Wow this class sucked. She doesnt know much about anything... and she expects you to do a lot of work, every week. Exams are pretty hard too :( AVOID

Her test is very hard and a lots of work!!

avoid if possible...

HATE THIS INSTRUCTOR AVOID AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE SHE DON'T KNOW WHAT SHES TEACHING HAVE FUN IF YOUD DO PLAN TO TAKE HER!!!!!

I would not recommend. She seemed nice, but is not very helpful. Did not teach to the class. Only lectured to a sellect few who already had programming experience. Allowed them to frequently speak up in class to give their opinion on how things should be completed. Confused other who had no programming experience. Lots of homework/little help!

Terrible teacher. The class is supposed to be an into to java, but she only taught to those who knew programming to begin with, and those were the only people who knew what was going on! She's way too picky about her grading on programs, it's her way or it's wrong even if what you have would work. She never does test reviews and tests aren't easy

Rotten Teacher! Taught to those in class who already knew programming. Said it was intro class not taught as an intro class. Tests were hard gave little to no insight as to how to prepare for class/test. Was not helpful. Lectured from slides and got side tracked easily. Let those with experience have to much input. Do not take this instructor!!

This is a horrible professor. She should not be teaching this class. I am an A and B student but in her class I received a D ( 69.?)even though I attended class everyday as well as read every chapter including the practice exams after each chapter. I understood the book but NOT her lectures.:(

Teaches to those who already understand programming and offers no help what so ever to those who are not familiar with it. Her tests are comprised of half multiple choice and half coding ON PAPER, with NO reference material. This woman should not be teaching a programming class, or any for that matter.

TERRIBLE! She makes no sense in lecture. She does not do any reviews. She never reminds you about the quizzes, nor even talks about them. She is the most unhelpful professor I've ever had.

Horrible teaching strategy. This professor made Java hard to understand for me and I've already taken this course at Vista. She doesn't tell you what you're supposed to do and doesn't tell you when things are due. No coding done in class only lecture. Learn it on your own because she's not going to teach you crap. Definitely take at Vista. Save $$$

Worst professor on campus, by far the hardest class I have ever taken. She does not tell you when things are due, or even what assignments to do. Regret taking her

Get ready to teach yourself friends. Dr. Shepard starts by teaching you what not to do, but wont tell you that until you've developed bad habits. She will get upset at the class if you give her the wrong answer, so be prepared for a 50 minute stare down. When she says read the book 3 times she means it. Expect no help even if you are new to coding.

Her code is unreadable, which is ironic because 90% of her assignments are writing comments. Her labs require you to write full-length outlines for the simplest programs. This class is pure busy work, both at home and in class. If you want to learn programming, be a CS major. Those profs know what they are talking about and make coding enjoyable.

Horrible at teaching programming for new programmers. Spends way to much time lecturing and not enough time hands on. Her test are ridiculous, as she expects you to hand write an entire program. Sweet lady but just an awful professor.

She is a horrible professor. My mental health was at a low during this semester because of this course. She teaches as if you know the material already. The quizzes are extremely hard. The instructions for the PA's were poorly written. And she expects you to know everything for the exams. Take a different professor!

If you like not getting any feedback, grades, or relevant information on programming, then Mrs. Shepherd is your professor! She will not tell you any information to improve on for future exams or programming assignments. You will get grades back promptly (j/k only 3-5 weeks after submitting them) so you won't have time to study whatever you lack.

You can get knocked off 2 letter grades for missing a screenshot. You can get knocked off points for a variable not being capitalized correctly. Not allowed to see what I miss on a quiz or exam. Took weeks to get a grade back. Tutors are amazing though. Oh and group members will ghost you until you do all the work yourself.

code is mainly written on power point and MS word and rarely compiled in class, a few of class activities are just students copying word for word what she writes on blackboard. please avoid taking this class if you want to learn java.

get me out get me out get me out

Professor Shepherd is a nice professor and seems to care about the subject however that is the only good thing that can be said about taking her course. She grades extremely late so you never know what you are weak at and by the time you turn in the 2nd PA you get the first ones grade only to find out you made the same mistakes and cannot fix them.

No reviews for all exams, even final exam. So a chapter can run from 200 - 300 slides of lecture materials, which is overkill to study for an exam that covers 3 chapters. Exams are multiple choice and coding. Programming assignment, oh boy, she does not explain this in detail and if you're not familiar with coding, you will be a deer in headlight.

she waits till almost the final week to tell us our PA1 grades and we have waited 3-4 weeks not knowing what we did wrong and still thinking and using what we learned from that pa1 for pa2 and so on. Like we should get our grades sooner so we know if its the right decision to drop.

Grades are 2-3 months behind at the time of taking finals. Who knows who will pass this class. Impossible to have known to drop the class. Teacher enforces extremely strict grading practices on all code written so it is possible to lose points for anything not adhering to strict rules. Highly don't recommend this teacher for any class.

She talks way too slow, cares too much about perfect syntax standards. If you already have a strong programming background class is stupid easy, but takes way too much time because of how strict she is. You will learn the same programming basics as Programming I with Python. You will not learn anything new. UTSA programming courses are a joke

GOOD LUCK. If you are brand new to coding, be prepared to be absolutely lost. Syllabus provided also does not provide an accurate overview of the course. Original syllabus only touches on Exams and Programming Assignments. Pay attention to blackboard, she is constantly adding assignments that she does not send announcements about. Proctored Exams.

Programming assignments and exams are heavy hitters. A big chunk of your exam grades come from coding inside blackboard without being able to test the code and the grading is case-sensitive so you have to be perfect first try. If you want to review what you did wrong in your quizzes or exams, you have to meet her during office hours with no notes.

Professor Shephard provided no preparation for tests. Lectures were a joke, basically parrot whatever she typed, with little to no explanation. Shephard taught this class as though we already had an intermediate level of understanding of the language. She accused several students of academic dishonesty, with no justification. Worst class I've taken

Steer clear of any class that she teaches. The lady is nice, but her lectures are mind-numbing and she basically just reads the slides. The main grades in the class I took were the exams and PAs. At the time of writing this, she has only graded one of the three PAs. (grades are due the 15th) Wish I could write more...

DO NOT TAKE THIS PROFESSOR. Professor Sheperds' class has been the most difficult class I have ever experienced. Grades late after drop date. Expects students to memorize literally all coding aspects for exams. She makes excelling in this course EXTREMELY difficult for no reason. Save yourself from stress. I never rate professors SO PLS TRUST THIS.

Very tough professor. This class needs to be restructured! I usually get As in most of my classes and I never dropped a class until taking this class.

This class was lecture heavy, she grades super hard and the style of teaching is far from easy for beginners. I would recommend to start assignments early or you will fall behind. I would definitely take a different professor.

This was a experience that could be made way simpler. Dr. Java is old.

DO NOT TAKE THIS PROFESSOR. She teaches horribly, grades very strictly, cares more about your coding 'form' than if you actually know how to code. The only reason I didn't struggle is because I already knew java.

She is very very confusing. Her lectures are impossible to learn anything from as she just rambles on and on over a PowerPoint, talking like we already know what we're doing when we don't. Everyone in my class agrees with me on this. Also, she is super exact about how she wants all programming assignments typed up, tests are through proctorio.

BEWARE of this professor!! Worse programming class I have ever taken. Does not go over projects so be prepared to do it alone & sucks at giving test instructions. I feel like I have been teaching myself the entire time, but she is not shy to brag about her teaching skills in the middle of a lecture instead of moving forward and actually teaching.

DO NOT take the 1.0 ratings with a grain of salt. They are incredibly accurate. 75% of the coursework is only 25% of your grade. Tests are proctored and are VERY difficult if you do not spend adequate time preparing. You will NOT know your grade until the END of the semester. So you won't know if you need to withdraw or etc. until it's too late.

STOP WHAT YOUR DOING AND DO NOT TAKE!!! This professor acts as if you should already know the material, & makes you code exactly your way as if her way is the only way to code. she uses outdated software. Course load is heavy, takes up to 50% of my homework time a week. save yourself & DO NOT TAKE!

This course is unnecessarily difficult for no reason. Her lectures are hard to understand and you'll most likely find yourself rereading the textbook to try and understand what's going on. Exams are difficult and she barely gives out anything to help you prepare. Highly suggest you take another professor.

This professor is very likely to be the worst I've taken so far in my time at UTSA. Useless demos take up a significant amount of lectures. 25% of the grade is 90% of the work you do. Programming projects 1 and 2 are easy, 3 is outlandishly hard and nearly impossible for entry-level java students, even with other teammates. DO NOT TAKE.

Worst professor I have ever had. Switches up the syllabus and the assignments multiple times throughout the semester. She just rambles and rambles during her lectures. The rubrics for the projects are really hard to decipher, making it impossible to get help from anyone besides her, and if they don't give the exact correct output it's instantly a 0

Sadly everything youre reading here is true and i was one of those people who thought "eh cant be that bad". sadly, she was the only option for me but if there is someone else you can choose for this class I HIGHLY RECOMMEND you take them instead. Normally i am a straight A student, so this class was a real pain, she grades code with canva terrible

Very friendly professor, very subpar teacher. A drastic jump in difficulty between in class assignments and projects. No curves, no late work, no extra credit. Slow talker. you can't review quizzes, and can't go back to questions on quizzes or exams. Her whole system penalizes failures and barely allows you to learn form your mistakes. DO NOT TAKE.

Avoid this professor no matter what. Lots of homework that does not help for learning. Uses Outdated software.Her programming project instructions are very long and confusing. She talks insanely slow. She averages multiple quiz retakes instead of taking the highest grade. Exams do not match lectures or homework. Proctored exams.

Please do not take her class if you have the option. While I passed her class, I wouldn't have my worst enemy experience her. She uses extremely outdated software from 2004, coding inside of canvas, and generally lies about what is on quizzes/tests. For anyone taking this course, please take Ian Burres, he is an amazing teacher, and makes class fun

Extremely nice lady, not a good professor. Forces you to use extremely outdated/borderline unusable software, grades coding assignments through fill-in-the-blank fields on Canvas that require exact input of what she expects, otherwise you get it wrong, even if it would provide the same output. Punishes you for thinking outside the box. DO NOT TAKE.

DO NOT TAKE! The coding assignments are done in canvas which makes the tiniest of details be counted wrong and she doesnt grade assignments until the very end of the semester. Also uses VERY outdated software and coding methods.

The absolute worst professor I have ever had. She will say RMP is not fair to her but DO NOT take this professor. She talks really slow, goes over useless information, thinks everything is cheating! She does not record her lectures, let you go back on the quizzes and exams, or let you REVIEW THEM! How are we supposed to learn from our mistakes. RUN

Avoid class unless you already know Java and just need the credit. Assignments are done using canvas - meaning that you can't actually run the programs you're typing code for or testing. You don't get feedback on what you got wrong because she locks answers, you have to do it verbatim the way she wants, and so much more I wish I could include here.

Avoid this professor if possible. Outdated software, confusing instructions, and exams that don't match the material. However, unstuckstudy can be a helpful study tool to prepare. Overall, not recommended.

Quizzes are on Canvas and code must be exact, even if your code would still work. Three group projects that take up a large portion of your grade, however none of the group projects are graded until after the final exam.

A majority of coding assignments are submitted in canvas where even the tiniest deviation from what she expects is counted as wrong, and the wording on these assignments makes it very difficult to input what she is expecting. Course materials are well over 10 years old in some cases, professor takes a long time to submit grades.

The worst professor I have ever had. Does not let you see grades of quizzes, doesn't let you go back and look through tests you're taking while taking them, does not post grades, lectures make NO sense. Horrible. Belittled UTSA students on first day, considers emailing her consistently harassment. The dept. head needs to look into this professor.

If Linda Shepard is the only option to take this course I would recommend waiting for a different semester. She made the class so hard for no reason and is the reason I will never code again. My friend who is a software dev even said what she tries to teach is excessive and will almost never be used. You will be lucky to get a B if you put time in.

Her instructions are often unclear but graded on unstated specifics so a majority of the time I wasn't learning to code, I was guessing how she wanted me to do things. Her exams are randomized so you are often expected to refer to context you don't have, and she grades you as if you did have the context. I was lucky to get a B.

Quizzes are all done on Canvas, which has terrible formatting for coding.