Professor Phipps is a great teacher who wants his students to do well. HW is a little tough because it was languages that we are not familiar with, but he stayed very late to help students do well. The midterm and final was online. You must attend labs because its 10% of you grade AKA free points!. Overall great guy!!. This guy knows his STUFF!

Phipps is the type of professor that reminds you why you fell in love with this field. He is determined to have all of his students do well and dedicated enough to help them long after the class has ended. He offers career advice and is willing to go over your upcoming course schedule to give recommendations on that as well. This is a great class!

Lectures are modern and current, not from some outdated textbook. Solid grasp of the material and welcomes class participation. (There _is_ chocolate involved.) Assignments are not easy, but not overly difficult. Plenty of opportunity outside class to ask questions and get help. One of, if not _the_, best professor in the department.

Professor Phipps is by far one of the best faculty that the CS Department has to offer. His lecturers are crystal clear, and if you don't understand something, he makes up for it by trying his best to ensure you understand it during office hours. He cares about his students, and he wants them to succeed. His class is difficult if you don't care.

Course was difficult seeing how I didn't program in C ever before this class, but I promise you, he takes the time to explain EVERYTHING in office hours. This is exactly what CSI students need. I would definitely take another course with him due to his pride in helping students. Best teacher I have ever had and my favorite.

A lot of people complained about this class this semester but I don't see why. No one that handed in all assignments failed. He graded all assignments VERY LENIENTLY. The first two assignments aren't bad and you just have to spend some time on the VM but you have 3-4 weeks. Visit office hours or email him when you're stuck on the VM.

Super fun guy with A LOT of knowledge to offer. Go to office hours, get to know him and you will do fine. He does expect a lot from students in terms of understanding topics, but he really does want students to learn the topics and make every class interesting. Can be difficult, but he is almost always available and wants to help.

I failed this class and still cannot wait to attend his lectures. This guy is a very good teacher and also takes input from students on how he can improve his lectures and assignments. He is clear in his explanations and sprinkles in self deprecating humor. Honestly he is one of the better professors but will not allow you to slack or cheat!

He did grade things the last minute. He is probably one of the best professors. Took his 404 last semester. We had a class of about 60-70 people, really only 10 students would come to class. Those who didn't come to class were the ones who got C's or D's and then complained about how rough he was. VM really wasn't bad, honest and knowledge!

Phipps knows what he teaches well. All work he assigns he does first ahead of time to make sure it is doable. There are four projects that do build on top of each other, but as long as you give them the time needed they won't pose a problem. He is very open to questions on material you may have difficulty understanding.

Phipps was one of the best professors I've ever had. He has a great sense of humor and makes the content interesting and fun. There's only a few projects and a final so the grades for those really count. He has a reputation of being more difficult but honestly as long as you stay on top of everything and reach out if you're stuck you should be OK

This semester, he wrote new assignments for the class. They often lacked detail/explanations and were hard to understand. I found myself emailing him once a week to get clarification on the assignment. The lecture material focused more on the purpose of the class rather than the assignments. He's always available to help if you need it.

Really good professor for 311 and 333. Both classes very heavily project focused where each built upon another. Once you get what the topic is about, its really hard to get lost. Professor was always reachable by email (even at 1am) so if you have any questions or want more test cases, he'll give them to you. Lectures were interesting too.

If you're not passionate about computer science you'll struggle with him. He's incredibly verbose and teaches a lot of details of things you might not understand but can be a bit difficult to follow on broader topics. A lot of students dont like him because he isnt the best outside of class but in class you couldnt ask for a better lecturer.

I took two classes with Professor Phipps, and honestly he's very straight forward. He gives good feedback, always available during his office hours and if not, email him and he'll schedule a time with you. He's a very understanding professor and does his best to help if you want help. Class can be difficult, but he's here to help. GO TO OFFICE HOUR

Phipps is an odd teacher. He loves what he's teaching and its so clear to everyone who actually shows up. If you show you care even the littlest bit he will go above and beyond for you. His assignments are super hard to understand so that's where most of the work is. But if you talk to him he truly is the gold standard of teachers at this school.

compared to my other CS prof Amir. I feel like I get more out of this class. Phipps did a good job with 311. I feel proud of my interpreter. feels like I learned alot and got alot out of this class

Professor Phipps is a wonderful lecturer. He cares about his students and you end up getting a project to put on your resume. His projects are built on top of each other and are easy to understand. He helps students during office hours and replies to emails super quickly. Definitely is the best professor in the whole department. Would take again.

One of the best professors at UAlbany in CompSci. If you get a chance to take his classes, do it. You'll learn a ton. Lengthy, in-depth projects with minimal docs but so so good for understanding. Phipps is often free outside of class and always happy to help students who do the hard work. 10/10 would do the class again.

Loved every minute of this class, the class is 85% assignments, but they are all made available from the beginning so during the easier weeks of my other classes I was able to complete all but one of the assignments very early in the semester making my other classes easier. He teaches very practical skills in a very understandable way. 10/10

A king among pawns. Genuinely enthralling to listen to, his research, his work experience, his hot takes about things I don't understand, his humor. Project heavy, expect 2000+ functioning lines written by the end of the semester. As he says, your Java skills will level up. If you care about CS, you will love this. If you don't, you will hate this.

Amazing experience, gives you something very valuable on a portfolio as well as explains concepts very nicely. Quick to respond to any emails or questions you have and most assignments are written decently clearly, with some vagueness here and there. Overall, a really good class and very informative and an intriguing project.

Phipps is one of the best teachers in the computer science department. He really tries to prepare his students for the kind of work that software engineers do on a day-to-day basis. Start projects as soon as you get them or you will get into a depressive endless cycle of despair.

Best the university has to offer.

Phipps is the best teacher I've had here at UAlbany, bar none. You can really tell he genuinely cares about each and every one of his student's and has a palpable passion for teaching CS. I've learned more about coding techniques and larger scale projects from him than anyone else teaching here, take him if you want to learn to code practically.

Not sure why the reviews are so polarized, Phipps is one of the best profs I've had to date. Easy lectures if you actually pay attention. Projects every week that build off of the last week's, time consuming but not all that difficult once you get the hang of it. Passionate about the success of his students. He will make you better!

Phipps is a great professor and one of the best computer science professors at UAlbany, his projects are super hard and take forever to complete, but he is always willing to help and guide you. GO TO HIS OFFICE HOURS, THANK YOU PHIPPS !!

I think he legit changed my life. I was pretty content with being okay at CS and nothing more but Phipps is just like... a walking motivation generator. Ask questions and listen to him talk your ear off. Take as many of his classes as you can as soon as they're offered, go to lectures, shut your blinds and get coding. You will feel weirdly great.

We had to build a lexer, parser and an interpreter over the length of the course, which is split up into weekly projects. The projects were pretty hard to do but its doable if you try hard! Phipps is an amazing CS professor. The best this school has to offer! He wants you to do well in the class as the projects are resume worthy projects!

I had him for both CSI 311 and 333. He is simply the best CS professor in the college. I wish every CS course was taught by him. He will help you improve so much! All his projects are resume worthy projects and will help you succeed in the real world. The projects are pretty long and difficult though. He also gives out chocolate for participating!

Great educator who genuinely cares for his students. His custom-made slides, instead of relying solely on textbooks, greatly enhance the learning experience. While assignments carry significant weight, Professor Phipps is always available to provide support. He has a talent for making complex topics enjoyable, sparking a genuine desire to learn.

Honestly, I don't see how Professor Phipps has all these bad reviews. Maybe it is because the students do not put in the effort and do their work on time? He is an amazing professor who helps his students and is caring; the grading is self-explanatory and project heavy. There was no midterm and the final is questions from the slideshows.

Great guy, absolutely pointless and unnecessarily hard course. No reason why this is a required course to pass the major, i had to take it thrice and i still barely made it. This with straight A's in other courses.

This class is hard, but by the end of them you have a deep understanding of all the taught theory because you actually implemented it. By the end of it, you have a project that looks good on a resume.

While some of the theory can be hard, the projects (which make up a majority of the grades) are easy if you pay attention/participate in class. Phipps' 404 is a great introduction to assembly by having you implement a very rudimentary assembly language.

Phipps' is extremely knowledgeable about computer systems, and is very good at conveying that knowledge via weekly labs and 4 projects.

I am surprised to see so many low ratings. His class is tough and if you fall behind you will likely not be able to catch up but there are few courses where I got as much practical programming experience as this one.

Professor Phipps' classes are really hard but also fair, and I learned A LOT with him. With the exception of poor TA grading (I usually had to email a grade dispute to Prof. Phipps for many assignments), you should always be able to get good marks on all assignments as long as you start them a bit early.

A passionate professor. Sometimes he rants during lecture, especially towards the end of the semester, but the rants always teach more about the topic, and he always hits all the content required to do the homework. Assignments build upon a single project skeleton (so make sure you don't end up behind) but he is forgiving and gives late days.