The exam is ridiculous! Can you image a question with 10 scores has no partial credit? There are about 3 questions like this in one exam. I cannot understand why. Besides, I cannot understand why we need to take the lesson. Every homework is done by learning by myself and if not for the credit I could not find reasons for taking this.

the course definitely added onto my github portfolio but the whole course was taken on my own, lectures didnt help at all. Even with the covid situation grading was not relaxed. Could do this course online on my own, with lesser stress.

Not at all considerate about students even during the pandemic

Least understanding faculty. Won't take him or the course again

This professor does not care at all about the students. Made the course extremely tough during a pandemic

Prof was very unsympathetic and harsh in his grading, increasing the cutoff for all the grades despite a pandemic and having subpar education in zoom. The course and the structure are excellent, the TA's were more helpful than the prof. USC should seriously consider having other faculties for such an important course. I wish prof had some empathy.

The professor is not caring and shows little respect to students. He sometimes ignore students' questions and reasonable demands intentionality. His teaching style is boring too -- just repeating the slides.

Horrible prof. Very boring, arrogant and rude. Has no clarity and just read of slides. One of the worst courses at USC with this prof.

I took CSCI 201 with Papa and it was one of the most frustrating wastes of time i've spent in my four years at USC so far. The expectations on the students are unclear, he does not grade or make his own assignments and lectures and he does not hold office hours properly. This class is run by TAs and it's very obvious with how unhelpful Papa is.

Please note that this website is rating the professor not the course. I admit the course CSCI-571 is great , but it could be much better if its advised by another professor. Papa doesnt care about students, doesnt have empathy, the reason he is present in class is just to complete his task. TAs are more helpful tbh.

Course is fabulous but the instructor is horrible. He has no regards for students. He and Horowitz are the worst professors at USC

Course doesnt cover what the assignment is on. You have to learn everything by yourself from google, debug everything by yourself - it doesnt matter if you're an expert on the languages being used or a complete noob. ~8k$ for fee and I did not even get graded properly. And the regrade request is highly unfair. I regret taking this class.

Hard & ridiculously heavyloaded. Lots of grading issues. Professor is unresponsive, mean and bossy. Lectures are unrelated to assignments. Exams aims to drop scores. If you are ready to give up GPA and have nothing to do except coursework, you are welcome to take this course, otherwise I suggest you to follow assignments without rolling the course.

Papa is just horrible. The course itself is great but the instructor is the worst I have seen. He has no regards for students. No clarity on assignment instructions. You have to do google search and spend lots of time figuring things out. He is is of no help. Exams are based on how much you can memorize. Hope someone else offers this course someday

DO NOT TAKE PAPA'S CSCI 571! CHOOSE SATY!

Substandard course trying to achieve everything. The instructor is bad and reads the slides. Rather than focusing on just one framework like React/Angular and teach its best practices, it teaches nothing and is not industry standard. AlsoTheMobileAppIsNotRequired, AppDevelopment should be a different course.There is plenty to learn in web itself.

AVOID!!! The homeworks have unclear guidelines and we are asked to read EVERY piazza post since the requirement can be changed at any time. TAs are impatient. Graders are not following the grading rubric and you can only regrade on one item once: meaning even your implementation is correct, you cannot get your points back! Exams are Ctrl + F.

NEVER EVER TAKE HIS CSCI 571 class. Absolutely no structure and organization whatsoever. Just reads from the slides and gives homeworks which have absolutely nothing to do with the lectures. Requirements for homeworks can change anytime without any notice. MOST HORRIBLE PROFESSOR I'VE EVER COME ACROSS, Period!!!!!

Absolutely the worst professor I've met in my entire life. He is so arrogant and condescending that makes me feel he's inherently flawed as a person. Provides no help on assignments, lecture is so pointless that I wish I donate my money to charity than to waste on this course. You are doing yourself a huge disservice if you take 571 with him. Avoid

1. Basically no curve, 93 for A, 80+ for B 2. Huge Load for assignments. Too many requirements, and no flexibility. 3. Poor course quality. No help for the assignments. 4. Assignments are unrelated to the exam. Choose SATY.

I got an A but he is unpredictable & things can change during class. Not much support given basically download slides + complete assignments and get ready for exams on your own. attending lectures is a waste of time. Makes tons of mistakes in grading.

The only thing I can say, I wish he could have been more transparent with students on grading and syllabus:( avoid if u can

Help for student in distress If you are not feeling good for whatever reason, these are places at USC that offer help: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline - 1 (800) 273-8255 - 24/7 on call Free and confidential emotional support to people in suicidal crisis or emotional distress 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. - Macro Papa

The problem isn't that the course is very hard and an unreasonable amount of work (which it is). The problem is you aren't taught how to do any of it at all. Lectures are random rambles/history lessons. You would learn just as much if you did the assignments on your own. The answer to every question is "try googling it"

I am taking over summer and the class is not helpful, he just gives you an assignment and TAs not good. Avoid if you can. This is my last semester and I needed to graduate. if there was another option I would certainly go for that.

Just saw Papa himself made a comment here if you are dissatisfied here is USC mental health support. By reading you should know to take his class or not!!

Summer session is so difficult for this and support not good. But good class in general topic

except material from outside of lecture slides as well for exams. only very very few get an A

Suggestion for people who are looking to take this course: Just take the front end class on Udacity or anywhere else with only 1400+USD and safe the rest of money for a vacation. Honestly speaking, you will learn more on Udacity or any other website with less stress than this course and you do not have to worry about a bad grade.

I paid 9000 dollars for a self-learning course. Lectures are waste of time and useless. If you are looking for a project to improve your resume, you do not need to spend 9000 dollars in this course. There are plenty of amazing open source projects on internet are free and you can learn the same stuff. 571 is great, WITHOUT taken with Marco Papa

Level of support answering questions is terrible on piazza. Basically no debug question will be answered and no regrade on exams which is terrible even if you are right. Avoid Avoid avoid

HORRIBLE professor. He doesn't teach a thing related to the assignments and expects you to put an immense amount of hours into them to complete. Avoid at all costs. Learn how to teach Papa. your class was $9000 for us to use stack overflow and w3 schools to teach ourselves.

Unclear grading criteria and isn't helpful in piazza responses. Expects us to teach ourselves

Worst professor I've had at USC, reads slides verbatim but worst part is how rude and stuck up he is. Never had a professor be so unhelpful on Piazza answers and he's condescending in general. Hey Marco, maybe change how you treat people rather than sharing suicide resources on your rate my professor. There is a reason the ratings are so low

Extremely condescending. Luckily the lead TA is good so he smooths over some of the problems Papa causes. Changed syllabus two weeks into the course to say we couldn't drop any quizzes and made attendance mandatory. Had random lottery during lecture to see who would get extra credit. You'll learn most things outside of class by googling

Agree with previous comments, he is very condescending and randomly changed the syllabus weeks into the course. Lectures are insanely boring but the slides are actually really good. His responses on piazza are very rude and he deleted a poll in piazza in which students were trying to come to a consensus as to whether groups should be randomized.

The grading of the class is nonsense. I implemented everything in the HW description and grading criteria but got deducted 25% of the points. They do not focus on your project's functionality but nitpick details with a magnifier. The professor talks very less on the tech you will use in projects. Most of the time you need to learn on your own.

Papa isn't helpful for answering questions, often telling students to "google it" themselves. Not only that, but he piles on assignment after assignment, overwhelming everyone. What makes this worse is that his lectures are bland and useless, so it's a waste of time to even go to lecture.

Condescending and rude, which would be forgivable if he actually taught the technologies you're expected to use for homework--prepare to spend thousands of dollars just to teach yourself.

1st post before the class began was a sticky to the suicide hotline number. Incredibly unprofessional. 2 hard hws at end where you will have to teach yourself. He does not provide any guidance or material for this. Heavy reliance on TAs. Take at your own risk like other reviewers have said. Very proud of his fat resume

So boring and he knows he cannot teach at all. He recommended in class an online course from Stanford for us to learn what we need to learn. ZERO structure, only read off the slides and OMFG his slides are so cramped he can't even read/understand them. Deserve a Zero. unreasonable amount of homework considering we take more than one class

If you have any sort of disability and need an accommodation avoid taking. You are not going to get what you need related to disability. I was not happy how he treated me

Avoid at all costs! You pay just to be forced to search and learn things from the internet. Very unprofessional teaching team! The professor changed the grace days calculations method by editing his Piazza's answers after the deadline (1:30 am)!

people have said already. Avoid!

The good comment below must be Professor Papa! Obviously, it's not hard if you've done web development before but guess what? THIS IS NOT THE CASE FOR MOST. Considering that this class is terrible because you need to teach yourself Piazza were answered quickly earlier during the semester, but now, questions are being answered after a day! RUN AWAY!

Do your best to avoid. I have experience using different frameworks building full-stack project. Still, he wants you to use servlet and old html to complete a full-stack project. Inefficent, learn nothing, and not caring at all.

The worst experience ever. All the time was spent finding answers for the questions online ( professor does not answer to any questions). CP are not helpful AT ALL. The class was just a waste of time & learned nothing. Avoid taking him if u can.

dont take it. You will not like his teaching style and attitude.

His class ruined my GPA because lack of clarity on grading and assignments

Worst Course in Viterbi. The course itself is boring. Assignment: Most of the work is on adjusting layout of the web page. At the same time, the guidance of assignment is extremely not clear. Rublic is not reliable. ALL the discussions on the online system are required to cover to know what is required in the assignment.

The WORST "professor" at Viterbi. Whoever hired him should reconsider a lot of things. The class is so unorganized. NO BODY (TA/CP), even the professor does not know what is going on in the class. 6. Expect to spend a lot of time studying alone, because when it comes to getting help from CPs, it's just a waste of time. AVOID if you can.

Grading is very unclear and no guideline. He changes the class syllabus during semester. His syllabus says grades will be curved but will find a reason not to do. Avoid if you can.

I had a terrible experience asking for help from TAs and you are not going to learn.

The course is good and will learn on your own. I stopped attending class and piazza since not useful. Basically download slides and do homework on your own

google taught more than professor

I got an 'A' since had previous experience. other students were unhappy because the gap between HW and lecture is huge. TAs are good but overall Papa tries to make it hard course for non sense

The worst worst worst professor I have seen in USC.Nothing taught in the class,all of that you should google or go to TA office hour. It is like he taught 1+1 in class and let you solve caculus in homework.Also, every semester the professor will report a bunch of student and it influence your status and degree.Don't take that!Learn online Yourself!

Unfortunately this is not a grad level class. It is the same as being self-taught. No one can review our code and no one pointed out my mistakes. How can we improve ourself? If you have already an experienced software engineer, it might be great class for just getting good grade. But it is not worth we pay money.

I suspect Marco is giving high ratings for himself here! As the comments are about details that students don't care, e.g., the time he became full-time at USC. You may learn a lot in this course but you would do it on your own! I stress that don't take this course if you want someone help you to learn just like most courses in any university.

I saw one comment saying this "Whether you realize it or not, you will walk out of this class as a full stack developer." For students who do not have previous web skills, they do not even know how to set their server structure. How can they be a full stack developer after taking this class? I learned everything from Youtube.

The problemis that you should learn 95% on your own. The course doesn't have any perquisite listed! So you can end up in a terrible situation that you need to work 40 hours a week to learn something that you don't have a background in!!! Papa is irresponsible not to list any perquisite. Most engineering student know two programing languages!

Stubborn and unresponsive. Unwilling to answer questions about grading or grading criteria

It's more about ensuring students get as low grades as they can for him. He does not care about improving students. He makes his own rules and is really stubborn.

I try to attend an academic conference, and everything is settled. But the professor just changed rules for taking exam, which requires us to take the exam in-person. I talked to him about this, but he still refuse to let me take the exam online. Beside, he talks nothing in the class, but wants you to build a very good and difficult website.

Honestly, you'll get to learn a lot in this class. I just think the grading scale plus his exams which ask the most random questions possible, make it hard to do well in this class. I don't think it is that hard to do well in the HWs, although they take really long time. It is just that they aren't even worth that much compared to the awful exams.

Seriously, don't take this class. His exams are wack - ambiguous questions, many of the "correct" answers are actually wrong (just do a Google search (or ask ChatGPT ;)))

This is a front-end practice class without chatGPT. Professor neglects students due to waiting for retirement and summer break and often leaving early. I think lots of students already reflected how poor his teaching is but USC diploma mill is unlikely to fire him due to mutual interest in making money by milking international cash cows.

The professor is adamant on not just making this hard A class, but also wants to decrease your GPA to the extent possible (I'd say it's a hard B class). You can do very well in the homeworks, but for the midterms and finals, his exams are ruthlessly random and memorization based, to the extent that you feel hopeless even trying to prepare for them.

Now the exam is ridiculous. Tons of materials; however, the exam becomes close-book. I know due to the invention of ChatGPT, Papa needs to make some changes to stop students from using ChatGPT, but why can't we take cheatsheet paper in exam? Since originally the exam is open book and open internet.

You are required to put in way more work than what should be required of a 4-credit course. This class would be tolerable if Papa taught anything remotely relevant to the homework, but he instead lectures about useless facts & history and bases the exam questions off that material. He is arrogant and rude on piazza. 100% a self-study course.

He also changed the whole exam logistics (literally everything about the exam) twice (one for midterm and one for final), given a week's notice which is very unhelpful.

AVOID AT ALL COST.

The course material is fine and at times engaging, though it contains outdated information. However, I strongly advise avoiding this professor. Throughout the course, he has demonstrated a genuine lack of respect for his students. He has sent multiple confusing and accusatory emails past midnight during exams, causing undue stress. Just avoid him.

Papa is the WORST prof in the CS department. He should be fired. Very rude to students, respond email in a very impolite manner. Totally change the logistics of the midterm and final only 1 week before the exam. No professionalism at all, even saying "what the hell" to students on piazza. Sending tons of threatening posts on the final week. AVOID!!

The WORST PROFESSOR ever. Sending thousands of THREATENING emails during final weeks. THREATEN and DOUBT students CHEATING all the time. Ask students to read THOUSANDS OF lecture notes during study days just because he suddenly change the final exam format to closed books. If you want to avoid THREATENING emails during final weeks, AVOID HIM!

Genuinely the worst professor/class I've Ever taken at USC. Stubborn, rude, and unwilling to listen or cooperate w students. Contradicts himself constantly. Teaches you nothing. Takes a final that's usually online/open note, makes it in-person, then refuses to give any kind of study materials. Srsly try to take this class with ANY other professor.

Rude, show NO respect to students, hilarious, contradicting his own words all the time. AVOID AT ALL COST!!!

Seems like a nice enough guy, but he's a terrible professor. Exams cover a ridiculous amount of information that you shouldn't be expected to memorize. Homeworks aren't too hard, but do take a ton of time to complete. Concepts are briefly glossed over in class so you'll end up having to learn everything on your own, making lectures useless.

The worst professor I have ever had at USC. He is very stubborn and does not care about students' feelings. He suddenly turned exams to offline closed book exams and did not allow us to have cheatsheets. He really likes unexpectedly changing the rule of the course. Even with such changes, he refused to lower grade boundary or round up grades.

dont take it exams and assignments are supper unclear.

How cheap a professor should to write fake positive reviews or coerce people whom he has dominance to write positive reviews here? Also, report all negative reviews as fake so RMP removes them? Let only students write comments here. This page is meant to be used as guidance and only real students without any coercion should write here.

For me, it was an awful experience. Be aware that the negative reviews are reported by Papa and then removed by RMP. So far, two former TAs have reported that Papa coerced them to write positive reviews on this page. DO NOT TRUST THIS PAGE as its content is manipulative.

Took 201 with Marco in Spring 2023. He constantly reminds every student about how he absolutely despises cheating. However, he fails to show integrity himself as he manipulates his RMP page every semester. Just look at the like/dislike ratios of all the ratings on this page. Other than that, if you spend time studying, you should get a good grade.

Do a favor for yourself and ignore this page completely. Marco used to post fake positive comments on this page. Now, his tool has changed to report old negative reviews to be removed by RMP so in the long run he can manipulate this page. You should ignore this page and talk face-to-face with students who took his courses for legitimate information

This review does not break any guidelines: - lectures barely prepare students for the projects - exams are disconnected from anything useful you learn when doing projects, focusing on random 1 liners from lecture - 201 is the easiest CS core class here, but you will have no motivation to study it

Avoid him at all cost. His lectures are useless and he himself tells students to go read the slides if we have more questions. He changed his citing guidelines like 3 times saying if we don't follow it, we will get reported. And we had to resubmit assignment every time he changed his guidelines.

Class is easy but Papa is straight up horrid. Lectures are less than useless. You'll get good grades if ur good at teaching urself. Don't expect Papa to lift a finger to help you out beside what's explicitly stated in his syllabus. Take literally anyone else if you can, be prepared to teach yourself and do a lot of busywork for hw if you can't.

Lectures are confusing and useless, his slides are made so that it's very tough to go back and review, and he is 0 help when it comes to questions. Prepare to learn it yourself and get useless replies on Piazza. Probably one of the worst professors in CS - avoid if you can.

Terrible at lectures, unhelpful on Piazza, and gives you an immense amount of attitude when asking questions. Probably one of the worst professors not because he gives hard assignments, but because he tries to "trick" you on the assignments by saying one thing and then grading based off another. Beware, do not trust anything he tells you on Piazza.

A terrible professor. He spends 1/3 of the lecture explaining and reading his logistics posts on piazza. The lecture is very unorganized and difficult to follow unless you study the topic before coming to the class. If you ask questions on piazza, he will give you ChatGPT response LOL.

AVOID AT ALL COST!!!!!!!! He does not care about the student and his lectures are not helpful at all.

Easy material, disgusting class management. Teacher does not care that a significant amount of students WILL fail this class. As long as class average is B-, it's good enough for him. The quizzes and midterms are irrelevant to lecture. You learn nothing about software development. No late days. Average for Assignment 3 was 56%.

After $1Billion donation, the CS department still can't find a professor who knows how to teach for this class. Too many assignments ,quizzes, project, and every little thing would count into your grade. Lectures are not helpful for assignments, mostly because he was spending half of time explaining his guidelines and piazza posts.

Here's a completely unbiased rating. This class is pretty much "Here are some things that are used in software development. Go learn it yourself. Oh by the way they're outdated" Granted, this field of study is all about self learning but it's still ridiculous

Papa only makes it through half of the presentations for the day but then expects you to know everything he didn't cover for the weekly quizzes. the first 3/4 of the class is java, and then all of a sudden he goes "hey your next assignment is to make an entire web app" despite spending maybe one day on html, js, css

The class itself isn't bad but the professor himself is terrible. Worst professor I've ever had by a good margin. As for the class itself, just start everything early. He takes off points for every little thing- it's more about what you did wrong vs what you did right/ what you gained.

OK class, not-so-ok professor. He makes posts inactive and marks follow-ups as resolved when students raise reasonable concerns about the grading rubric / certain exam questions that are not formulated well. Gives chatgpt or really ambiguous responses. Overall feels like he tries to catch you making the smallest mistakes to lower your score. AVOID

Ignore this page if you are reading to take this course. It is a manipulative page: 1. Many fake reviews are written. 2. Many negative reviews from real students are reported to be removed by RMP. Instead, talk to your friends who have taken the course. As for the course, it is a good course but be aware that it will be a self-taught course

Avoid.

I took this class as a senior, and this is the worst undergrad professor I've had in the CS department. He was very passive aggressive on Piazza and avoided directly answering student questions half of the time. Second half of this course (web development) felt unreasonably rushed. The class was not difficult but expect to self-study a lot.

These are the commonalities shown in both 1.0 and 5.0 reviews and I can attest they are real. 1. You are expected to do self-study 90% of the material (his slides also say watch tutorials online!) 2. Prompt answers on piazza, but usually chat gpt responses 3. Sloppy tests: multiple duplicate questions and tested on things not covered in lecture

Never have I seen a less helpful instructor in actually teaching. An easy A if you spend time and learn the content yourself but why would you pay thousands of $ if you need to self-learn? Be aware that the burden is on you and only take the course if you have enough time, i.e., don't take it with another time-consuming course.

The course is good but the problem is that it is 100% self-learning! You can skip the lectures completely and lose nothing! Nothing! If you put the time, it is an A easily but Marco won't teach you anything and the burden is fully on you! I give low rating as there should be a difference between self-learning and an official university course.

Marco Papa does not teach. He just reads through slides which is outdated. I have got an A in this course but the course is outdated. The undergraduate web tech course does a better job than this. The course name should be Frontend development and not Web technologies. His exams are already leaked to students from the backend.

The fact that this man has a 4.3 is crazy (fake reviews). He consistently moves the goalposts when it comes to assignments and his writeups are the worst I've ever seen. He also tests on slides that he doesn't go over in class. What is the point of him teaching then? Just send us the slides on day 1 and give us two weeks to review for the test.

The dude is just not very nice. Passive aggressive and unprofessional. Lectures are useless, don't go if you value your time. 201 itself is not very hard, but the material is outdated and Papa just makes it totally non-enjoyable. I'm also 100% convinced half the reviews on here are fake.

1) red flag #1: Read the positive reviews on here. They were written by HIM - that is not how students write. Any review that uses the words "Prof. or Professor Papa" is Papa. We call him just Papa! 2) USC deserves better. No one goes to Papa's lectures (useless). You can manage an A with persistence. You will find Papa rude and passive ag.

Silver lining is that his assessments are easy. 4 basic assignments each with month-long deadlines but with vague guidelines. 2 60 MCQ Exams that are just straight up from the 13 5 MCQ Weekly Quizzes. Lectures are useless and boring. Piazza replies are quick but rude and sometimes useless. Lastly, arbitrary rules that he changes on the dot.

Closes course evals in one day so that students cant have time to actually give him the reviews he deserves.

Most passive aggressive person I've ever seen. Unclear instructions and grading standards for assignment. Useless lectures where he spends the first 20 minutes going over things on Piazza. Closes course evaluation early so students cannot leave a review.

Obviously a terrible lecturer, and from what I can tell not a great person either. However the class itself is not very difficult. The assignments can be hard but there is a lot of time allotted for them, and the group project depends a lot on who you get assigned to work with. Tests are easy and straightforward tho!

Course is disorganised and he is incredibly resistant to change, citing the retention of ABET accreditation (unlike other engineering disciplines, ABET does not matter in CS). Not a particularly difficult course, but you basically teach yourself the materials because lectures are poor. The final stretch is brutal in terms of courseload.

2 MT's are same questions from past semesters. Grind Quizlet. 4 assignments, some can get time consuming. Final project fully depends on who you get in your group (it's random). Papa is bitter, rude, and snappy both irl and piazza. Really a shame, 201 could've been the most fun class in CS but Papa RUINS the class. W class, L prof. Replace him.

Very snappy and rude. The class isn't hard, but it's annoying and outdated. Papa opened up course evaluations for only 1 day instead of 1 week and did not notify any students to avoid bad reviews. Avoid this prof at all costs.

Absolute worst yet only choice. Course eval open for only one day, because he knows he'll get wrecked if the students who stopped going get the chance to rate him. Does not care about actually teaching at all, it's all about enforcing his rules, punishing tiny mistakes, and collecting his paycheck. 5 star reviews on here are clearly self posted.

he is not a good professor. he warns you on day one that the reviews on RMP for him are accurate. and it is true, this class is a lot of work the last 2 assignments are an unholy amount. the reason he is bad is cause he teaches the class like he doesnt want to be there the lectures are useless and everything you do in the class will be self taught

Poor lecturer. Outdated tech stack. Ok communication on Piazza. Assignment writeups poorly written. The first half of the class is an intro to Java class before they try to cram in everything about web dev in the final month and a half. Exams are easy. Project is jank but easy. You can also tell he fakes the 5 star reviews on the website.

Professor is so dreadful. He will be using my feedback for the next batch to glorify how bad his class is. The grading scale is so bad. You will learn absolutely nothing in his lectures. Self learning is the only way out. 10/10 WILL NOT RECOMMEND THIS CLASS. Do yourself a favor and dont take his class I had prior experience it still sucked so hard.

Please don't take this class with this professor. Worst professor at usc, ignore the good ratings, he makes his TAs write good reviews for him.

The class itself was not hard. Papa, on the other hand, is a different beast. During exams, when someone asks questions, he would say this is not a test to ask questions on. He is unavailable to students and does not even try helping out when students need help with code or submissions. Also he posts fake rmp reviews. That's saying a lot.

While this class may teach a lot, most of it is on your own. The theory is taught in class, but the programming assignments are way different from learning the "history of different versions of a web technology." The TAs aren't much help either, since some of these projects get so complex that it's impossible to debug with them. Wouldn't recommend.

I haven't even finished the course yet, but just a word of warning: even if you do your work 100% correctly, you will be marked down. His graders can make multiple mistakes while grading your assignments, and he only allows you to appeal one grade. This means even if you do your work correctly and THEY make a mistake, you'll be penalized for it.

He only assigns hw, gives exams, hands back the grade, and isn't open to giving feedback on how to improve. In short he's there to grade, not to teach. If you want to learn webdev, honestly you'll get more out of taking a few coursera/W3 online courses. No practice exams and you don't even get to see what you got wrong.

Lectures unhelpful, assignments vague, tech stack is very outdated. Leaves course evaluations open for one day so people cannot leave negative reviews.

One of the worst experiences at usc. Sadly he's the only option.

Worst professor at USC. Does not care about his students (and says as much in lectures). Lectures are just reading off slides that are 100x easier than the assignments. Useless labs that waste time. The professor has a god complex in every aspect of the course. Crazy that he still teaches at USC.

Disregard this page if you're considering taking this course because: 1. Numerous fake reviews have been posted. 2. Negative reviews from students are often reported and removed by RMP. Instead, consult friends who have taken the course for accurate insights. The course itself is worthwhile, but keep in mind that it will be largely self-taught.

1. Lots of homeworks. Homework 3 and 4(Web and mobile app) takes huge amount of time to finish. 2. This course use Angular to do homework, which is a old framework and no longer popular. They allow students to use React to do homework. but do not give any help or support to students using React. 3. Exams are irrelevant to any lectures and homeworks

lectures incredibly boring teaching style puts me to sleep.

very obvious that he wants to make students' lives harder and not easier; only thinks about himself and has a god-complex

Probably the worst CS professor you'll have in your USC career. Never knew of a prof who hated his students more than him (which makes me question why is does this)

absolute trash

i never took his class nor am I a CS Major but he made my girlfriend sad 1/5

Intellectually stifling

Papa is so condescending and rude mostly on discussion board and does not provide meaningful feedback on assignments; the TAs do the heavy lifting. His lectures are mind-numbing which is why so many people don't go. He is also unwilling to listen to students' opinion when it comes to incorrect quiz answers. Third assignment is also very difficult

Why is USC's CS curriculum no match for those at other prestigious schools? Just look at what this professor is teaching and you'll understand.

Fun fact: Most of my sports parlays were made in this class. If you are taking 3 other somewhat hard classes, be ready to be in absolute hell when you have a midterm, final project code, and a hard assignment all due for this class in two weeks. Lectures are a snooze fest. I'm falling asleep writing this. I wouldn't wish this class on anyone.

This class was incredibly frustrating. When students asked questions, they were either dismissed or given vague answers. The grading felt arbitrary, and there was little feedback on assignments. I didn't feel like I learned much, and I wouldn't recommend this class unless you absolutely have to take it.

I never took his class but he made my gf cry so immediate 1/5 (This is my second rating)

never take his course

The grading in this class is pretty arbitrary. From what I know, several students couldn't graduate because of it. If you're trying to graduate on time, DO NOT take this course.

I never took this, but 4 of my roommates did, believe me when I say their life was living hell for the whole semester This prof just gives insane amount of HW and project with literally 0 support from side His replies on Piazza is extremely rude. Jist? Don't take 571 under prof Papa

Horrible professor. Constantly changing assignment requirements/details AFTER they've been posted on Piazza (not a single assignment where he didn't have to make 10 clarifications or adjustments to the original instructions). Disorganized lectures, rude on Piazza (fought w/ student, student backed sources, Marco's source was ChatGPT). P easy grade

Countless significant and sudden changes of assignment requirements around the deadline. Very rude in Piazza posts. Useless and Outdated materials. Terribly time-consuming assignments especially the last one. Uses ChatGPT to back his argument and argue against students.

AVOID THIS COURSE. Lectures are unhelpful, assignments are very heavy, and questions often go unanswered or asked in return with rudeness. HW Instructions, rubrics, and samples often conflict. Grading is inconsistent with given rubrics and unfair (lost 10 points when a part sums up to 4 points in rubrics), with no chance for regrade in clear cases.

Nice Course Material. Worst Professor

Class was a joke. Professor is a joke. Never went to class once because this guy is hands down THE worst lecturer you can ever have. Before going into his exams, buy a lottery ticket because exams are not standardized. Some questions may be a simple T/F and others will have you bringing out your inner Sherlock to decipher Marco Papa's wording.

Lot to say but rather not say

Papa admits to reading this page,I suspect most of the good reviews are by him. Be warned: you pay 9,000 to do a project by yourself . You might as well Google old projects and do them in your free time or just find similar stuff around web, no difference. He's always finding excuses to punish people and thinks he's Steve Jobs.

say no more

Do not rely on this page if you want to take a course with Papa. This page is unreliable: 1. Papa asks his TAs to write positive comments here. 2. Negative reviews are reported by him to be removed by RMP. Ask students who have taken a course with him

this class is really bad. the slides especially. this class needs a revamp badly.

Don't trust the scores on RMP. Must say it's a very odd distribution of ratings where there are almost the same number of 1's as 5's and 2's as 4's. Some might say someone has their thumb on the scale. All in all just plain avoid. Cheating on assignments is rampant and no way to prep for the exams aside from asking previous students.

Fabricated reviews.

This professor fabricates reviews on his RMP. Check the distribution. Don't trust the reviews. This guy is not the best professor. He's seen his RMP. He's not understanding. His exams are made by AI. He's extremely reliant on it. He also has bit of an ego. He will not appeal to any emergency circumstances either.

I dont see the point of this course. There's nothing new to learn everything has been taught in undergrad. The grading is so bad , for a subject which is implementation heavy the marking is exam heavy which makes absolutely no sense.

This is a self-study course and only your concern to lose your tuition by not passing the course would motivate you to learn. Also, I don't understand only students are subject not to use AI in answering exam but the instructor can use AI to design questions? Don't take the course if your expectation is a good prof who will teach you.