Very committed professor, helpful, tricky quizzes and tests

Professor Richards knows how to run a class on complex subject matter but keep it fun and interesting. Highly recommended!

Professor Richards is awesome! Very helpful, very witty, and interesting lectures. With that said, 230 is a pretty challenging course, it's essential that you start programming assignments soon after you get them, especially if you don't have a background in c / c++. Study hard and you should be fine.

Nice fun guy willing to help student out. Material is hard, work load is somewhat heavy, overall not an easy class, and you'd better learn as much as you can, it's important basic for several latter courses. He doesn't expect you know c or c++ but you'd better learn about it before this class, otherwise it's a pain.

Those who don't have a background in C/C++ will find the class to have it's challenges, but Professor Richards is very clear on the topics he presents. A plus to this class is he records his lectures and posts them online, which is useful if you miss a class or forget something mentioned. His tests and quizzes can be a bit challenging.

Lectures as if you already know basics of systems. Boring but mostly because of the dense material. Programs are not that difficult since he tells you exactly what to do. Not much coding but difficult to wrap your head the goals of the assignments. Use slides and book to study for weekly discussion quizzes. Not too scary/bad

Richards is a great professor. He knows how to teach the material effectively, he is very articulate, can almost always answer questions well, and never overloads you with HW. This is the better of the classes he teaches, and its clear he's a little more enthused with CS326. Material is good to learn and easy/fun. Semester long group project too.

Attendance was not mandatory but you should go. The class is very focused on assignments, which were all done in C. If you are good at programming and understand the concepts taught, you'll do well in the class.

It's hard to rate only Tim for this class, because it was clearly a group effort. But the assignments were great, and I learned so much. Fantastic TA's, useful discussions, and an atmosphere that encouraged inquiry and discouraged showing off. Very fair grading, handled a software bug in the midterm like a champ.

I've had Tim for 3 classes so far (187,220,230). The assignments for his classes are difficult but not unfair. His grading is clear and the feedback is useful. The lectures aren't very good but you still have to attend because it has iclicker. Expect to do most of your learning from the projects & discussion, not lecture. Piazza is a lifesaver.

Tim had all his students learn ReactJS this semester, and I understand this is a challenge due to the ever-changing web. But Tim really did his best but I believe he may have underestimated the abilities of his students. Your success in this course will end up being based on your team's effort, mine, unfortunately, was a bad team.

He is a great professor. Often felt like he's not doing anything (it was an online class), but I liked the course overall. CS187 is not an easy class, especially for those with no programming experience prior to CS121.

Very helpful, really wants you to understand the material. Definitely don't skip lectures, as the projects depend heavily on what you learned in class, but he does post the slides online. Concepts can be hard but you'll leave with a solid foundation on computer systems. Try learning C on your own before the class, it'll help a lot on the projects.

Cs230. The lectures sometimes seemed to trail off into a mess of perplexing diagrams that would last for 30+ slides, but overall it was a good course. Moved at a good speed, and was never really overwhelming. Grades are fair as your homework are worth 50% of your grade. The tests are difficult but there's only 2.

Tim was a stand-up guy and really showed that he cared about his students. If you have the option to take a class with Tim, I would sign up in a heartbeat!

His lectures are fast-paced and seemed a bit unorganized, but he actually works his best to make us understand the materials. He cares about his students, answers our questions as much as he can, very friendly, and makes us feel very comfortable about course materials. Do not hesitate to visit him in his (or TAs') office hours. Best Prof in UMass!

PROS: Very clear expectations. Very helpful and answers questions outside of class. Course is intense but you will learn a lot. CONS: His lectures are literally him reading slides that are provided by the textbook. It is a good book, but I can read it on my own. Would have enjoyed some outside material or analysis.

Tim is awesome and 326 is my favorite class I've taken so far at UMass. Just make sure you get involved with the group project and you'll do fine. His goal is primarily to teach you and if you demonstrate what you've learned then you'll get an A. The material is not too bad, but definitely gets harder when you get to ReactJS.

Tim is a great professor. His lectures are engaging and he loves to answer student questions. The homework assignments are good practice for the material. The exams aren't easy, but they are definitely fair. Tim has been my favorite professor at UMass so far.

Great professor. Knows his stuff and is very caring of his students, also is very funny. The class itself and the projects were not difficult, but exams were.

Tim Richards is a very casual and funny professor. For this class, he isn't lecture-heavy and instead helps students learn by allowing extensive laptop use and group activities. His lecture style can be a bit dry at times, but overall he is one of the best professors in the department.

I've taken all of his course. He's the best lecturer I've ever seen, which is good because you need to go to lecture to pass any of his classes. Extremely intelligent and competent, he expects his students to work as hard as he does in his classes. A tough but fair grader. If you are willing to work, you will learn a lot.

Best Professor I have had in college. Inspirational and makes you critically think about what he teaches. If you go to class you should have a sound understanding of the material and pass with a good grade.

Tim is a great guy and he really cares about his students. His lectures aren't challenging and on the semester I don't feel like I've learned a huge amount, but I enjoyed going to every class. Tim is funny and he enjoys teaching the material.

His humor is not for everyone. I wasn't laughing out loud or anything, but he had me smiling throughout often because his jokes actually landed, and sometimes because they were really lame). Teaches material well and knows his stuff. At times, when answering questions, he doesn't really give a clear answer, and sometimes causes more confusion

Tim is a fantastic professor, he really cares about his students and tries hard to help everyone understand topics. While some of the exams were tough, he appropriately adjusts the scales based on the overall performance. I plan on taking CS 377 with him again next semester. Class Breakdown: Challenges 5%, Labs 15%, Projects 40%, 3 exams 40%

I took 3 courses with Tim Richard's and can say he is easily my favorite professor in the department. Amazing instructor and person. Loves forks.

He's a literal God. Your life won't be complete unless you have him for a class. That said, he also skimmed over things that shouldn't be skimmed over. The projects has little to do with tests, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Tim Richards is a great professor, and great person. Emphasis on learning concepts, and is very accessible over the internet and in person. I took 3 classes with him over the course of my college career, and he was great in each class. If you have the chance to take a class with him, do not miss it!

Hes a very fair professor and wants everyone to do well without taking stress. Does a good job explaining concepts. And of course, very energetic!

I think Tim has been the most caring and accomodating professor I've ever had at UMASS so far. He would always go out of his way to help students and I found his lectures to be informative. If things seem too difficult you can explain your situation and he would likely extend the deadlines for most assignments. Overall, the GOAT

Prof Richards is super understanding and made sure his curriculum was as flexible as possible to meet our needs. He frequently gave extensions and listened to us when we were feeling burnt out. Although the material in cs230 wasn't my thing, Prof Richards's lectures were engaging. Would recommend anyone to take a class with him!

Tim is amazing and really cares about his students! If you are struggling, there are accommodations so you can catch up and not feel overwhelmed. His lectures were also very clear with no midterm/final!

Great course! He brings very practical skills in Software Engineering into a course. Probably one of the best courses I've taken at UMass Amherst! I was able to learn about Docker, Nginx, Typescript, and building a real-world application. It's a must take for any CS major looking to do SWE after college.

Professor Richards is an amazing professor. He is extremely caring and in-tune with his students. He was extremely flexible with deadlines and canceled assignments due to covid restrictions. His lectures are extremely fun to watch and interesting. Definitely would take again.

Tim is a very fair professor which is rare in CICS. He cares about his students and is passionate about what he teaches. Severely underrated professor.

Do yourself a favor and take Tim Richards if he's teaching any class. Class was managed well. Class structure was organized, workload manageable, no exams, and grading very fair. Professor is very approachable and caring, and handled covid well by giving us a full-stop break when we all needed it and accommodating struggling students.

Shoutout to professors like Tim Richards who really care about students's wellbeing and understand that all student struggles are natural.

I wish I was able to drop by his office hours. That being said, Tim is very kind, caring, and still does a great job explaining topics clearly while still being open to questions. He is also the most organized professor, which is very rare in many of the professors who taught the core CS classes.

Tim Richards needs an award for how nice he has been during a difficult online semester and his high level of empathy and respect towards students.

Tim’s 5/5 rating here is legit. He’s knowledgeable, passionate, competent, and forgiving with project and lab deadlines. Best of all, he doesn’t believe in midterm and final exams, but rather teaches well and makes sure that people are ok.

Richards is a great lecturer and taught the entire class python from the ground up. He was almost always available to talk to after class or during office hours. Almost all assignments were done through an autograder, this let you continue to redo assignments until they would pass all the tests.

Tim Richards was a great professor for COMPSCI 377. We always knew what we needed to turn in at a given time, his lectures were always engaging (especially when he tells us stories), and he structured the class so it was easy to catch up if you missed a day. I would legitimately go to lectures just to hear his stories. Awesome dude & professor.

Tim Richards is a fantastic professor in person. His CS326 format is extremely accomodating and his in person lectures are enthusiastic and interactive. As someone who isn't interested in web development at all, I still found his class as one of the best I've taken at UMass.

The two main things I liked about this class was that we were very fairly graded and we learned a lot without it being too hard

He was one of 3. Overall clear instructions and is an effective teacher. His lectures were clear and to the point, and he added extra information when necessary. I would argue an excellent middle-ground professor does a solid job-- simplifies ideas when necessary, but never too much. I would take a class with him.

Amazing professor (one of the best in the CS department). Engaging and very passionate about the material he teaches. His quizzes do tend to be straight out of the textbook, sometimes from material skipped in class so make sure to read the book.

Tim is such a standout guy. Grading was fair, and doing well was straightforward. The textbook that the class uses is absolutely amazing, if you read and take notes on the textbook it's practically a free A. The lectures are good too but not necessary for an A. Projects were useful and not too difficult. Overall a great class, highly recommend.

TAKE 326 WITH TIM! LITERALLY LEARNED SO MUCH FROM HIM! YOU WON'T REGRET IT!

the goat

If you're really interested in pursuing SWE after college, COMPSCI 426 is a great class to take. A couple of low-stakes assignments, final project, and 3-4 homework assignments, but no midterm or final exams. Tim Richards genuinely cares about student success, wants us to thrive, and wants us to learn practical skills in software development.

Tim is undoubtedly one of the best professors I've been lucky to have. He keeps it real with students and just wants to see them thrive. His recorded videos explain concepts like load testing and store implementation thoroughly, and he has plenty of patience with students in office hours. If you're lucky enough to take 426 with him, go for it.

If I could choose someone I would take more classes with, it's Tim Richards. He always cared about student wellbeing and learning and has extended HW and final project deadlines due to exam week/acknowledging student burdens. The material in 426 can be mundane at times, but Tim overall did a great job making a soul-sucking class fun and engaging.

Professor Richards is unequivocally the G.O.A.T. He doesn't believe in high-stakes midterm and final exams or making students feel bad but rather has high flexibility for the homeworks and reasonable expectations for what he asks us to do. Many opportunities to do well, and his passion for scalable web systems always made going to class worth it.

Professor Richards is the absolute goat. Content can be dry at times but his recorded videos were robust and did a great job explaining everything thoroughly. It's clear that he's really accommodating and flexible with grading, and he makes the class relatively easy for a 400-level class.

If I could give Tim a 7/5 I would. He's a great professor who cares about students and is very flexible with accessibility outside class. I must say software engineering can be a dry field in the major but this has nothing to do with Tim. It's clear he loves teaching and working with students. Highly recommend taking any class with him, he's great!

426 is very popular when it comes to 400-level CS classes, so consider yourself lucky if you get an open seat for that class. Not only is Tim a fair grader, but 426 is also very practical and boosts your confidence in your ability to learn new technologies and adapt to whatever working environment you are presented with if you're interested in SWE.

Tim Richards was a great professor. Very caring, pretty much knocked it out of the park when it came to making this class reasonable for us. Had flexible accessibility outside class and office hours and explained material in new and practical ways instead of just repeating stuff. Could not recommend this professor enough.

Amazing lectures, clarifies doubts very well in office hours. Would take a class with him again given the chance.

Tim Richards put in a great amount of effort to always be available, while acknowledging that a question a student asked was good. 426 was structured and run extremely well. No exams, very good at delivering engaging lectures, and he's a lot more pleasant than most professors in the Manning CICS (way better than Wilson for sure).

Great guy, straightforward class. Very well versed with teaching pedagogy and picks great TAs and UCAs. He made web development, an admittedly boring topic, look easy and made the class fun and engaging.

Professor Richards is a god-tier professor! I messed up the A because I was being lazy in the second half of this fall, but he taught and explained everything really well. He knows what he's doing and is very thorough with his lectures. Lively, loves working with students, makes class very enjoyable. Probably one of the best CS classes I took.

Tim is an exceptional instructor and person. He is caring, reasonable, and very helpful to all students. He wants everyone to do well without stressing too much (his philosophy is against midterm and final exams), and I actually learned a lot about full-stack web development because of this teaching philosophy. I would recommend him to anyone.

Tim Richards is an incredible professor, but even more than that a lovely person who is easy to get in touch with. 426 is a very useful class. Very pedagogically reasonable explanations in video recordings. Brings life and energy to every class he teaches.

Tim Richards is by far the most humble and down-to-earth professor I have seen in the CS department. Always open to answering questions, explained concepts with finesse, and reasonable with grading and assignments. Dropped by his office hours just to chat, and he was very easy to reach out to. I'll take classes with Tim again if I get to do so.

Excellent class and I learned the most relevant topics in my CS career that relate to the real world. I added the project that I created in this class to my resume and spoke on it a lot during interviews and it helped land me 3 offers so definitely put a lot of effort into your final project and write good documentation. It will bring you far!

Tim Richards is BY FAR the best CS professor I have had. I thought 426 was going to be a class I dreaded going to due to the course name, but Tim made it my favorite class I took. He is very reasonable with workload, clear and straightforward in lecturing, and I honestly learned so much about full-stack development because of this lecturing style.

377 with Tim is great. The textbook actually isn't terrible, and he gives funny and informative lectures. The projects can be difficult, but there are many opportunities to get help, and the late submission rules are more than fair. Overall useful class for any CS major to take, and Tim makes some otherwise dull topics actually pretty interesting.

One of the most caring, thoughtful and outright amazing professors I had in my entire CS career. I would highly recommend to take any class he teaches.

love him to death - best prof i've ever had. he cares so much its insane. even if he rejects an idea (for a thesis for instance), he leads you to people who can. the most encouraging ever, and supports learning to an amazing level. love love love him.

A few issues with piazza response rates and autograders(newly integrated this sem), but a very good explainer of concepts, super flexible to student needs(he cancelled a homework assignment since the autograder wasn't setup on time), and a primarily project-based class with group assignments that effectively model the real world.

Only issue was project documentation early on was vague with respect to grading expectations, but this improved significantly over the semester. Tim's a great explainer of concepts, super flexible to student needs(he cancelled the lab on the day of the solar eclipse), and runs a primarily project-based class to promote applied learning. No exams!

Tim Richards is simply a fantastic professor. Couldn't really hope for more. Super understanding and knows how to run the class.

Tim Richards is undoubtedly the main reason I made full-stack software development my primary specialization. I was (and am still) doing data engineering, but scalable web applications became my top interest after taking his CS426 class, and I learned a lot from his class as his learning philosophy was against exams.

Full transparency: I didn't watch the lectures for this online course, so this is a rating of his out-of-lecture features. I would rate him a 4.5. He is a great professor who is quick to offer help & encourages learning, but there were some frustrating mistakes in the assignments & (while not under his control) many missing TAs in office hours.

Tim Richards makes even the most boring material engaging and fun to learn. He's incredibly knowledgeable and explains concepts thoroughly. He doesn't micromanage you and actually encourages flexibility and a healthy work-life balance. His sense of humor and charisma are part of why 426 was enjoyable, and he genuinely cares about student success.

Took in spring24. He cares a lot about the material and his students, and is overall a great person. He is very organized and has a lot of short assignments that help understand the material. The group project was pretty fun. Best/2nd best professor in the cs department.

I took 377 with Tim last semester, 326 with him this semester, and am taking 426 with him next semester. If that isn't itself enough of a glowing endorsement then I am not sure what is. His classes are low-stress yet still high-return, which is a tough feat to achieve. He's incredibly accessible, even just to talk to. Cannot recommend enough.

Amazing professor. Guides you very patiently on anything you're stuck about, and genuinely cares for your success in the course. Material is taught in a way so it is digestible for everyone. One of the best CS professors I've had.

Hilarious, passionate, and very friendly outside of class. Really cares about his students' success and puts a lot of effort into preparing for the class. Highly recommend.

A very solid lecturer with manageable coursework. He's funny, explains the material in a digestible way, and is happy to answer questions. He genuinely cares about making his class fair and informative. Looking forward to taking his class again and I'd highly recommend others to as well

Tim has proven himself once again this semester as one of the GOATs. The way 426 was set up wasn't working for most people, so what does he do? He accepts the feedback and changes the course for the better to foster engagement with the materials while keeping it low-stress. At first I wasn't sure about this class, but now it's one of my favorites.

prof richards is an engaging lecturer who genuinely cares about your learning. content is presented in an easy to understand, clear and digestible way and the exams are fair. highly recommend, looking forward to take more classes with him

2 midterm exams + final. Course is definitely not easy but Tim will help you through it! great guy, you can tell he cares about his students. Attendance isn't mandatory and lectures can get boring but staying on top of the material is very crucial towards doing well in the class. He is very helpful and overall a good professor.

This is the best professor I've had at Umass so far. He is super caring and an amazing guy. 210 is not difficult, but he clarifies everything if you go to the lectures. Would recommend to anyone who is taking 210.

Great lecturer/conversatioinalist, very understanding, encourages in-class discussion or office hours whenever possible

One of the few professors I actually felt better off going to lectures for. Good lectures, clearly structured class, fair work. I really enjoyed his class, and he's pretty reachable outside the class.