2.4
Quality3.0
Difficulty5%
Would Retake130
Reviews5%
Would Retake
130
Reviews
Rating DistributionOfficial
5
24
4
12
3
17
2
26
1
51
What Students Say
“No one should choose her”
CS135 - 1.0 rating“boring class with monotone”
CS116 - 2.0 ratingClass Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
73%
Textbook Required
32%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
B+
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Stable
-0.20 avg changeRatings by Course
CS131CS132
5.0
(1)CS003
5.0
(1)CS125
4.8
(4)CS115
3.2
(22)CS230
2.8
(11)Difficulty by Course
ALLCS
5.0
CS131SSDS
5.0
CS132
5.0
130
4.0
CS120
4.0
Reviews (130)
She doesn't know how to explain stuff. Her lectures are not heplfull at all. She
Not the brightest, but explains things well and keeps my interest
wow. cs is NOT her subject....
No Comments
used very good examples, stupid course though
totally unprepared for class - ugh
Easily the worst prof I've ever had
Good prof, notes were helpful/useful, course was stupid though
She managed to confuse even herself when explaining seemingly simple material.
it's all been said: "unprepared for class" & "doesn't know how to explain"
No Comments
Her class makes me wonder if this is kindergarten or university.
No Comments
useless
She is basically a high school teacher
might have been better if it wasn't cs
No Comments
No Comments
No Comments
AHHHH!!! Dont even mention her name :(
Went to 2 of her lectures for the entire term, and I fell asleep in both of them
No Comments
Assignment always confusing. Stupid hard exam question - even TA didn't get it.
run away, run away, you'll regret taking her course
thought she could teach better now with more experience.. she didn't...
it would help if she understood the course before trying to teach it...
No Comments
No Comments
No Comments
Your better off getting a copy of Sam's Teach Yourself Java in 21 days, trust me
Don't expect her OR yourself to understand.
It would be nice if she taught stuff that would be useful on the assignments!
she is extremely hard to understand.... think twice before going to class...
sit in front=get attention, seems she doesn't know much more than the text.
She is ok,
Ugly. Picks on students. Ignorant. Going to class is pointless.
She is the worst prof.Can't explain but expects you to do her hard exams.
Okay prof! Tries to explain the stuff to the best she can
Horrible, would help if she grew a brain and was even semi-decisive
Good prof, but can get confused. Classes are very dry and boring. Easy marker.
Be confused. Be very confused.
Takes stupid random 'class poles' ever 5 minutes. Only the 3 ppl answer. Unclear
She should know how to code in Java before teaching it.
She sometimes just goes on a trip during the teaching period...and a TA just comes and handles the lecture...Woo...
It's an easy course for hose who already know the material - but even she still makes you second guess yourself. Horribly confusing and has such a useless lecture.
Nothing special, but not horrible, either. At times confusing. You could do much worse (e.g., Kates *shudder*).
she sucks so bad
she is okay but i cannot understand what she is talking about
Quite clear and can speak at the level of the students. Addresses student questions until they have been satisfied. Lectures were decent, Practicum well done
I thought Sandy was a good lecturer and was also very helpful for one-on-one questions. Good attitude toward education. Thanks!
She thought she is teaching high school students. She required us to attend class on time. I don't like the way she teaches and she is BORING!!!!! sucks
Horrible instructor!
avoid if you can....that's all i have to say
I found the course itself very easy, and that worked against her in a big way. She felt it important to stress basic programming, which most found obvious. To someone who has never programmed, she might have been a great teacher, but not to myself.
HORRIBLE COURSE. HORRIBLE PROF. avoid if you can!! doesn't explain things well (luckily i had a good TA), tends to favour males, doesn't even have a masters degree. she's a highschool teacher!! AVIOD if possible !!
this former high school teacher sucks big time!!! I can guarantee she is the WORST instructor(not even prof) in this faculty!!!! she treated us like high school kid and we can't be late for class? in the winter time, we had to walk from AL to MC, how can she expect us to arrive on time in 5 mins?!?! WTF! also, she wasn't not helpful at alll!!
I had her for both 131 and 132 and she helped me get really good marks in both- I think her teaching skills are excellent and she really knows how to explain concepts well. Lots of people didn't like her because they didn't understand the underlying concepts which is a question of sheer intellect, so don't rag on her for it. very good overall!!!
I'm not in highschool!! She talks down to her students and can't teach very well at all. The material of this class was so easy, and its embarrassing the way she explains it. She even makes mistakes in the examples she does on the board! MY advice... go straight into 134, or take CS 135... one can learn java from a book!!!
I think she is a very good prof. Helped me understand Java very well, given I have never done programming before.
Despite what people are saying, she is a good prof. I don't know where the 'you can't be late' thing is coming from. She only asked our class that if you do come in late sit at the back so that you don't bother everyone trying to get a seat near the front. Also, her examples were clear, and helpful, and as for her mistakes on the board, they wer
Worst CS prof ever!
She made me hate CS and Java and computers after taking her awful class.
Well lets face it... CS134 is a joke so in terms of how well she teaches... it's probably really in depth. Nothing seemed hard in the course and she did fine teaching it. Not really strict and in all honesty, she definitely did the best with the material given to her :D In my opinion, she was a good professor.
She is not bad. If you know what you are doing, you will be fine. She is just very not precious to look at.
Sandy Graham is clear and concise. People who have been in her class would know that. She is good with her analogies and she makes sure people understand. Speed is fine as well. I had no prior experience in CS but after taking this class with her, I find myself loving it. You won't regret taking her class.
Best teacher ever!!! Honestly!
good teacher
Great teacher, easy to understand, subject is boring but she teaches it well
I found the course very easy, but the lectures gave me little to keep me interested. I often just sat in class and doodled. For CS 115, all the slides are in the course-notes, so I didn't really feel like I needed to pay attention in class. I'd say she's an average prof?not great, but definitely not the worse.
She is not the worse profs. She is fine but sometimes her class can be really boring. But she is definitely better than many average CS profs.
She is not a kind of fast moving professor, but she really pay attention on clarity, giving more attention on things that are really required, and if i see other cs profs, i think she does her job better than most of them.
You can tell she tries to make the class fun, but it's computer science, so can't really blame her when it got dull, which it did. Very clear speaking. Unfortunately, lots of people in the class didn't pay attention and talked constantly during her lectures, and she couldn't command attention like other profs can. But overall, a solid prof for CS
Not bad! Explains in great detail yet a bit boring.
How can ANYONE bash on Sandy? She's the BEST Prof Waterloo has EVER had. :)
Though she teaches at a reasonable pace with clarity, she's one of the more boring CS profs. I went into the course without a CS background, and struggled for the first few weeks because she didn't do an effective job in keeping me engaged in the coursework. I taught myself a month of the course in a weekend, and I'm now on my way to do a CS major.
she is great~Im so happy that i enrolled her class~
The good: She made an effort to make a boring class interesting. She seems like nice person! The bad: Sandy doesn't write notes on the board, so you must attend class and write down what she says or you will probably fail. I didn't find her explanations very clear so I went to office hours... and still had no idea what was going on.
Not bad at teaching, just not experienced enough at uni level maybe...respects all questions and answers 'em well, just gotta keep asking to get the best outa her..You miss a single class, you are gonna get no help unless it's something really specific...
Its either you understand CS right off the bat or you just don't get it at all. Sandy is a great Prof! Clear explanations during lectures. Assignments and Midterm was fair.
Sandy is not clear. She assumes too much, especially of the students who have only taken CS 115 and 116. She doesn't seem to care much about the success of her students, talks down to questions she thinks are obvious, does not like to answer questions. Can give students the stranded feeling, she is not very approachable.
I've taken both CS115 and CS230 with Sandy. She is a great prof who works hard to ensure the material she presents is clear and interesting. Her midterm for 230 was fair, there was one question where we all lost a mark because of poor wording but she agreed not to count the mark after a short respectful discussion in Piazza. A great prof!
Very clear, good pacing, and helpful during office hours. A big advocate for women in CS haha. I recommend her.
should demonstrate more in lectures instead of just presenting the lecture slides.
boring class with monotone
Does not make sense at all. Students come to her lectures because of answering clicker questions. Always talk in monotones and her explanations make students more confused. Avoid her because if you take her CS classes, you will be painful.
Boring class. Just a waste of time taking CS with her. You cannot expect to learn anything valuable.
I managed to get an 85% without any help from her throughout the course. Students attended her lectures only because of the clicker questions. She only read through the slides in the lectures, I would prefer self study than going any lecture. Worst prof that I have ever seen, definitely must avoid her.
Sandy is a great prof and always willing to help. Not the prof's fault if you don't understand CS!
People think she is bad, and I was scared of her at the beginning of the term. However, her lecture is super clear + You will get a good grade if u dont slack off in her lectures
excellent prof. Provides very intriguing examples.
Great prof, examples can be a bit deep near the end of the term, however if you do the assignments and write good notes its an easy 80+
I really don't like CS that much but she teaches the material well and is easy to understand.
Honestly, her lectures are very dry. As a lecturer she is not as adequate as some other CS profs I have had (Nomair, Petrick, etc) and she seems to rely heavily on her slides rather than show concrete examples. However, if you approach her for help she is very helpful and clearly wants you to do well.
If it wasn't for the participation grade, I wouldn't go to any of her lectures. Huge waste of time.
She always stresses how she needs to "rush through the material" and that is precisely what she does. She does not care about a student's understanding, although she does make multiple attempts to explain and go over again, but her explanations make what she stated before even more confusing. However, she is indeed accessible outside of lectures.
she rush through module 6 and the entire midterm2 was on module 6....
She rushes through a lot of materials that are supposed to be covered detailedly. She kept saying that she's not going to spend much time on the course notes yet most parts of her lectures were around the course notes. She is quite accessible outside of the classroom, though.
She makes lots of mistakes on classes, which even violated the standard used for making homework. Usually don't know what she was doing. Although on several of the classes I found her lecture pretty good, this possibilities is really small and most of time she is messy on class. Avoid her if you can.
She covers the code things, but the rating system also considers other part of a program, such as design recipe, which is not included. She always rushes through the material and shows much outside the class, which is not helpful for getting higher mark in assignment and exams.
I don't know anymore, but you can learn everything using the coursenote.
She didn't teach the most important part for the exam and miss many things
As others have said, she rushed through the material a lot. I remember that she was always behind. There were days where her clicker software magically doesn't work, especially in the last few classes. But you know what? It's not that the software doesn't work, it's because you're lying to us because you're really slow.
Never choose ever
If I took another prof's class, I would increase my mark by at least 20 per cent
Don't be so scared because of those comments if you want to choose her, just a very normal prof.
If you say she is a normal prof, why you select no in "Would you take this prof again"? Actually, she doesn't teach as well as other three profs.
Took her class in Fall 2016. Explanations were quite vague and boring compared with other profs. I'm quite amazed how she overcomplicated such a basic course. And I'm more amazed that she still teaches at all. It's just not your thing, get over it and practice something else.
Boring
Don't take her!! Three are so many other good profs. If you cannot get into their class just drop the course and take it next term. It is better than wasting your time taking a class that will make you hate CS!!
It's a good thing I was able to teach myself this material because she was not able to. She wasn't particularly helpful, her lectures were boring, and she made me not enjoy CS, I had enjoyed it up until then. Honestly she just wasn't a good prof. I understood her but all she ever did was examples, the exam had better just be examples then.
She is really not bad. Quite inspirational if you listen carefully. She tells you important do/ don't on assignments and exams. She also explains the philosophy behind computer science (e.g. how to approach a seemingly tedious question) which is quite rare among other profs.
No one should choose her. I attended her lectures just for the clicker questions. And she made CS disgusting. She made many mistakes in her lectures.
Fairly dry lectures, but she teaches you what you need to know to do well in the course. Not very engaging, doesn't make lectures fun.
Unsure as to why she still continues to teach in the same manner described as previous comments or at all. She is monotoned and does not explain the materials clearly. There isn't a flow to her lectures and she will jump from one topic to another. There were times where she'd spend half an hour explaining a concept then say we don't need to know it
Sandy Graham is an ok-ish prof. She is not the best when it comes to answering students' questions, especially on Piazza. She answers very vaguely and says "any more information will provide a partial solution". That comment is kind of discouraging because I'm just asking a question about a concept I don't understand, not trying to get a solution.
Don't take her!! There are many other good profs. If you cannot get into their class just drop the course and take it next term. She will definitely make you dislike CS. The only reason to her lecture is the clicker. You pay the money and you deserve better education. Her explanation is a messy.
There are many other good CS professors. why will you bother her?
She definitely knows her content and how to teach... she's just so dry. If the course notes weren't so terrible, no one would attend the lectures. Preparing for assignments and exams was a nightmare because she asks questions on such assessments that appear only once in the lecture.
This was my first exposure to programming and I almost chose to not pursue programming due to this course. It was only after taking other CS courses did I realize that CS can be fun and interesting; many other CS profs were passionate about what they taught but unfortunately Sandy was not. To be fair she does her job (lectures) but nothing more.
Man she wasnt good at all. Energy was dry as hell and she made slick jokes that we could tell she didnt want to be there. I wish I knew about this website before I went into her class, I dreaded each lecture
There are so many students want to join in the CS, and this is why she is still teaching CS 135. Boring and not helpful.
She has the most horrible slides, not informative at all and in ugly format. Her lectures is so boring and she makes mistake in almost every lectures. also she doesn't seems to care for the students and doesn't really answer your questions.
She does not seem to respect and care for her students academics.
underground poker legend
Don't try to be creative or try making your code more efficient (even using the things you've learned in the lectures/labs), because you will lose marks if you don't do things exactly as she says. Not to mention this class is designed for non-CS majors, yet it had the most weekly due projects out of any of my other classes.
Just pay attention to the class and use office hours
Horrible. This is probably the worst course I've ever taken in my life. I've had better luck trying to learn how to code from online tutorials and freakin' ROBLOX. The problem is that this course costs money and ROBLOX doesn't. Incredible amounts of homework with an egregiously tedious mini-project every week. Uses an online compiler that sucks.
Awful. Sandy here decided to change a question on a quiz that was worth 1 out of 10 to be worth 5 out of 14 instead AFTER THE QUIZ WAS FINISHED. Even if you got full marks on every other question besides that one (which was the hardest one), your grade is 9 out of 14 instead of 9 out of 10 which is a huge drop in marks. Avoid if you CAN
Look at the statistic -> "7% Would take again". She does not know how to properly run a course. Everyone else, look at her most recent reviews. They have been consistently bad. You have to scroll down all the way to see 4+ reviews. Avoid and take it with someone else if u can at all costs. She is awful, she has way to high expectations.
Horrible prof avoid at all costs!
Class Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
73%
Textbook Required
32%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
B+
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Stable
-0.20 avg changeRatings by Course
CS131CS132
5.0
(1)CS003
5.0
(1)CS125
4.8
(4)CS115
3.2
(22)CS230
2.8
(11)Difficulty by Course
ALLCS
5.0
CS131SSDS
5.0
CS132
5.0
130
4.0
CS120
4.0