Scatter brain---very unorganized teacher but if you buy the book--you'll do fine. ALL her quizzes and tests are from the book but you have to come to class because to take the tests/quizzes--you need her password.

Horrible! She's the worst professor I ahve ever encountered...her teaching methods suck and she doesn't ever give you a clear answer on your questions...beware taking this class, you will regret it.

Moves very fast, no clear direction on what to do. Quizzes at beginning of class about nothing she lectured on, expects you to read before hand. Come to class to present homeworks, take quizzes and participation. Don't take her unless you already know everything about computer science.

Very unpleasant person. Bad attitude. She just sucks. She thinks she knows everything, but dosen't have a clue about most things. Avoid her at all cost if you can. What a useless teacher she is. She needs to retire ASAP.

Terrible at explaining

EASY Material. But very heavy loads of work. Focus very hard on the team project. This is the only practical course that you will have that actually have some real world application. Yes she's terrible in giving instruction, and she suck at explaining ANYTHING at all. Ignore her and focus on learning, not from her, but from yourself.

Please do yourself a favor and don't taker her. She is quite rude to students and gives a TONE of work to do.

Her notes, lectures, and accent is near incomprehensible. Her assignment instructions are not formatted in the slightest, so finding your programing instructions are a game themselves (This is why I listed class as hard). She teaches entirely in UML (A dead design method), you will learn JAVA on your own.

The homework she assigns is stolen directly from books that, more often than not, are not even a part of the course requirements. e.g. She assigns highly technical problems on UML that is due before she even *teaches it. By *teach I mean she runs through grossly oversimplified examples in her PowerPoint lectures and expect us to be experts on UML?!

Dr. H is one of those professors who hold on to the dogma that their way is correct and should be the only way to solve problems. Totally single-minded and uncompromising. Also, her English is terrible; she cannot even construct a single grammatically-correct sentence. Also she does not even understand the difference between "send" and "sent".

Terrible professor. Terrible in writing and instructing. This course is completely useless, I think people will learn much more on their own than coming to this class. She really doesn't know how to teach. She works hard, but I'm sorry, she's not a good professor.

I have only dropped three classes in my college career, and when I dropped this one(Fall 2012), I was completely satisfied with my decision. This professor is all over the place. Frankly, not very good at teaching, unless channel surfing through PPT slides counts for something. Worst class I've ever been enrolled in. **AVOID**

Apart from the fact the we are using outdated software in this course, this instructor is just downright terrible. The work is not difficult but she keeps coming up with ways to make it so pointlessly tedious just to "train you" with the tools you need. Apparently she thinks you're not capable doing things yourself so she has to boss you to do it.

Such an arrogant and rude professor. Always wants things done her way only. Please avoid her at all cost.

Very smart, but a HORRIBLE instructor. Sends 10+ emails to the class per week; students still confused as to assignment parameters (poor communication); gives "pink slips" for infractions, like missing class; dismissive and condescending. Know material BEFORE taking her classes; lecture time spent on class logistics. MANY arbitrary class rules.

The worst professor at UH. Gives our department a bad name, and brings down our field of study. Get ready for an unclear semester where you learn outdated material that will hinder you in interviews. Unfortunately, she is the only one that teaches this class, so just get through it and get the grade. UH CS is letting us down by keeping her.

She is inconsistent with her grading. She changes the requirements for a good programming grade every time you turn in an assignment. Her tests are hard and come straight out of the power points. I took her for summer so attendance wasn't necessary but very recommended. She is very negative with student feedback and does hold a grudge. Good luck.

In my 3 years at UH, she is by far the worst and most disorganized professor I have ever met.

TERRIBLE! Does not teach anything and expects students to know material before hand. Quizzes and assignments test technical material not covered in lectures. Does not answer questions nor respond to emails. Save your money and avoid her at all costs.

HWs are challenging, especially because the lectures are unclear and disorganized (and are basically ppt channel surfing). Assumes prior knowledge of C, Java, UML, C++. Unhelpful and rude to students who ask questions. Assigned seating for the whole semester.

The class is insanely easy... however this teacher is scatter brained and teaches worthless information. I would avoid her if possible. The only good thing about this class is that you'll definitely get at least a 'B'.

Terrible professor. No clue why the Comp Sci department has her tbh. I learned everything on my own.. the only thing i learned from her was how to copy and paste to create UML using Microsoft word, when you can easily use software like creately to create UML. Anyways.. be ready to spend more time doing UML than writing code. RUDE, TERRIBLE, AVOID!

Her lectures are incoherent; it looks like she spent more time on slide transitions than the actual slide material. Tests are easy if you do the homework and the textbook helps. Class is mandatory even though I learned nothing attending all of them. Her projects are tough and she doesn't teach how to actually code by example. Avoid her if you can.

She gave me a D+ at the end of the semester because our team leader gave me a poor evaluation. I had to email her in order to get her to change it and we had to email back and forth 10 TIMES just for her to plead my case. Horrible professor....

1000% stay away unless you enjoy viewing 300 page slideshows every day in just under 100 minutes. If you don't already have a firm grasp on Java before you take this class, you will struggle (even though this is an introductory java class). Be prepared to learn how to decrypt her confusing instructions to homework or else you will get -50 on hw

Avoid unless you enjoy 25 pages of homework a night on top of viewing windows xp screenshots that make you feel like you are taking the class in the previous decade still. Worst teacher I've ever encountered in my 3 years of being at this school.

Her lectures consists of trivial slideshows of screenshots of long lines of codes and does not go into detail to explain their significance in the class lessons. She repeats basic information and gives tough projects on topics we haven't learned in class. She is ineffective at teaching and not professional when students have questions. Be prepared.

I didn't want to believe all of Hilford's terrible reviews but let me tell you these people were not lying. She has the worst combative attitude so if you have any questions to ask her just forget it.. Also you won't learn anything in her class.

By far the worst professor at UH. Literally, take ANYONE else. This person will make you hate computer science. But if you decide not to listen or take the class anyway, beware. Lectures are useless, so get ready to learn everything from the book. She LOVES old versions of software, like VS2010 and NetBeans 4.7.1. Homeworks are incomprehensible.

I've taken two other classes with her so I had absolutely no motivation going into this class.I wrote a lot but it didn't fit so here are the bullet points: Tests: complete joke since she hands you the test as a test review. Projects: prepare to decipher instructions detailing outdated versions of software instead of actually working on the proj.

Although the material of the class is easy and is presented in a comprehensible way, the attitude of the professor was really bad to the point she almost bullies students. If you take her class be extremely polite. Do not disagree with her, instead form questions. Prepare to study hard at least 3-4 hours before each class, as she uses daily exams.

Worst attitude of any professor I've encountered in almost 4 years at UH. The class is not posted as a hybrid, but she makes it one anyway, and does a horrible job of managing it all. If you actually want to learn useful things about this interesting course, PLEASE take someone else. This teacher will offer you nothing of the sort.

Just do not take 3380 with her.

She's passionate, but if this is your first foray into coding-- good luck. The syllabus says nothing except for when you have class, with some arbitrary point assignments. No one in class knew how assignments were being graded, even after finals. Paper-based quizzes expect flawless code. Don't expect to have accessible study material for finals.

Class is sporadic, lots of memorization based stuff, don't really learn useful stuff about DB outside of syntax and basic stuff you can lookup online. Don't recommend as she actually likes to use things like zybooks, which encourages memorization.

Extremely disorganized and you will have no idea what your grade is until it is posted after term is complete. My grade was fine, however there were quite a few people who were very surprised at their final grades when they were finally posted. This class did not prepare me for the next COSC classes.

UH needs to take a good look at their CS department. This professor makes the class harder than it needs to be and everything is disorganized even her slides. Stay away from this professor. UH does have any real competition in Houston and they are careless when hiring teachers, hilford is a mistake. If there was competition no one will take UH CS

she is very unhelpful inside and out of class, her material is super disorganized and the TAs barely know anything. she gets upset if you ask her questions.

Terrible! Worst prof ever, she gave us pop assignments on the third day of class and told us not to worry b/c these are not for a GRADE. Turns out she graded everything and i lost 1/6 of the total points for the class. ON THE THIRD DAY!! Nothing else to say take at your own risk.

Just terrible. Hilford is by far the worst computer science educator I have ever seen. You will not learn real world skills from this class. Using the internet or textbook is useless as everything must be done her way. She is the only professor to ever give negative grades on assignments. An unfinished assignment will not end in a 0 but a -100.

As a graduating CS, I will tell everybody there probably is no any professor as incompetent as Hilford. You will not learn anything from her in class. If you have the choice take Uma, as she is lesser of 2 evils. At least, with her you will built a project using database that you can add to your resume. UH CS will be better without Hilford.

Impossible to understand: has a heavy accent and an attitude of "if you don't understand me that's your problem". To this day I don't know how the grading system works and the syllabus looks more like abstract art than an actual syllabus. Don't take her. You won't know what's due when. And by the time u figure out you've failed.

Took her for software engineering. The workload for this class is outrageous and nonsense. She uses Zybooks which feel like busy work and asks too much from weekly homework assignments.

For a computer science/programming course, she is extremely unorganized. People have bought the wrong Zylab codes. Her lectures are unorganized. She doesn't have a clue how to use Teams. She has many Set Practices/Exams, etc. and closes them quickly. Zybooks is teaching the class, not her. Be careful if you don't have prior coding experience. No no

If you are going to learn anything in this class, it will probably be from Zybook and not her lecture. That is not necessarily the problematic part. The problem arises when she demonstrates a complete inability to communicate what students should do and when. The class is disorganized and seeking clarity from even other students is discouraged.

She uses ZyBooks, and that is the only thing that is going to teach you anything. She has no idea how to present information. Lectures are non-existent. She can't figure out her own syllabus and contradicts herself constantly. She gives timed quizzes and expects you to write 8+ programs in minutes. The class isn't hard, but she makes it ridiculous.

What a joke of a class. During a test, she kept ragging on someone to share her screen and arguing about the rules DURING the exam. It was not an appropriate environment and very bothersome. She gets upset at any criticism and even admits that the interactive book we use teaches us, NOT her. One of the worst classes I've ever taken! Incompetent!

The textbook is your professor because she won't be doing any teaching.

Her lectures are just reading slides as quickly as possible, and it's very difficult to follow along. The zyBooks curriculum she uses is quite good, which is lucky because it's the only thing you'll learn anything from. Any concerns about low grades (due to badly formatted assignments) are met with "There are a lot of grades so it doesn't matter."

Took her online Fall2020. Avoid if at all possible. grades weird and is not clear about grading. Took me 1.5 months to adapt to her set up. By the time I figured out what to do, my grade already took a hit. I plan on taking an S for this class, but it was horrible. AVOID THIS PROFESSOR. I HAD NO OTHER OPTION BUT HER. It cannot be reiterated clearly

Do I even need to say anything that hasn't been stated already?

Hilford is an extremely easy class if you already know Python, but her teaching style is so egregiously bad that it is not even funny. She is also hard to work with, and kind of rude. Her tests are formatted poorly as well . Learning python syntax is all you need to do well in this class so it should be an easy A if you can self teach.

Overall this course is extremely difficult if it is your first computer science course ever. Overall the main reason you will learn in this course is because of Zybooks and her TA's. I would rather not take her as a professor again if possible.

This class is extremely difficult for a beginner CS class. I had to rely on Zybooks and google the whole semester because her teaching method was difficult to comprehend.

Her class structure is very unorganized and confusing. She only spends one lecture per unit and is very vague. I learned everything from the textbook, which if you do have to take this class, is all you need to pay attention too. Also she is hard of hearing and she will ignore you when you ask her something, even for tech issues during exams.

As someone whose first time looking at python was through this course, this class was extremely harder than it is supposed to be for a beginner course. I taught myself all the material since her lectures were of no help. She always blames her students for doing bad in her exams instead of self-reflecting. Avoid her at all costs.

Taking this course is a mistake if you know zero python programming. (Luckily Zybooks gave me a $~77 refund since I dropped the course). Professor Hilford is not engaging and she shouldn't be teaching synchronous courses. The textbook is everything and expect to dedicate most of your time to learning python. Good luck my fellow Coog....

If you have absolutely no coding experience, do not take this professor. I learned python in high school and I was struggling to complete these tests; I can't imagine how it was for complete beginners (which was most of the class, it's a beginner's course!!) She will insist that she isn't the problem, her students are. Avoid her if you can.

Even though lecture is mandatory get ready to learn absolutely nothing. Zybooks is the only thing to teach you. Her exams are not the worst thing on the planet, but her final is egregious. Prepare for a lot of homework with short deadlines. If you take it online prepare for constant remarks about people not showing up.

For being a CS professor, she is not really tech-savvy. There were problems since day 1. The course is perfect for you if you like to teach yourself. She is very rude and strict on attendance for some reason. She does not teach well. All of your learning will come from the textbook. Class is difficult if you do not have prior experience.

1. she does a poor job responding to student questions and feedback 2. shes very vague on grading and how attendance is conducted 3. she isn't understanding when it comes to personal circumstances 4. the tests are poorly made To succeed in the class don't bother trying to learn in lectures, try hard on the zybooks and you should be alright

I cannot stress this enough! if you can choose any other professor PLEASE DO SO, Ms Hilford is the worst professor I've ever had, she does not care about students, she doesn't like taking the time to respond to simple questions, she assumes everybody knows the basics of this class therefore she goes insanely fast and doesn't know how to teach

Not beginner friendly at all! she expects us to respond to 50 questions in 30 minutes, 10 coding activities in 40 minutes!!!! for someone that is just learning how to code this is impossible! and guess what? since I wasn't able to get through the 50 questions in 30 minutes I got a 66! Ridiculous !!

You will not learn how to write code in this class unless you teach yourself! This professor acts as though it's beneath her to be teaching students. She is often rude to students who don't understand what she wants and her instructions are often unclear. There is a mountain of busy work too. Only take if you already know python before starting!

This class is not beginner friendly. Professor Hilford is very disorganized. Her timing for reviews, quizzes, and tests are so ridiculous. The only reason I'm passing this class is because we rely on Zybooks to teach us. It's possible to pass, but it won't be fun. At all.

Used Python as the intro code, which I liked, and the online textbook system (Zybooks) was pretty good IMO, but the positives end there: this was an absurd class. Exam typos but "no questions!" during exams? Yup. "There was an error on my end, but oh well, it's not many points." Yup. Already knew some coding or no way I would've had an A.

Proffesor is knowledgeable about coding but cannot teach it. She is not lenient when it comes to tests or explaining guidelines for the first test. Somehow the test reviews are treated like a test; monitored and taken as a grade where you receive no prior help or review from her. You are basically teaching yourself the Zybooks sets.

Accuses the whole class of cheating when the issues are on her end. Not lenient at all with attendance and will message you to ask why you are not in the call even if the call drops. You will basically have two exams every week because reviews are not open note & she takes it as a grade, not participation. Zybooks are easy.

Heavy on the ZYbooks, horrible lectures. We weren't allowed to talk to the other students, considered cheating. I didn't know python or coding in general and relied heavily on tutoring and pestering the TAs, who seemed afraid of Hilford. No questions could be asked during her lecture she would either ignore you or say "oh no sorry" and move on.

Fundementals of zybooks engineering was a good class taught by a horrible, useless professor. Her power points look like they were done by a toddler with rose art crayons, and her tests are long and barely even touch the coding you learned. 90% of the test is multiple choice from quizlet. Id rather learn python from a chimpanzee

Absolute horrible class for anyone who has never learned about computer science in their life. Gives students no headsup on when shes taking the snapshot for zybooks and is terrible at answering questions. She repeats the same things over and over again that have nothing to do with what someone asks about.

This class is really hard dont take her if you take be prepared to teach yourself.

Does not listen to students, better off teaching yourself

The classwork wasn't necessarily hard, she just wasn't that understanding in my experience when it came to computer issues or whatnot so I missed assignments because she wasn't willing to understand my issues.

Professor Hilford is a nice lady but her teaching is mediocre. Be prepared for this class to be self-taught. She rarely showed us any coding and I was forced to learn on my own by using the internet for most projects. She doesn't do any make-up or extra credit. It sucks RMP only allows 350 words. I could write an essay on why this class was so bad.

She doesn't teach. Gives quizes for material she has not covered yet. Very little time for exams that have too many questions.

there's nothing worse than taking this professor

hardest class i ever took

Online only course from a professor who is not very tech savvy. Slides are an illegible mess, so trying to learn anything of lectures is a waste of time. Spends a lot of time preaching. Overall this class is easy and more or less entirely self taught. This class is only difficult because she's the one teaching it.

She is one of the worst professors I've ever had. Her instructions are always unclear, and she doesn't respond well to questions. If you dare to ask a question in the chat she will accuse the entire class of cheating. I never clearly understood what to do, and based off the GroupMe, I don't think anyone else understood either. Avoid at all costs.

The class itself isn't that challenging. What is challenging is having to join her zooms and listen to her talk. She is incredibly boring and rude anytime someone has a question. She is also incredibly unaccomidating, hopefully you can be there for every class because she will not let you make up anything. Don't take if you can avoid it!

She's aweful and require attendance despite providing no value in her lectures. The tests are easy and it's hard to fail the class, but you'll be wanting to drop because showing up and listening to her twice a week is literal torture. I can't believe UH still employs her

This class is a joke. It is shameful that our department lets us spend tuition money on this class. She does not care. It is more about attending than learning, filled with multiple useless assignments a day. If it wasn't at the top of canvas, you wouldn't be able to tell it was a software engineering course.

No words could ever prepare you for this professor.

Lacks basic understanding of how to teach, communicate, read, or write. Does not appear to know anything about the subject matter, nor does she use coherent reference materials. Avoid her at every possible opportunity. The only thing worse than the content of the class is listening to her every day.

This might be the only class I have ever had that made me worse at CS. A full semester of her class has made it difficult to remember any real information of software engineering. Waste of time and money. Getting pepper sprayed in your eyes during a snowstorm provides more clarity than her class ever will.

If you were to throw scrabble tiles on the floor twice a week for 18 weeks, it would make up for all the content you miss by not taking a semester of her class.

Unbelievable. Has “reviews” that are supposed to be participation but are basically larger quizzes. Coding Portion of the review/exam are on zybooks. Zybooks website went down during review and many students were unable to complete 2 sections of it. Nothing was done, no response/little help from her or TA. Big headache & waste of time.

Condescending at times for no reason, cares way too much for attendance (2 attendance quizzes per lecture), the ppts arent great either, the review itself is set up like the exam needing lockdown and webcam for no reason. Avoid at all costs for your own sake.

terrible professor

Please don't take this prof if you can. I rest my case.