He didn't teach perfectly

Marc clearly knows his stuff when it comes to CS, but does not help you acquire anywhere near the necessary skills needed to complete the coursework. We went from programming simple 50 line programs every week to suddenly coding a 1000 line monster program that was very difficult to make sense of. DO NOT take this class unless you are a CS major.

His lectures are all over the place. Made us do simple programs like hello world and then expected us all to do big monsters like sokoban.

CS200 is very tough

Bad class. Just not good. didn't learn anything. Don't take it

Does not give you very many practice problems, and the ones he does give, he explains horribly. Does not show the answers to the practice problems from the online textbook, and you get tested on sections that he flagged as optional simply because he showed you one example in lecture. Expects you to understand what he says because he understands it.

Professor wouldn't let me make up a quiz when I had covid - it was the first quiz of the year and the average was like an 80. Not taking it dropped my final letter grade from a B to a BC. Very unaccommodating, did not care about the students whatsoever. Would stand in lecture silent for 5 minutes because he didn't understand what was on his slides

Avoid at all cost. Couldn't explain difficult concepts clearly. Takes off participation points if you don't show up in lectures, which don't really help you learn. Read the textbook and figure out the concepts on your own.

Incompetent and arrogant.

Useless lectures. Learned everything on the PowerPoint, but the final exam taking up 45% of your grade is 10 times harder than what you learn. The median and mean were 17/50 so you know how terrible he teaches and how hard the exam is. On top of that, he curved really harshly and I think ~15% gets an A.

10/10 came to class with COVID attendance required and graded

just read off lecture slides, didn't really teach any course material. its an important class but I didn't feel like i learned anything from it. the final was hard, and he could've done a better job at explaining concepts.

This is the worst professor I have ever had. Lectures are the most boring, monotone, wikipedia-level readings with no efficient way of conveying any concepts. Homeworks and discussions cannot prepare you for the torturous final exam that he gaslights the class into choosing(10 bonus points means nothing in a curved class).

Marc is the most uncaring, arrogant, irresponsible professor I've ever had. He never replies to emails. His replies on pizza are always rude and never actually answers the questions. His lectures are unhelpful. He basically gaslights the class into taking one final worth 45% of our grade. I feel like I learned nothing from this class.

The lecture is like a wikipedia page with a lot of complicated math formulas. The only way for me is to watch youtube and learn by myself. I know the algo is difficult but I hope that the department can have a better lecturer to help students understand the content. Overall, I want to say the lecture IS NOT HELPFUL FOR ME to understand algo.

Nothing is related Marc with a good lecturer. It is true that Marc is around average and you cannot say he is bad. But don't expect you can learn anything valuable from him. His grading cretiria makes you looks okay. But he won't provide you with a high quality teaching as Dieter or CAI will. So. for me, Marc is absolutely bad. NOT WORTH TO TAKE

Not a bad lecturer, but his class is easily one of the worst-structured ones I've ever taken. Lectures don't help with homework. Study groups are very limited. Essentially requires you to spend $100 on zybooks or significantly fall behind the class on grading. Also super unhelpful on piazza and just says to read the syllabus

one of the terrible ones you will meet. Gives same workload for summer sessions. Prove yourself on the 45% exam. Never accept accommodations which was frantic. Also made mistake with wrong due date and he didn't admit his mistake.

This man is a fine enough person, but absolutely horrible at lecturing! Complex concepts are obfuscated by a magical click of "next slide" instead of being properly explained.

He's just mean. Doesn't actually want to help the students because his ego is in the way.

Marc is genuinely the worst professor at UW. His method of teaching consists of reading off slides in which he overcomplicates most topics. It also doesn't help that he draws directly off his device on the slides because the writing is barely legible. He is a bit condescending and even said once "You should be scared of me I can change your grade"

He doesn't teach at all he just reads off slides and half the time I question whether even he knows what he talks about. He explains everything like you should know it already and uses no useful diagrams. Just shows a block of undecipherable code and expects us to understand it. Genuinely the worst prof ever

This professor is one of the worst I have ever had the displeasure of learning from. He often lets his ego get in the way of teaching and is a stickler for attendance. I have shown up 3min late to a 75min lecture and still was rejected an attendance credit which is graded. I'm sure his teaching style is good for someone, but I can't imagine who.

The biggest issue is him counting bonus points as part of curve. Other stuff lecture = read of slides + random story about how x scientist made algorithim during their coffee break + i'm canadian, gives pointless examples throughout the semester without giving you the necessary tools to approach the algorithm/proof problems and actually solve them.

Marc is apathy personified in a CS professor. Little to no regard for his students' wellbeing & actively trying to pit students against each other, saying "his class is like The Hunger Games." Overcomplicated lectures & overly technical definitions for students learning the material for the first time. Did not contribute to my learning whatsoever.

Simply not a good lecturer or teacher. Was very disappointed, because this is an important class that I was excited for, now I am just jumping through hoops to not fail. If Renault was asked to explain what an airplane was to someone who didn't know what it was, he would begin by explaining the equation for lift.

The most apathetic professor I have ever encountered. Never gave feedback for the final, and condensed the class unnecessarily. Piazza posts were never answered about when we'd get our grades back, etc. Lectures were extremely rushed, and I honestly believe he didn't care whether or not we learned the content well. Avoid him at all costs.

He's lecture is just reading PPT, and you need to pay to get bonus credit. Worse professor I have ever encounter. Took his class because he is the only choice in summer. Avoid him if you could.

The lecture and the class were alright in general, however as a professor can be very rude and careless when it comes to giving assistance to students. Appears to have a disdain working with students.

I found my experience to be very negative. Prof occasionally went on tangents and there is a lot of work such as participation and quizzes which are required but do not count for much. Made the exam overly difficult with a ridiculous curve system. Extra credit can only be earned by paying for online textbooks that cannot be accessed anywhere else.

Horrible lecturer; often uses exquisite terms and goes on tangents during lecture. Seems unwilling to answer students' questions (once told a student to "ask your mom" as a "joke"). The final exam is worth half your grade, and is being gatekept from students (posted rickroll as the exam pdf, then admits he finds it funny). Avoid him if possible.

Seems to despise students who are below the top of his class. Refuses to provide any feedback on quizzes and exams.

Accusses students of cheating if you ask for a regrade. Good luck

If Marc's terse unorganized lectures are anything to go on, he genuinely hates teaching. He was surprisingly rude so to students during lecture and refused to answer questions and even openly expressed disdain for students who asked questions that were not up to his expectations.

Education videos on Youtube always have comments with things like "my prof talked for hours and it made no sense but this 5 min video did". RENAULT IS THAT PROF. Someone posted on Piazza about how they were terrified for the final (WORTH HALF YOUR GRADE) and Renault left a link to UHS, while ANOTHER PROF stepped in responded with a caring comment.

Disrespectful person. The CS department really need to regulate the attitudes instructors bring to students. He always tried to be nice in class, but when he's facing you individually, like on Piazza or in emails? He's mean af! His answers are always within 5 words, no matter how complicated your situation is.

Bro just be telling his joke and don't care about his student at all. Where else do you ever see you can pay for a zybook for extra credit? Avoid at all cost.

577 is requried for graduation. First day of class, this instructor told students on the waitlist not to approach him. This instructor's approach is the direct opposite. There are many excellent professors at this school, including Dieter van Melkebeek, Manolis Vlatakis, and Sandeep Silwal, all of whom are highly recommended, but not him.

The department should not allow professors to enjoy humilating students.

He's lecture is just reading PPT, and you need to spend a lot of time to get extra points.

A very mean person and very poor explainer.

Not a great teacher. I'm sure he's a very smart guy, but he should not be teaching a class. He likes to pretend to hold the moral high ground, while not helping students do well in the class. The lectures are poorly dictated with challenging to understand slides. Tons of busywork required to get a good grade.

He doesn't explain algorithms clearly, and his teaching style kills confidence. Really leaves students demotivated and lost. His replies to students' questions just dont seem like "he really wants to help you",instead he gives you a feeling that" oh, it's NOT my fault you don't understand the materials" with his terrible explanation and disrespect

most boring and useless lectures known to man, so bad i stopped going even though there's tophat for credit. also pay to win class lmao, take the honors section with dieter

straight up terrible person does NOT care about students take algos with LITERALLY anyone else

Youtube videos with < 1,000 views explained the topics better than him. Worst professor I have had at UW-Madison

I have a bone to pick with Marc. He barely knows how to teach and the only time I saw him smile was when someone raised their hand and got an answer wrong. His homework answers were so bad I think he would have failed himself. He thinks he's wayy smarter than he really is, he couldn't answer a question I asked that my TA answered easily. Dastardly.

Very poorly designed and explained lectures. Extremely tough grading and will not reconsider regardless of the situation. Overall bad professor

Maybe the worst lecturer in CS at Madison. Slides filled with way too much jargon and HW is impossible. Generally condescending as well and obviously does not care to teach the material or care about student's success.

After your class, student hate algorithms. Why teach?

whoever gives him 5 stars is probably marc himself in disguise. No clue who in their right mind would give him a good rating. difficult class even more difficult of a professor.

I did not enjoy Marc's teaching style

How is bro still employed

There is a doc that has discussion recaps in the form of about 1-2 pages of content discussed for topics. These two pages for each topic helps you understand and prepare 20x better than Marc Renault could ever hope to achieve. His lectures have almost 0 correlation to the homework, making you think you're taking two separate classes. DONT TAKE!!!!!

This is more of a self learning class i get it ! but it would've been great if lectures were more detailed, easy to pick up and help students develop an intuition. however the course is designed in a way through extra credit which helps you gain a good grade in the end if you earn all of it !

The 577 final is 45% and the person doesn't even give previous year papers. The content is so difficult, all semester all you can do is chase extra credit in hopes it'll save you. Even his TAs hate him.

Genuinely the worst class and professor I have ever taken. He is so mean, and when students ask questions in class he sounds extremely annoyed and short, almost never answering properly. There's a lot of buffer room in this class, but it's hard to succeed with him as your professor. Do not recommend in the slightest.

"Marc Renault" in HUGE 2025

Marcs lectures were unhelpful, long, boring, and hard to understand. Emailed him about something and he was rude and jumped to conclusions. Get the extra credit points. Study groups are your best friend!!! Pick some good TAs and peer mentors and go to their study group every week and ask any questions you have, a lot of them are super helpful.

This was the worst class I've had. Be ready to self-study a lot because the lectures didn't help me get even a basic understanding. Also, the instructor's tone on Piazza and over email came off really condescending, so don't expect thoughtful or kind replies. I honestly don't understand why someone like this is teaching such an important course.

Switched to another professor's algos section the first day after Marc's class and first interaction with him. Could not have made a more GPA saving move than that. I couldn't understand a thing the guy was doing in class.