He is the smartest guy in IS department, I guess. But he is the worst teacher in IS department.

He will sit in his chair and play on the computer the entire class. He sends around the lab assistant to help you if you have problems. He is such a loser. If you are not an IS major, he simply won't like you. He does nothing but brag about how intelligent he is and how he and his wife got their Phd. He should not be teaching at BYUI!

He really knows his stuff. But has no idea how to teach.

Very confusing, would answer questions with a question. I learned more from my lab partners then from him.

Brother McLaughlin is a complete genius. He is the smartest person I've ever met. Sadly, that doesnt translate to teaching ability. You will be completely lost in this class unless you have a solid prior knowledge. I learned more in a 6 hour lynda course than I did in a month of going to class. The lab aides basically teach the class. What a joke!

2 Tests, 4 quizzes, 2 labs per week.

He doesn't always respond to questions and, when he does respond, it's always something cryptic that only adds to the confusion. The textbook is useless for the labs but necessary for the quizzes; the quizzes only exist to make us buy McLaughlin's book which doesn't seem ethical to me. There is not always enough time given to complete the exams.

Brother McLaughlin knows everything there is to know about databases. Unfortunately, he does not know how to teach it clearly and simply. His lectures drone on while he asks questions you couldn't possibly know the answer to and so he immediately answers it. The labs and assignments required over five hours every week, and the tests are ridiculous.

Horrible teacher. He's rude and arrogant. He asks you questions you he knows you don't know the answer to so he can answer for you. He curves when everyone fails to make it look better for him. He'll offer to help you one on one and then won't show.

If you're a computer science major and this is an elective, just don't take this class. It is plain awful. Brother McLaughlin is the worst explainer and wants to show off mostly. He doesn't even notify when he is absent. Some of his in-class TAs also have very condescending attitudes and enjoy humiliating the students in class.

The readings and homework don't have anything to do with eachother so you're just guessing and failing. I taught myself SQL on codeacademy to prep myself for this. it didn't help. He is clearly on the autism spectrum, that's fine, but due to it he lacks the soft skills to make... sense. questions are blown off and he doesn't stay on topic. big ego.

Assignments and the final project come with almost zero instruction. No examples on what it should look like so this entire class is theory and "hope this is right". You will work in groups so with your powers combined you might be able to come up with something.

Brother McLaughlin is a great guy who would do anything to help you, but with that being said he is a horrible teacher. Nothing of what he says makes any sense and get ready to consecrate your Tuesday and Thursday evenings to lab for the entire semester. The TA's know nothing but the answers McLaughlin gave them and don't help you learn the content

All class work is extremely time consuming and yet completely redundant come finals. Labs that will take you 10 hours to complete contribute just 45 points to your overall grade, then a 50Q vocab exam at the end of the course over content never before touched on in class is worth 100 points. The class was a "required" waste of my time.

Each three class at BYU-Idaho is intended to have 120 hours worth of work. Nearly all of that in CIT225 is on ludicrous labs that do not teach SQL. For example, instead of learning DDL statements, you spend four weeks copying SQL files and appending _lab to table names. This takes hours. That time could be spent elsewhere actually learning SQL.

The labs in his class are straight forward, but if you have one error on a lab, his pet TA will give you an F on the assignment and the error will carry over into future lab assignments and you'll get F's on those assignments too. Asking for help? They'll tell you the answer is in the bottomless reading that is sometimes available on the website

The reading is not even remotely linked to the lab assignments. The Lab instructions are vague and difficult to understand. The grading criteria appears to be arbitrary.

The class reading assignments are irrelevant to the class lab assignments. The class uses Oracle SQL, which is an obscure and arcane variant of SQL, making online resources useless. The lab assignment instructions are confusing to the point of near impossibility.

Terrible class. Brother McLaughlin has one of the worst designs for learning that I have ever seen. The entire class is graded on labs and you learn absolutely nothing from them. The first labs are just typing _lab everywhere and the instructions are so vague. Literally the labs will just say, "In this step make this file work with the other ones."

He does not dumb anything down for the first database class. Instructions for all labs make no sense. I am generally not picky about professors but He really makes this class way more difficult than it should be. I learn more about DBS through youtube and w3schools than through his labs or lectures. Dumb it down Mclaughlin, we arent DBS gurus.

Terrible doesn't even begin to describe it. He is very knowledgeable about Linux and its various commands, but he's terrible at teaching. Each class period turns into him showing off rather than teaching. He expects too much from his students, especially for an introductory course to Linux. I will never take another course from him if I can help it

Even the faculty will tell you that Bro. McLaughlin is the most unnecessarily difficult teacher. A genius in his field, but not a good teacher in the slightest. I got more extra credit than should have been possible and still barely got an A because so much of your grade comes from difficultly worked quizzes and arbitrarily graded papers.

He has impressive credentials and is one of the most knowledgable professors I've had. He wrote two patents that are owned by Oracle. That said, he is extremely condesending and has absolutely no skills in teaching. Asks students for answers to questions they don't understand. Also, a little creepy. I read the textbook and am passing fine. Avoid!

He's the worst professor ever. He does not know how to teach. Set up an appointment with him and he ended up never showed up. It's hard to communicate with him. His lectures are horrible. Have no idea what he's lecturing even though I come prepared with all the reading assignments. Highly NOT recommend him if you are taking CIT225.

Heaven help anyone that doesn't already understand advanced SQL. He brags a lot about all that he's done in the industry but that does NOT transfer to the class/lectures/coursework/quizzes or ANYTHING. I would avoid him like the plague.

This dude created the hardest incoherent quiz ever. Students are failing left, right and center. People hardly score good on the quizzes because they have nothing to do with the reading. It's like playing a tricky game that you will never learn anything from. I don't know who told him making the quiz super incoherent is a great idea.

If you are studying Computer science please don't ever take this class. The weekly quizzes have nothing to do with the reading. This means you are set for failure no matter how you try. The quizzes are hard to understand, doesn't help you learn SQL and are unnecessarily frustrating.

Brother McLaughlin is terrible at lecturing and rarely maintains a topic for more than 30 seconds before ranting. His grading policy work only to screw students at the end. He has an unnecessary amount of homework and uses Prayers and Devo's as an incentive to get better grades. He takes himself too seriously and acts as if he's the god of DBs.

He will speak over your head most of the time and ask questions you don't know the answer to; he ends up answering his own questions. You will need to read the book to understand material. Knows a lot about SQL, but is not good at teaching. He will give answers to exercises. Passing because of learning the material requires much effort.

Horrible. He has absolutely 0 understanding of how to write in a way that actually makes sense to students, leaving LITERALLY 95% of the students asking over & over for clarification. It is absolutely ridiculous. His curriculum should be dumped & completely re-written. Good luck to every CIT major, as you can't avoid his class. Thanks BYU-I.

While I didn't take this class with Mr. Mclaughlin he wrote the book and the course and it is distributed to all students at BYUI and it is terrible!!! The expectation is 900 pages read by week one with no prior coding knowledge of Oracle or VMware. Week 7 and 8 labs are both 900 line code. RIDICULOUS!!!