is passionate about reverse engineering. Would definitely take a course with him again if an opportunity presents itself

Great prof who clearly set his expectations at the beginning of the year. He was quite accommodating given that this was an elective course and encouraged us to treat it as such. He is a good teacher and his passion for reverse engineering was evident throughout the course. Overall, a really cool experience, would highly recommend!

Really enjoyed the class, interesting content, cool term project, taught the content clearly. One of the few where it felt like the prof actually wanted you to pass the course. Only thing is make sure you show up to lecture because the slides are mostly problems and the actual content is explained in person

Such a fun class, be willing to put some effort in but it was enjoyable for me. Dr. Aycock really teaches to LEARN, and the term project solidified my understanding and was so fun! Super understanding, interesting, no final and provides lots of opportunities to help boost your grade. Loved the philosophy of this class too. You just have to care!!

Always been a fan of his teaching, he was the prof who taught my into to computer science class which I enjoyed so much I switched into computer science as a major. He is fun, makes jokes, and you will get a good grade if you show up and try (my grade was a result of not trying as much as I could have).

Great professor, wants you to learn. He has really good lectures that are clear and concise with lots of hands-on learning. Marked fairly easy, just try your best, and you'll do great.

One of the best profs I've had at UOFC! Dr. Aycock makes material interesting, useful, and intentionally hilarious. He truly cares about how students learn and succeed. You'll need to put in effort, but it's your choice, and absolutely worth it. A great course taught by a professor who makes you want to learn more every class. 10000/10

Classes were super fun and workload wasnt crazy, will definitely take another class with him if I can

I learned a lot from this command-line course; real skills and philosophies that actually help my programming. John Aycock is passionate and makes lectures enjoyable. There are lots of mini-assignments called "Challenges" (around 3 a week) that you'll need to make up yourself. The material itself is pretty easy though.

Command line interface: The lectures were engaging and Dr. Aycock really cares and wants you to learn. Really funny guy too. There is a fair bit of homework though, you have to come up with challenge activities for a final portfolio but you choose how many you want to do and also grade yourself. Overall, a good course, just demanding at times

Easy class with him. He has a good sense of humour. His lectures are good. Don't be afraid to take a class with him.