He's not the worst lecturer on the planet but he has no idea how to run a class. Office hours are constantly backed up and he provides almost no help to students on the forum, telling them to just re watch the lessons even though the solutions aren't there. He also scheduled the most difficult MP of the semester during exam week.

Lectures are fine but all prerecorded, and honestly professor is not understanding at all of student responsibilities and life. As someone who has already taken 225, the material/mps are a breeze but it still irks me how poorly run this course is and the professor seems a bit narrowminded in his approach towards teaching and interacting w students

Heavy MPs, incompetent professor. He changed the deadline early 4 hours of "checkpoint" of MPs without any form of notification just because his student asked him why the deadline of the checkpoint is different from normal assignments. His lectures are also boring, feeling lucky that I know most of the course materials and not watching his lectures

His class, CS 128 is run abysmally. No support whatsoever. Office hours (for later MPs) are a 3-4 hour wait and often the queue is just closed. Forum answers are helpful at times, but is a slow and clumsy way to communicate, like email. The professor, from my experience, is old fashioned in his teaching approach and not willing to change.

Terrible professor

Good luck with his 5 - 9 lessons (each lesson with 30 - 60 minutes videos and with multiple choice questions or coding homework), 1 quiz (varies from 20 to 40 lines of code, and maybe out of contents), 1 lab(at least 30 lines of code) and 1 MP(varies from 100 lines to 400 lines of code) every week!

I would say avoid him at all cost but you likely won't have a choice. It's a required class and you basically have to teach yourself everything through the videos. Don't expect to get help since at least half the time the queue is frozen as ice and on top of that there are rules on when you can and can't go to office hours

This class is an absolute waste of time, and I am not sure how he was able to get his job. There are too many lectures, the MP's are straight up ridiculous and interfere in my time to do many other things. For a CS major, I am worried for my career and my future due to this absolute nonsense of a class.

The class is structured so atrociously shit. He chooses to make students lives a pain in the ass by not including make files and starter code. The lessons are at times poorly worded. There’s literally no sense of community in the class. MPs are unnecessarily long and vague. It's many aspects of this class that make it absolutely dreadful.

Avoid at all costs. Run. I mean it, run. If you can't, make sure you're already a C++ expert by the time the course starts. Otherwise, MPs will take up all day every day, TAs are both hard to access and a lot of them are as confused as you are, and the professor's only advice is to watch his videos, which are super long, and unhelpful. Good luck

This class has a far too intense workload for a 3 credit hours.

One of the worst teachers I've had in 3 years. Needlessly difficult. Incredible load for no reason. If he ever gets a class outside of CS128 -- AVOID. Sorry if you're stuck with him.

The lecture system is abysmal and hard to follow many times. Course work is also way higher than typical classes and the assignments are often confusing or redundant. This class is basically impossible for beginner cs students.

For an intro to computer science two class the workload is insane. It's crazy to think the current iteration of the class is a reduced workload version of the pilot offering last year. The time sink this three credit hour class has become has been mind boggling.

Completely outdated 90's teaching style. Unhelpful TAs.

Lecture every day & 4+hrs Lab & 10+hrs MP & 1hrs Quiz = 3 hrs credit

poor explanation. lots of workload

Huge workload for a 3 credit hour intro class. Average 1 hour of lecture video a day. Daily homework lessons, weekly labs, weekly projects that take 10+ hours average. On top of that a weekly quiz. Far too much work for a 3 credit hour intro class.

It must be so easy to have your class be all prerecorded lectures and CAs teaching the actual content while you do nothing all day

Bruh too much workload and overly hard for beginners of C++. Not everyone is a pro here and he expects people to know so much about computer science and his explanation is just terrible and unhelpful and I am just not sure what I am listening to everyday.

Way too much work given just for an introductory course. The content is mundane and makes me lose my interest in the subject.

All lectures are pre-recorded and has made no attempt to optimize them. Quite monotonous in tone and relies on CAs to do the actual teaching. Having had lots of prior coding experience (but no C++), this class was unnecessarily difficult. Get Ready for: 1 Hour Daily Lectures, Daily Homework Problem, Weekly Quiz, Lab, and MPs

omg it's my first time learning bfs and dfs, and I have to write a huge MP during my midterm week...

Terrible. Probably not even a day where I didn't have a panic attack doing the MPs. He has no consideration for students' mental health, and the amount of work he gives is absurd. DON'T TAKE.

His handwriting is so badddd

I'm sure he's a great professor -- he clearly gets excited in his videos from last semester. Is he good at constructing a class? No, the load is absurd. Is he caring for his students? Well, kind of. He answers questions in a forum, and you can email him regarding private manners. Does he hold office hours? No, other undergraduate students do that.

For a 3 credit hour class, Nowak assigns at least 45 minutes of lectures each day with a hw problem along with it that can take a long time sometimes. Labs are like a mini MP with a lot of work. The MP can vary in difficulty with some taking a couple days and some can be finished in a couple hours. TLDR: Too much work for a 3 hour class

tooooo many stutters to understand. The logic is also awful. sometimes find it difficult to recognize the accent. too much workload to make. even worse than finding a free online class.

I do not recommend taking this class with this professor over the summer. The lectures are long and monotone so you can't focus during them. The instructions for the MPs are so confusing and I have had to go to office hours almost every single day to fully understand what is expected of us. He doesn't explain well and is very confusing.

Could've taught the class so much nicer & better. Absolute moron.

not the best teacher

Sadly, I think this has the potential to be a really good class. It's just too much work. Prepare to spend a full week hacking through an MP, and just when you finish, get handed another one. On top of 40ish min lectures (with homework qs) 6 days a week. I'm growing as a programmer but prepare for WAY more than a 3 credit workload.

too hard for entry-level, 40hr work for people not with strong cs background. prof. is too arrogant,

They got rid of a ton of the course from last semester and somehow the class is still incredibly demanding. It requires well over 20-30 hours per week to complete the weekly MPs. It would be enjoyable if not for the constant stress caused by this class. At least the content is interesting...

A really bad lecturer and bad hand writing:) Don't expect to learn anything from his lecture:)

very bad experience

Beware of this class. Only if you have an aptitude for CS, take it. Prof. Nowak is very demanding, his lectures contain his doctor-like handwriting and the MP's are a task.

The professor's handwriting is terrible. It's better to self-study all the stuff of C++ elsewhere rather than watch his video. MP is a little bit tricky and time-consuming. The course content is important but you should expect to learn most it while doing your MP.

professor doesn't exist, help site is horrible and half the time i attended office hours the ta would tell me to just look it up and then leave immediately after i waited 30 mins to 2 hours to talk to someone unfortunate that this class is a prereq to take other better classes

As someone who got a 105% in every MP and 100% on very homework (hence not lazy), I hated this course. Content for what should be taught is genuinely interesting, but Nowak can't teach at all. Course consists of videos from 2 years ago which are very confusing. Nowak is more obsessed with Texas A&M then wanting his students to succeed.

Nowak's CS 128 course is bad. Each week's MP cover much more than what the lectures cover, which would be fine if the office hours (which are the only source of help allowed) did not have a one hour queue at best. CS 128 is understaffed and asks too much of students without giving them the proper means to succeed.

Too much homework with confusing lecture, double confusing. The teacher is confusing, i am confusing and the entire class is just confusing.

Michael Nowak is not good teacher. I am not exaggerating when I say that ChatGPT explains basic computer science better than him. Quote me on that and put it in a headline, because it's true. I wish I could explain more but I have a character limit, but trust me. There were times were his teaching was so off I genuinely thought he was trolling.

nothing to say

Howdy Welcome Back!

This is definitely a 4 credit hour class in case of workload, so manage your schedule wisely before taking that. Even Professor Nowak cannot understand what he wrote in the lecture sometimes, so treat Google/ Stack Overflow, etc. as your professor instead of him. Don't be expected to even get into office hours if an MP deadline is approaching!

Prof. Nowak made a PRODUCT "CS128" and quit his interest to teach (and still gets paid). Outdated lectures (2 years old) and its purely ran by TAs. Other profs covid online lectures BUT still have live lectures as they're PASSIONATE about teaching and supporting a thriving learning environment. Sad a pivotal course is awfully structured/taught.

use GPT or google as your teacher instead of him,

Why is this 100 level class?

The videos are from years ago and the class structure is the opposite of engaging.

His handwriting is like worms. GPT explains a lot better than his teaching. MPs are very hard with tons of instructions. Discussion might be useful if your TA is experienced since it's a good opportunity to ask questions on MP. The difficulty level of this course matches a 300-level course.

The course website crashed, and he firstly only agreed to postpone that day's lesson by a mere day, instead of extending the deadline for the assignments due that day. The teaching is completely illogical, far inferior to the professors of course 124.

Prof Nowak is terrible in explaining concepts. I know it crucial in cs to learn concepts by searching stuff online, but tbh the rate of learning from Prof Nowak is surprisingly low compared to that of cs124.

Awful video, Awful writing, Awful Professor

it's WAY more than 3 credit hours. lecture videos are outdated, boring and don't teach how to apply logic. graded hw lessons have 1 opportunity to earn full marks. MPs are a huge jump from lesson hws. the TAs are carrying this class while nowak uploaded his videos years ago with unreadable handwriting. the worst class, huge letdown from 124

Lecture videos are outdated and do not explain concepts properly, lecture activities do not supplement videos in any meaningful way, and CBTF quizzes and MPs are such a massive stes up in difficulty from lectures that I am convinced they are designed so that students cannot do them.

There's a scene in every Spiderman movie where he has to choose between his hero-ing and his personal life, and for the low, low price of taking this course, you too can recreate this experience (Only, with less noble justification and even more sleepless nights).

Wish I had this guy's job. Record a few videos 5 years ago and sit and do nothing while TAs try to make sense of the MPs that are way beyond the average level of skill of students. Outdated and terrible quality lecture videos, MPs are unsolvable without lots of help, and terrible experience overall.

I had a major family emergency where one of my parents was in the hospital and I had to miss ten days of school, but Nowak did nothing to accommodate this, despite offering to give proof of the hospital stay. This, combined with his terrible teaching style made me fall too far behind to continue in the course. Congrats on weeding me out.

I could not understand what he wrote sometimes, it seemed like chicken scratch. Additionally, this class seemed pretty difficult as the MPs were tough, but rewarding. The concepts are not very hard to understand but the notes he use makes it much more difficult than it should have been. Btw, the notes he uses are video lectures from the pandemic.

There's a reason why comments and thumbs downs are disabled on his youtube channel

Very bad course, outdated videos, machine projects that are more difficult than the level of the course. Since it's a required class and you don't have any choice, you're forced to take it.

Dr. Nowak was awful. I ended up dropping the class in the first few weeks after taking a quiz that did not work in the CBTF and he rudely told me, "you got the grade you deserved". Just inconsiderate. The limited time I had in the course was also bad; his handwriting is atrocious and his videos are way old. I know some have to take it but be aware.

He is boring. The lectures are long and not interesting at all. It really takes away from the fun of the class. The MP guidance is pretty bad because they can't accommodate that many people in the queue. So you're on your own. It's so isolating taking this class case its online. I don't know why this class even did so well. Should scrap

It's hard to learn anything from the course because he just throws videos at you and doesn't care to summarize what you've learned or answer questions. I once posted a brief forum question on why the answer to a question was correct, and he said, "Just go to office hours." (Yea, like I would actually waste my time to ask such a brief question)

Class isnt that hard but the MPs take a while. Professor looks like a twink ngl and his videos are pretty useless hes terrible at explaining. 124 was set up mcuh better

Lectures are comprised of low quality youtube videos that don't get the point across. Would've been better to just provide the links to popular coding youtubers.

i actually have no idea whats going on in the class ://

(Bi)weekly MPs take at least 10 hours; daily lessons re-use videos from the pandemic with overly long explanations; discussion sessions are unhelpful; biweekly tests are hard to debug and contain tough 50-point questions that test skills irrevalent to the focus of the daily lessons; DO NOT RECOMMEND FOR ANYONE WITHOUT PRIOR C++ EXPERIENCE

Dr. Nowak is inconsiderate when it comes to the use of the testing software, making CS128 a nightmare. I was putting in efforts to do well, finding the MPs and projects enjoyable, but there is no late policy for lessons, just an automatic 0. I lost almost all of the points over 1 line of code in 1 question in a quiz, and tanked my grade.

online lectures everyday, with low-quality teaching videos. And there's no textbook or outline, so you have to watch the videos if you want to make sure you master all the knowledge needed. Machine Problems are assigned biweekly. It's not that hard, but the problem description is just so long and unnecessary (about 3000-4000 words)

This class is a living nightmare. His outdated videos from the pandemic suck at teaching you new content, and the recitations are incredibly useless. The quizzes are atrocious and are the worst part of the class. One question accounts for about 50-70% of a quiz, and it won't matter if you study or not. Take this class only if you enjoy suffering.

Pros: Nice intro to C++ Cons: Lessons are long, low-quality, and time-consuming, he just reads off the slides. It was fine the first few weeks until they switched to video format. Quizzes are a large portion of the grade yet there is almost no clear practice for them. Instead you must spend a HUGE portion of time reviewing those terrible lessons.

I just finished my last MP, and my final grade is about 99 I don't recommend this professor. The lessons are taught by videos. Bad. Hardly any help. Biweekly quiz: 1 coding question can be 50% of the grade, and failing it means only 50% for that quiz. MP(i.e. coding hw):Even worse. Wordy background. Restrictions even on the length of your code

Howdy!! yeah did not like this man

Terrible course, even worse professor. Made the quizzes unreasonably difficult: few coding questions worth half the points on the quiz, 50 minutes is nowhere enough to code and debug and pass all test cases. Videos are long and doesn't get to the point, most of the time reading off the slides and the things. Avoid unless they make the class better.

Lectures are pre-recorded youtube videos without any engagement or effort put into them. Quizzes are insane, accounting for almost half the grade wihout any practice available to study for them. MP's were engaging but often took too much time to complete for a 3 credit hour class.