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Not a bad teacher, sometimes unclear, but responds well to questions

Very thorough prof -- maybe too thorough for 285, but would be good for 384/484

will explain stuff again and again until you get it,not a bad prof,a little hard

Really hard course. You get it or you don't. Smid's a good guy though, but for this course you're on your own, it's just hard to teach people this stuff.

Algorithm sure is not an easy course. But he is the kindest prof I've ever seen. He is always happy to answer questions, although that cost him one extra hour.

He repeats the content of the course directly from the book. His examples are from it as well. Good for one-on-one questions affter class.

gave a clear note. But I don't like the course that he teach

Assignments were a little tricky, but otherwise pretty easy. Smart guy, extremely systematic and rigourous. Focused on big picture. Best CS prof I've ever had.

Good prof, assignments and classes are easy but the exam was INSANE, nothing like assignments

The class itself was excellent. His notes and lectures were clear and he gave plenty of examples. Unfortunately the final SUCKED. Otherwise, I'd take another course with him.

I honestly don't think people appreciate this guy until they've taken a course with someone else. You're not going to find someone better at teaching this material. He's a little boring, but he teaches you all the important material in a way that anybody can understand. I highly recommend him.

He is simply the best prof for these classes. He will teach you what you need to know in a very easy and understanding way. Highly recommended! A+++

He kick's ass

Really good prof. Good explanation. If you make notes in class you definitely do not have to by a book. If you come to his office hours he will help a lot and explain everything.

I had him for my "Theory of Computation" class as well as my COMP1805 class. He's a really good prof, and his accent isn't so bad (in fact i think it improves the teaching experience lol). He teaches stuff in a nice and slow way to make sure everyone understands and gives enough examples. Recommended prof

Very easy to understand, makes everything easier, really good notes

One of the best professors here; his teaching style exhibits that all-to-rare quality of being very precise, extremely thorough, and yet somehow not boring or coma-inducing. You really feel like you know something you didn't know before when you finish. His penchant for early morning classes result in his lectures being criminally under-attended

Clear, precise, thorough. Amazing hand-written notes with lots of examples. Smid makes a good grade in a hard course seem perfectly attainable.

very clear and concise teaching style. Classes are amazing, although you can learn most of the stuff from his notes. Goes through everything nice and slow so no-one is left behind. Extremely helpful when you ask for it during his office hours.

Clear & thorough. Slight accent can be humorous. Had very good TA's. Don't need the textbook.

Awesome proffessor, I will see him in 2805

A good prof

Awesome prof, amazing lecture.

Amazing

He simplifies a tough subject and provides a comprehensive, detailed and structured outline of what he's going to teach in each class, ahead of time. He's helped write 3 books (one of which is the course textbook, which he provides for free) and has helped author about 200 journal articles and conference papers. Approachable and helpful. 1010.

Amazing!

Awesome prof! I didn't go to many of his lectures but his clarity in what was needed to pass and expected of students is unparalleled. I got told he replaces the exam with the midterm, not true. Hence the A- :)

Michiel Smid is very good at explaining things. His assignments are hard, going to TA office hours of his office hours is pretty much necessary unless you are really good at math-based courses. A tutorial in 2804 would be nice to have. Also, he is quite a funny guy.

Excellent professor. Provides help if you need it, and does a good job at breaking down difficult concepts

Fantastic prof but tough material. He is very knowledgable about the subject but he teaches PRINCIPLES through examples so get ready to do some of the work yourself on assignments and going to TAs is pretty much a given. Great prof tho and very fair and quickly replies to emails.

If you plan on a part-time semester, this is a perfect course to squeeze in as it's very time demanding. For notes: copy his chalkboard work during lectures. Grade is based on 4 assignments + midterm + final. TA hours are crucial to solving assignments. Midterm and final very similar to past ones which he posts + their solutions: best way to study.

If you don't understand anything see Smid immediately during his office hours, hardly anyone does. Assignments can be tough but there not worth much, so don't fret if you do badly. Learn and do well on the midterm and final. The TA's are helpful, specifically Alexa. If your close to a pass/fail Smid is more likely to try to pass you then fail you.

Great professor - he's a great lecturer and is very thorough with his explanations. Attending his class is almost a must if you can't grasp the material by yourself. I found the assignments to be hard but the exams weren't too bad if you studied previous ones (he posts all of them)

Great lecturer, great textbook written by him. Assignments and tests fair. You can survive with just the textbook and skipping class.

Fantastic professor, hard course. You could probably get away with just using the textbook. He writes the textbook and teaches out of it, but you should go to hear his explanation.

Make sure to show up to class otherwise you won't do so good. The textbook is honestly useless, its vague and doesn't explain things very well. The textbook was written in such a way that its supplementary to the lecture notes, not vice versa. Otherwise Michiel is a good prof and provides all his previous midterms/assignments to students to study

Professor Smid is excellent at providing and explaining the material, but you have to go to class to understand it. Reading his free book is good to understand what he says in class but it's not enough to study solely on that. Assignments are challenging but going to TA office hours really helps. All his past exams and assignments online.

I initially hated this course but you'll realize how important it is to computer science. Its a tough course so ask Dr. Smid for help. If he sees you putting the effort he'll literally show you how to solve the problems. He's basically a knowledgeable grandfather, the issue is class size you must speak up. He doesn't know who is struggling.

Prof. Smid is a real gem in SCS. He was able to explain very abstract thing in a language easy to understand by a normal human, which was very helpful every time I attended his lecture. Although a small portion of the homework was very difficult if you wanted to come up with all the things on your own. TA was very helpful and I wanted to say thanks

Attendance wasn't mandatory but I'd highly recommend it. the notes were very good. the assignments were VERY HARD and the final was fair.

Smid is an amazing prof. I think the reason why people may not give him a high rating is that his course is TOUGH. But he delivers the material very well and is fair/straight forward in his assignments/tests. He even lets you take your midterm/final with you home and releases the answer key right after. Awesome prof.

Reasons why you should take a Smid course: 1. Quick Review of previous class every lecture. 2. Uses chalkboard which allows notes to be visible for longer 3. Clear breakdowns of problems 4. Puts his own textbook online for free 5. Posts assignment and test solutions VERY soon after the due date for personal review

The midterm/final are multiple choice, and each has 12 practice ones. Go to lectures, know how to solve the logic, do about 10 of the practices and you'll get basically perfect on both, which is 75% of your mark. 25% is assignments, mostly easy and its logic no formal proofs. GREAT course, if you get him don't switch.

Great prof, highly recommended. His teaching style and organization really shines in COMP3804 and you actually end up learning something. The course itself is difficult and he does his best to make the concepts understandable. If you need to take COMP3804 I highly recommend prof Smid. Make sure to attend all lectures!

People may think he's a tough prof because the class material is very tough, but he teaches you exactly what you need to know to succeed. Also, he always let us take our exam with us after and would release the answers right after so you would know right away what you got, which is the best. Extremely fair prof, accent might tough sometimes

In this course, Michiel provides a very interesting introduction to the rigorous, formal theory of computation. The semester was online and he posted recordings well in advance of the class date. Assignments are honestly pretty easy and he gives old exams for practice. Very caring professor who will not hesitate to help you outside of class; a gem.

Professor Smid is one of THE best lecturers at Carleton. The concepts he teaches can be quite complex but he does an excellent job of explaining them in ways easy to understand. Professor Smid always provides practice exams AS WELL AS solutions. Smidposted the lectures for the entire course at the beginning of the sem - a great help!

Professor Smid made this class really enjoyable and understandable through his lectures, and provides recorded lectures that go at the same pace as live lectures. Really fair assignments that you can apply knowledge from examples covered in class, and he provides previous midterms and exams that were super applicable to the actual tests.

Smid is an amazing professor. 3804 is a very tough course, but he teaches it very well and makes things easy to understand. All lectures are available online. Assignments aren't too bad. Midterm and exam were tough, especially the midterm. But despite the tough exams, I would 1000% recommend taking this course with Smid.

COMP3803 F23. Great professor, teaches really well. Assignments are good but all exams (midterm and final) are MCQ, and theyre worth 25% and 50% respectively, with 18 Q's and 25 Q's respectively. The exams themselves are fair but with this professor you feel like you can learn anything.

Very conversational and laid back prof who also knows what he's doing. Big fan. If you can pay attention in the later lectures despite how abstract it gets, you will be golden. He is deeply methodical and has everything planned out to a T, so dont wait to ask things, because he is teaching things in a specific order, and everything is important.

Professor Smid is very knowledgeable about the content and gives great lectures. He also has recorded lectures available from previous years if you miss a class. 3803 isn't terribly hard for the most part, and the midterm/final exam are very fair. If you put in a decent amount of effort, it's not hard to get a good grade.

pretty cool guy, good question answerer, enjoyable lectures

A gem. Has the schedule set in stone from day one will all the material accessible. Has a good sense of humour and passion for the things he is teaching. Course itself is not hard at all if you even bother with thinking through the assignments and attend lectures. Take the course with him while you have the chance or else you miss on a treasure!

W24. 25% 4 Assignments, 25% Midterm, 50% Final. Midterm and Final are MCQ, and not many questions (17 and 25 respectively). Very good lecturer and teaches well, tests can be hard but fair. Assignments are also good but your grade depends on which TA is grading you because some are tough and some aren't. There's not much practice content for exams

Very reasonable but busy course overall with the professor. Assignments are worth 25% but will take the majority of your time compared to the midterm and exam. Professor has old recordings of lectures so you're not required to show-up and all the content that you are assigned on can be found online. The midterm and exam are MC so you can guess.

Best advice I can give is make sure you're up to date with this class. Smid is such a sweet and nice guy, passionate about what he teaches. Theory heavy and hard course, but if you're up to date and pay attention to every lecture you will pass easily. Again, stay up to date and take notes for all lectures for this class. Smid also teaches clearly:)

Michiel is a great prof, even though 3804 was a tough course. His lectures were amazing, that's basically the best part of the course. There were TA grading inconsistencies that only luck would make you pass. The midterm was tough but the final was okay. Give this prof a nice rating even tho you don't get a good grade!

He had engaging lectures, and made complicated concepts easily understandable.

TAs marking are a hit or miss; you can get an answer correct in an assignment but possibly get half marks. The prof himself is clearly knowledgable and passionate about the course. It's difficult, but that's because it's 3804; not because of Michiel. If you're going to take 3804, take it with this guy.

Great prof, tough course

Prof. Smid is great, concepts were explained perfectly. The only issue is, you have a final that is 25 MCQs, and it is very ease to lose points here, each MCQ is 2%. If the grading scheme was improved, this class would be perfect. The TAs are not that good in all honesty, and they would cut marks for not understanding proofs which is not fair.

The prof was great and taught the course well but just a warning, the TA's are really terrible. They mark very poorly except a select few but if you get unlucky and get certain TA's it's like they're only out to get you. They take off marks for proofs THEY don't understand. Very good prof, only hard thing about the course is the TA's are poor.

The only possible way to get a A+ for comp3804 is to take this prof's 3804, if you ever consider to get a A+.

Course was super hard, but Smid is very good in explaining concepts. I suggest everyone attend his lectures, as only then everything will make sense. Midterm+final were 75% of the course, and were hard! But he upped the final grade by 2% moving some ppl to next letter. Note: beware of TA named Yan. He was the reason many people dropped this term

COMP 3804 is a hard course, and Prof Smid delivered it well, his lectures are very insightful. Only thing to complain was the increase in terms of difficulty level between past years' midterm vs this years. Final was ok, with a balanced distribution of easy and difficulty questions.

Smid is passionate about what he teaches. I love the way that he writes everything on board while explaining (and also provides complete notes beforehand in his website). Past exam papers were beyond helpful. I would recommend solving all the questions from past midterms/finals and learning the logic behind each problem before attempting your exams

COMP3803 is a VERY hard class. However, Prof. Smid does an excellent job at teaching! Very organized: teaches the same way each year, very consistent. The prof teaches on black-board, so no need to worry about "too many notes". I found the prof's teaching method very good, since I am a visual learner, and he does a lot of visual examples. Very kind

Really interesting and fun class. Smid's lectures are fantastic and you can rely on them solely to learn all the material without any other resources or a textbook. Just practice the problem sets ahead of your tests. 100% of your grade is tests/exams, no assignments. My favourite class I've taken in this degree so far.