3.3
Quality3.5
Difficulty51%
Would Retake147
Reviews51%
Would Retake
147
Reviews
Rating DistributionOfficial
5
49
4
30
3
18
2
19
1
31
What Students Say
“He is good at explaining things and his notes are crystal clear and covers everything you need (you don't even need to come to class as long as you read his slides)”
CMPT354 - 4.0 rating“You can tell by the way he presents himself in class and speaks with enthusiasm that he loves what he does”
CMPT225 - 5.0 ratingClass Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
18%
Textbook Required
25%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
B
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Declining
-0.87 avg changeRatings by Course
ITEC2402
5.0
(1)CMPT118
5.0
(1)CMPT128
5.0
(1)CMPT166
5.0
(2)CMPT120
4.3
(7)Difficulty by Course
CMPT110
4.2
CMPT454
4.2
354
4.0
INTROTOVB
4.0
CMPT225
3.8
Reviews (147)
Good prof, best exam marking time ever!
No Comments
Just read the book, he's British
Very good notes. If evening class lectures become painfully long and boring. :)
No Comments
Very humorous, and knowledgeable prof.
SFU shud hire more prof like John. He knows his DB and can teach!
Good teacher and he is very approachable and helpful to his students
No Comments
Knows his stuff, funny, approachable. Makes lectures interesting.
very unclear during lectures and jokes are not funny.
No Comments
Reading straight from the lecture notes was very interesting. :P
No Comments
No Comments
Does he even know VB? Anytime he was asked a question his answer was a laugh and I don't know ... useless lectures, long exams, hard assignments, bleh
This course is way too hard thought it used to be easy. THIS SHOULD BE AN INTRODUCTION TO VB... NOTE: you have to spend at least a week, 4 hours a day, to do his assignment.. he's teaching cmpt254, he thinks that all of us are genius~
vb should be an easy course!! but not w/him... notes and lectures are basically useless, recommend having some background knowledge in vb first, and READ the book. first assignment starts out super easy, but then.......
He is nice, but expects too high for the students and apprently he doesn't realize that what he's teaching is INTRODUCTION to VB. If you don't have any VB background, be prepared to drop the course. Notes are useless....and assignments are EXTREMELY MEAN!
Meh. He was alright as a prof. Must like droll British humour! Class was a little dry.
Gotta love that A-
His homework is hard and takes forever to do, and very little people get full marks on them. The tests are fair
He dishes out far too much work that takes forever to complete. His classes are boring. He is constantly going off topic witterng about stuff that's happening in his life.I found him pompous. He never gave a straight answer to a question. Hated the class.
A very good teaching style. Agreed that this class is more difficult that Comp Sci majors will have you believe, though. Does he remind anyone else of Pete Townsend?
I took this course a while back. His lectures are rather boring and uninformative. When asked questions, he would be like "i dont know" etc. Format of midterm vs final threw me off.
Summer semester, Surrey campus. Extremely helpful - writes lengthy documents to help us understand, beneficial to those who actually ask for help. Got my first A+ in programming!
The best professor I have ever had. Do take classes with him you won't regret it.
Wacky humour is good. Accent is fun. With previous experience in programming, I find his labs a snap, but people around me are floundering. He should be teaching higher level students- he doesn't quite know how to handle people who are clueless about programming.
The man, even though he screws up, makes fun of the fact he screwed up and keeps going. got to enjoy it!
His slide are crazie good, and he is the best teacheer around.......!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Such a nice guy, extremely helpful. good sense of humor and of course, a good teacher.
the course material was quite challenging, and the prof wasn't that good in explaining & teaching
Amazing Prof...Very funny guy..will keep you interested by making fun of him self and bringing in mods of games he has coded. Very Helpful and material is not too tough...one of the best cmpt courses i have taken for sure
funny and extremely helpful~good prof...but honestly,i do not recommend people who have no programming background to take this course!
this guy is the BOMB! Seriously, he's great. Lectures are never boring. Assignments are long and challenging, but well worth the work. The last part of the assignment (hardest part) is usually worth very little, only for the students that go for the A+'s
In all my four years at SFU, John Edgar is honestly the BEST teacher of any class I've ever taken. He has a genuine interest in the subject, a great sense of humour and his lectures are extremely helpful. I was abysmal at all things computer-science, and now it all makes perfect sense. Do yourself a favour and take his a class with John Edgar.
His slide are f**king good, and he is the best teacher around!!! Top funny guy in SFU ~
A easy and useful course in CS.
He has interest in the course. Helps students, read his slides thoroughly if you want to get an A+. His slides are easy to understand but can be misleading if you dont attend the lectures. For midterms, many questions with little time to answer so start with those that you know. Assignments take so much time to complete, so start early.
One of the best teacher at SFU. His class is well organized: great lectures (you are learning great programming skill), good notes (but don't miss lectures!), good labs (content of labs are rich). Assignments and exams are challenging but if you follow lectures+labs and spend enough time, no need to worry to much about them. Just enjoy learning!!
He is very nice and funny person. keeps the lectures not boring. study the lectures and assignments for midterms and finals. Final is easier than midterm. He SCALES alot and teaches well. 225 is a hard course so make sure you take it with John Edgar.
He is an excellent professor... very helpful and his notes are just awesome! No need to go through any book, though he recommends one! He explains really well in class as well as his office hours.
Great Prof! His lectures are excellent.
John is an awesome prof with a great sense of humour! the funny thing about him is he never adds your name after the "hi" when he emails you back. 166 is hard for me since i have no interest in this material and this is just mandatory if joint major. anyhow John is funny and very willing to help. highly recommended lecturer!
Easy final exam (the average was crazzzyyy high). His posted notes covered everything on the exams. Assignment were straightforward. Labs were never for any marks, yay! Would totally like to have this guy again.
If perfection were human and had a British accent, John would be it. He is a fantastic lecturer who makes the class truly enjoyable. John's explanations make total sense and he is dedicated to helping students.
Had him for the joint CMPT 125 and 127 class, really straight forward and fair exams, just make sure you know how the all the algorithms work (visualization) and the rest is easy.
He is on average not very clear. Of course, this is a beginners' class.
He is good at explaining things and his notes are crystal clear and covers everything you need (you don't even need to come to class as long as you read his slides). However the assignments and midterm are quite tricky and he gives quite a lot of assignments compared to other profs.
Can't say enough good things about him. Awesome teacher, and just an awesome person in general.
went into 125 knowing nothing extra and came out very confident with the material. His lectures get boring really quickly, and it's easy to miss details if you don't pay attention. I found his assignments very meaningful, so take the time to do them and don't rush them. Exams were very fair and based on the material and assignments.
You can tell by the way he presents himself in class and speaks with enthusiasm that he loves what he does. His method of delivering lectures is phenomenal and encourages questions in order to be crystal clear. His jokes lighten up the class and maintains a very welcoming atmosphere. I wish he taught every CMPT class offered at burnaby and surrey!
His lecture is amazing with perfect-organized slides. He shows everything step by step using a nice example(personly think an example is much more helpful than theorem), so you could understand even if you have no base.
Really nice professor overall, he's always willing to help through emails and in person. Lectures can be a bit dry but if you pay attention he explains everything well and can be funny. Labs are non mandatory, assignments are big but doable if you start early.
His pre-recorded videos are terrible since he sometimes speaks very quietly and sometimes very loud.. and tends to speak fast when the materials are harder to understand. His assignments are even worse, we had one exercise, one quiz, one report, and one assignment all due within a week.
I don't know there wasn't anything special from this prof, he was kind of all over the place and when you would ask him questions he would never give a clear answer and leave you more confused. No extra practice is available so it's hard what to expect is examined.
Requirements of each of his assiments like a short story. I feel like I read a novel. It is easy to miss something. I also want to say he should pay more attention to each line of students' codes rather than file's name. You can get zero easily because of adding library even the whole code is fine.
Taking CMPT 225 online with him. Really good professor. The lectures are well organized and clear. There's a short quiz and exercise each week, which covers the basic concept of the course materials and can be really good practice. Keep up with the course materials and you are good to go! Highly recommended.
His videos are very vogue, almost everything in his assignments, you can't find it in his notes, and there are very few resources you can find by online or reading the textbook.
He is the best professor that I've had so far at SFU. He is really clear about tasks you have to do each week, and also really helpful and accessible during the whole semester. We had an online class this semester and I hope I can take more classes with him in the future.
I have had him for CMPT 354 and CMPT 225 with 354 being online. If you are good at CMPT and enjoy learning about the more niche parts of the course, you'll love it. However if you are only mediocre at it, you'll have an exponentially harder time compare to other profs. His exams and assignments really wordy/tricky with lots of trick questions.
I was not even moderately prepared for his expectations. Each weekend had a quiz and a HARD exercise that you had to complete. His assignments are NOVEL length long and take forever. You basically have to interview him during office hours. Marking is dependent on TA, but never reconsidered by John. Red black trees still haunt my dreams.
I really liked the structure of the class, you watch the video lectures, and complete a weekly quiz/exercise, which helped with the understanding of the content. The assignments were also really straightforward and clear. Some of the material was already taught in CMPT 125, but I felt like he explained the concepts better..
I learned a lot from this class! The exercises and assignments were straight forward and exams only being worth 30% made things less stressful. Be careful of the marking policies though. You can get a 0 over a typo in your filename causing a compiler error.
His lecture presentation is terrible and it made you feel like you had a astriction
Lectures are quite boring and it just feels like he hates teaching. Does not explain material very well and doesn't answer questions clearly. Only took this class because of how difficult it is to get enrolled. Would recommend choosing a different prof if you had a choice.
Lots of work. Get ready to learn the advanced algorithms of hash tables. If you are not 100% on top of C++, dont take this class. He doesnt go over it and our first assignment was creating a game with binary trees.
Barely passed this class. Everyone in the other section had a blast doing this course while Edgar made it impossible to actually have fun. Way to many assignments . I highly recommend to not take any classes with Edgar. Save ur self the pain.
Way to many quizzes. Need to stay on top as there is a quiz every week. Many assignments which will take 20+ hours for those who know there stuff. Maybe 35+ for those who dont know c++. Make sure if you take this class, that u always ask questions as he doesnt clarify anything. And know theres a lot of work.
Very very harsh grader. Lots of work. Lots lots of work. If you have a tight schedule, I recommend taking only 2 other classes with this one. The workload is a 5/5 for sure. Its like cmpt 125+127 all in one. Edgar doesnt even provide much details on the assignments in c++. He expects u to know it. MAKE SURE TO GO OVER UR C++!!!
Harsh marker. I added an extra a in my name and it gave a compiling error and got 0. This isnt where u can email Edgar and say oh I only forgot this. U get 0 no matter what. Extremely high workload. Keep up ! Start weeks before as it will take that long to do. Those who know c++ should take 2-3 days to finish them.
Horrible prof. Will give u a 0 for the smallest mistake. Make sure to work on the assignments early, took me 4-5 days to complete them. The quizzes were annoying as you needed to keep up with all the material every week. He just read the notes , wasnt really teaching. Take it with a diff prof.
Quizzes every week. Assignments that will take many days. Final exam was a tad tough. Entirely this prof made this course much harder than its supposed to be. If you want to take CMPT 225, take it when hes not the prof. You will do better and have more fun. Edgar is a massive No. read the other reviews below and youll know what I mean.
Crazy amount of hours put into a few assignments. He makes sure that if you want to take this class, you need to put in the work. Quizzes are a tad difficult as if you fall behind you will fail them for sure. You NEED to know c++ fluently before this class. Make sure if you can take it later with someone else, DO IT.
Edgar has many flaws in his teaching. Incredibly time consuming assignments (takes days) to his quizzes that are always on the new topic he teaches. You must keep up and understand everything of c++. Binary search trees, hash tables etc. If you didnt learn this in 125 or dont know much, dont take it yet. You will fail.
Doesnt teach the class. Most of the grading was for quizzes assignments and exercises. They were very time consuming. Took weeks for me as they seemed easy but werent. This class has a take home final not worth much but it was sort of difficult. The overall class is challenging if you arent on top of your c++ skills.
Took Cmpt 225 with him and it was actual hell. He had weekly quizzes that had close to failing averages every single week not to mention the insane time constraints. The assignments that you get from this class will take you at least a few days of grinding if you are comfortable with c++. Start them asap and make sure you test extensively
His exercises are way to hard and time consuming. The quizzes we barely have time to finish and the average comes back to be 9/15. Like Edgar really needs to reconsider his grading and tests. Assignments arent bad. Lecture heavy and harsh grader for sure. I dont recommend taking a class with him
Let me start off by saying people did say Edgar was a good prof and he was difficult. But this class was just incredibly hard. Averages on quizzes were roughly 8/15. Exercises were not that hard but some were difficult. The first 2 assignments were easy. The red black tree took me 5 days to implement. Average was low on it. Incredibly high workload
John is one of those profs with which you get out what you put in. Weekly quizzes and exercises force you to be up to date with the material, which was great for a chronic procrastinator like me. Assignments are long and often difficult, but very thoroughly explained and fair (Start them early). Course was also overall really well-organized.
John is a solid option for CMPT 225. Responds quickly to questions, has fair assignments, and is a chill/funny guy. Weekly quizzes on the hard side sometimes, but are good for reinforcing concepts. Overall had a good experience - John did very well in the transition to online learning. Would take again!
He is a cheerful professor but he gives a lot of work. His weekly quizzes were hard with a low average and assignments require a ton of work. His final was confusing for me and he doesn't teach much. You must be fluent in c++ before taking this class with him. I DO NOT recommend this class with him. It was a nightmare for me.
Good choice for 225. Failed my first attempt w/ another prof. John is better than that other prof. Responds quickly when you need clarification on asmt, even on weekends! Before John, none of my 225 asmt ever compiled. My prog. skills improved after taking his class :) Join the CSSS discord group, students there are helpful when you're stuck.
Lecturer were super boring. Final was oddly difficult with some weird questions like query customer lastName "Trump" or Trigger a data attack on competitor. If you study hard, problem solve all the time, but you feel like your work still cannot be valued.
Perfectly paced lectures that are easy to follow and give a good understanding of the material. Four assignments are fun and reasonable, and the project was enjoyable with a month to do it. Weekly quizzes were annoying, they started off very difficult but he listened to requests to ease the difficulty and gave more time. I would recommend him.
John was probably my best prof this semester. Replies to emails within the hour. You should know at least a little bit of code before coming into this class. The final exam was fair, easier than I expected.
John has a calming voice. sometimes he moans when he makes a mistake coding and cant find a solution, which catches me off guard but wakes me up during those 8:30 classes. He sometimes fake cries if someone leaves the room during the lecture but it shows he cares
One of the best profs I had in SFU. Although the course had lots of stuff to do almost every week like quizzes and exercises but it was fun learning from his lectures.
This professor is one of the best professors ever.
Make sure you spell 14 as "fourteen" instead of "forteen" on your assignment. You will thank me later.
Do NOT take his course. Weekly quizzes were brutal. I don't know if I really learned something in his class. Had spent so much time to review all his lectures, to practice everything he gave, plus some online practice, to ask questions in office hour... It turned out assignments, quizzes, exam, project grades were jokes to you.
John's lectures notes are already filled up; ready for you to write down anything you think is important. If you have time, pre-read the lecture material the day before class. Workload for me was about 12 - 15 hr/week (+/- 3 hr), so YMMV. Exams are fair. Just make sure you understand all the algorithms and can draw out their diagrams on paper.
The ppt slides are impressively well made. Assignments and quizzes help students learn the material. Sometimes felt the lecture covered too many details, but the exams were fair without trick questions. He's very responsive and helpful to student questions. I couldn't put much effort but could see he's a knowledgable and great prof!
He's a chill guy. Even a morning class never felt sleepy. Really help students.
Workload was balanced, exam was really fair, responds to emails quickly, lectures are okay (could be more engaging and kind of just reads from slides), in-class activities for participation marks so you have to attend unless someone can get you the code for the day but really liked the course overall because John is super chill and friendly
Low class averages on quizzes, many times a failing average. Average on the midterm was a fail, 8 pages in 50 minutes. If you went wrong on assignments it says you failed a test but does not specify how and where you went wrong so you can't improve your programming later on.
John was a decent prof, although the lectures did get quite boring at times. The weekly quizzes were basically free marks since they were open book. The assignments were doable. The midterm was not too hard but the final was very challenging. To John's credit, he was very accessible on Canvas discussion boards.
Thought this was going to be an easier given CMPT 225 reviews, but it seemed like a completely different prof. Decent guy, but as a prof he just reads off slides for the most part. This class requires a decent amount of review and the final had more NOSQL than expected. I couldn't take advantage of office hours, but seems available.
Start assignments early as they are much more difficult than the examples provided in the slides. John provides pretty good lectures and the best part of the class was how responsive he is on Canvas. Exams are pretty fair, just make sure to read instructions carefully as they are similar to assignments, but there is a twist that can throw you off.
During the first half of the term, he seems to be managing the course well. However, as the difficulty level increases in the second half, he appears to struggle to keep up. he hasn't adequately prepared for his lectures. when encountering challenging concepts he is not familiar with, he just quickly glosses over them.
Excels at teaching concepts simply, makes everything accessible online, and has weekly quizzes that are useful to track your progress in the class. Midterm was straightforward however the final was unfortunately all multiple choice due to the TA strike. Overall a great prof though, one of the best Ive had so far no doubt.
John is a great lecturer, however, the assignments are rather difficult in comparison to what's covered in class. Good thing he responds to emails very quickly, even on weekends! Studying for exams is fairly challenging as there is so much content. The cumulative final has more than 600 slides worth of information. The class average was C+.
Nice person but failed to explain many concepts clearly
He taught this course with Tara and seemed to defer all assignments to her. Given Tara's incompetence, this was a disaster. While the TAs are undoubtably smart people, it's bizarre to have people who speak English as a second language be the markers for an English writing course. Predictably, there were all sorts of erroneous marking decisions.
I would say he doesn't even care if you are listening to him or not. His mic is always turned off or doesn't work for some reason. He doesn't go much in depth compared to how difficult his exams and assignments are.
Honestly he was fine professor I thought, but his midterm was so far beyond unreasonable I'm genuinely shocked. Everyone I've talked to has said it was extremely hard and not proportional at all to lectures and assignments. There was so much on there that we didn't learn and had no idea what to study.
John is a nice guy. But good god he needs to start learning how to use a microphone properly. You literally can't hear him if you are at any row other than the front few. His exams are also the dumbest thing ever - way too long and hard for a 50 minute exam. Reads off of slides during lecture in the most monotonous voice. AVOID!!
Pros: Nice guy, cracks a few jokes during lectures. Has weekly quizzes on Canvas that are pretty fair (if you are keeping up, you should get at least 7/10). Assignments are pretty fair and requirements are well-organized. Cons: Midterm was just BAD. 10 page exam in 50 mins. 15 theory heavy MCQ (trick questions) and HARD written section.
John edgar's midterm was very unreasonable. Considering we had no cheatsheet, no sample paper and tough coding questions which require you to think critically, I would not recommend John to anybody. I know I failed miserably even though i studied quite a lot. 15 mcqs + 2 difficult coding problems in 50 minutes is unfair.
Midterm was super unfair, completely unrelated to most of the lectures and material + 50 minutes for 15mcq and 2 hard written answers is just unfair. In addition, a lot of the assignments are unrelated to the material, and pretty hard with little guidance. John is nice, but that is pretty much the only pro.
Solid prof. Lectures are enthusiastic, he's nice and funny. His assignments are fair and doable, but require some problem solving skills. Weekly Canvas quizzes are quite straightforward and good practice. His midterm was really difficult though, mainly due to time constraints. Be prepared to write quickly. Nonetheless, he's decent.
Our midterm average was brutal compared to other years—42% versus 80%, solely because of John. Please, AVOID this professor. There is no practice midterm, which is pretty unrelated to the lecture slides. Overall, the slides are pretty useless and only discuss the basics. Assignments are also complicated with few resources. AVOID!
Lectures, slides and quizzes make you think the class is easy. The assignments are terrible and are way harder + longer than they need to be. They are WAY too hard comapred to what he teaches. Some midterm question have nothing to do what he teaches and it was way longer than it shouldve been. No practice midterm made this a lot worse.
John Edgar is an expert at making students burn out. Avoid at all costs. His assignments are way too time consuming for what little weight they contribute. Majority of people scored below 50% on the midterm. Pretty bad overall
He just yaps at lectures and tries to avoid the disappointment that is his midterm, it's like the elephant in the room, but he refuses to talk about how bad it is. His assignments and midterms suck, not a good professor tbh I'd rather take Janice.
He couldn't do his own midterm in class, something is clearly not right with him. I BEG YOU, PLEASE AVOID:
I like the course, assignments are fun(to me) and lectures are good. But, I wish he was more invested in our success and kinder. The talk he gave us after the midterm made it seem like our fault and he basically spent the whole time trying to defend himself saying that the midterm was reasonable when it clearly was not considering everyone failed.
His lectures are actually pretty good, and his weekly quizzes are very fair. The assignments are also not too bad, but require some problem solving. One major con is that his midterm was way too long, causing many people to do poorly. He's approachable outside of class and during office hours.
I would say that John is very nice and approachable, and does a decent job explaining most concepts. His assignments are mostly fair and based on the data structures we learned in class. His midterm was killer tho, but other than that, it's a good experience. Many will complain, but that's just 225, it's a hard class.
His lecture slides are okay, but the lectures are a bit dull—he needs to make them more engaging and stop reading off slides. The tests are very hard and not really related to the material. The class average was 42%, John made the test unnecessarily long for the time given. Grind out the leetcode for this class and understand the data structures.
Very vague about the final, and gives no practice leading up to the final- when students ask questions, he is very unhelpful. Do not recommend, you won't learn much.
His multiple choice questions on the actual exam are way more difficult than the quiz questions he assigns. He claims they're of similar difficulty, but that is not true at all. the final exam being worth 50% of your grade means no matter how well you've done throughout the semester, one exam ends up deciding whether you pass or fail.
Good lectures, good assignments, final was very fair, midterm was bad, but other than that he was great. His grading scheme sucked, that's why I gave a 4 not a 5
50% final with insanely low avg, slides are confusing af. Had to learn on my own
John is a great professor, he definitely likes to go on tangents though during lecture. I found his assignments and quizzes easy. His exams are fair but without example examinations can leave a lot students putting time into the wrong elements of the material. John is very approachable and ensures that grade corrections are addressed.
grading criteria is clear, and he is very organized, but thats about it. HORRIBLE exams and an extremely tough grader! Quiz questions rarely even show up on actual exam material, Assignments are extremely difficult and will leave u to learn concepts that he hasn't even gone over in class with the same difficulty, he sucks, better luck next time ig
Honestly John is a really enjoyable lecturer and in the end his grading was quite fair. The midterm was pretty tough but as it was only 15% compared to a 50% final, so it's not that hard to bounce back. Assignments were a lot of work which is a given considering the complexity of the topic. Be prepared to do a lot of coding practice.
Lectures are a little boring but are recorded and slides decent. You will have to learn a good bit of implementation on your own but thats expected. Assignments (for the most part) and quizzes are fair. Prof is quite nice and replies to emails quickly. Only issue is no sample exams which made studying for them really hard.
You know, I actually really liked John as a prof, despite not liking him all that much at first. His midterm was very difficult, but only worth 15%. The assignments, quizzes, and final were all very fair and worth most of the grade. His lectures were enthusiastic and he often went on funny tangents in class lol. Very responsive to emails too
John's a chill guy.
CMPT225 is a hard LD course, so many people will bash him for harsh exams; he was decent/fair. Exams had tricky MCQ, but doable written. Quizzes from slides, assignments were fairly straightforward. Quiet/monotone during lecture but provided great insights to material. Strongly suggest showing up to class to grasp a better understanding of DSA.
John Edgar is an alright prof. He explains the concepts well but is pretty dull most of the time, lectures are kinda boring. Class difficulty was ok but TAs are very harsh on assignment grading. Also, the Canvas quizzes are false hope in regards to test difficulty, the tests are much harder. Also, final exam worth 50%, ouch
Professor John Edgar is a great professor. Contents on his slides are clear and strightly related to assignment/mid-term/final. No assignments or quiz are off the scope. Go start writing some C++ code before taking this course (if you don't, you will also be fine). PS: Final wieghts 50%!!!!!!!
The final was very fair and representative of the material and thoroughly tested your understanding. It was comprehensive yet balanced, allowing us to demonstrate our understanding and apply our knowledge meaningfully.
Pretty big yapper. Lectures are a little boring but informative. Really try your best to understand the material. Tests are just leetcode easy so you should be doing leetcode as much as possible. Assignments are were pretty easy and just ADT implementations.
Edgar's a solid prof, fair assignments (basic ADT implementations), weekly quizzes are pretty easy, and final was straightforward. The midterm was a bit tough, but only worth a small portion of the grade, and he did scale a bit at the end. Solid choice for this course, gives a good foundation.
The class itself is easy, it just has a pretty high workload. John's lectures were alright, I found that I often had to go through the recordings to connect the concepts, and this took hours. But the quizzes aren't hard, the final was fair too.
Lost his will to teach about 10 years ago. Loves reading slides and making Starcraft references as much as possible. Highly recommend this class for a good nap at 8:30am.
His lectures are really boring and the midterm was pretty bad, BUT the assignments, quizzes and final were all extremely fair. Considering that the midterm was only worth 15%, the class overall wasn't difficult. He's a nice guy too and generally pretty forgiving in my experience
John's a really nice professor, if you actually talk to him about assignments or grading, he is usually fairly generous, his lectures were boring, but they were also really informative, quizzes and assignments were pretty fair, mostly adt implementations. Midterm and final both fair difficulty wise, but too long. TA's were really harsh markers tbh.
Johns course was pretty difficult but you learn alot from it, the exams were very legthy but were reasonable difficulty wise, same for assignments. What I like about John, is that hes actually really nice, and accessible outside of class, not just for questions, but other things, since hes a member of the undergrad chair for comp sci.
John is super nice and is great at teaching programming. I never went to the labs and went to 2/3 lectures every week. The midterm was easy, but the final was worth 50%, I think, so be prepared. Overall, an amazing experience.
Great professor, he does read off of slides but he explains and expands in detail so I would recommend attending lectures and not skipping. Labs are very useful for his assignments, so I would attend those as well (but completely optional). His grading scheme is VERY clear as he lists out everything he wants to see in extreme detail. Good teacher.
Fun guy. If you come into this class with little to no C++ experience it might be a little bit more challenging. I managed to not pay attention during lectures and pull a B+ on the midterm so it's not too bad. His grading criteria for assignments is very clear. Do the labs. Tests were easier than expected.
John is a great professor and responds to online questions extremely quickly. The content covered is difficult, and without proper studying or review it is easy to get behind. Lectures can feel bland, but if you take the time to ask him questions he is super knowledgeable and willing to help explain. Expect a hard midterm and fair final.
Although John's course is in-person, you probably shouldn't attend his lectures. He reads off of slides and goes on long tangents, so his lectures are empty (< 5% attendance). Midterm average was 42%, which he bragged to his CMPT130 class about. Final was pretty okay, granted you memorized his posted notes, but the average on it was still 48%.
Very nice person, but has no idea how to teach anything.
Class Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
18%
Textbook Required
25%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
B
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Declining
-0.87 avg changeRatings by Course
ITEC2402
5.0
(1)CMPT118
5.0
(1)CMPT128
5.0
(1)CMPT166
5.0
(2)CMPT120
4.3
(7)Difficulty by Course
CMPT110
4.2
CMPT454
4.2
354
4.0
INTROTOVB
4.0
CMPT225
3.8