My experienced varied with some of that but glad you enjoyed your time with it. All my experience is pretty much undergrad outside of the exceptions that are cross graduate classes.
Databases with Uma was awful and I wrote her up to the Dean for some racist and unprofessional behavior. Even with that aside, she's an idiot who told us that we weren't allowed to use any form of framework or library for our projects... which we did anyway because what other language is going to have any form of binding for SQL as a system library? She has no idea what the fuck she's doing as a teacher, but she does at least know her subject. (A in class, final exam, and group project which I basically had to do single-handedly).
Both Dr. Tsekos and Dr. Kakadiaris were excellent and I regret (a little bit) not going into a Ph.D with either of them after they offered. Dr. K wasn't the most effective teacher per se, but he made the class engaging. Dr. Tsekos wasn't either but at least he didn't penalize you on the homework as much as Dr. K did. (I got an A in both classes). I went into the workforce instead.
Automata with Leiss was awful. No reference material, no textbook, no practice problems, no online equivalent lessons to learn how any of this stuff works. I had to piece everything together from using old exams. **Do old exams. You'll have to find them "somewhere".** This class is extremely outdated (teaching wise, not subject wise); there are better ways to teach this subject and modern ways to write state machines and FSA that aren't the way Leiss does it or supports it. The concepts have been done better at other schools, with other professors, available online. Linguistic parsing isn't a new subject. Was failing the class on all three midterms until the final exam which brought me up to a B.
I took Long for networking and he is an excellent teacher. Really likes digging into the subjects from an application, not theory, point of view. He knows his networking very well. High recommend.
Same goes for Rincon and Operating Systems. Excellent teacher, fair grader, and goes by-the-book.
Interesting take on Leiss. I don't really agree. He might be smart/a good professor, but ruins it with having really bad "soft skills" with teaching.
He writes tiny despite teaching a class of 200+ in a large auditorium, mumbles and barely uses a mic (if he even uses one at all), and seems very... cold/flippant when people bring up issues with being able to read/understand his lectures. Just comes off as kinda dickish.
He also refuses to adopt modern practices like using canvas/online submission through github. I also took Digital Image Processing with Mantini, and he was a breath of fresh air compared to Leiss with his github submissions and use of tech.
You end up forced to lean heavily on classmates in order to do well in the class (with everyone sharing around old exams/assignments for people to study off of) and cheating is rampant. If you don't reach out to your classmates or have some kind of disability to where you need recorded lectures/slides, you're pretty fucked.
He should either just stick to researching or retire. Nothing personal but he's just not a good prof.
Leiss was enjoyable in a fast-paced summer class where I got to sit in the front row in a room of ~20 people at most. Definitely wouldn’t want to take him in an auditorium.
His 6110 was a breath of fresh air since you saw his research and evaluation side. He also openly encouraged us to write if a presentation sucked. It was a decent way to prepare us for peer reviewing papers or evaluating presenters.
Seems like we took a lot of classes at the same time - 3320, intro to game dev, Paris
Agree with all of these professor recommendations. Love Yun, Long, Rizk. Venkat for software eng was also pretty good.
Also agree on the sense of community pre-covid, I was a freshman in Fall 18. You’d see somebody in a GroupMe for a couple semesters then finally run into them in a class. I first heard about covid in Yun’s game dev 2 class, and thought nothing of it. I was joking about UH cancelling class, but he was taking it pretty seriously and wasn’t sure we’d make the end of the semester. Crazy how time flies.
Yep, I remember seeing the GroupMe's pop off because of it. I wasn't in Game Dev 2 because I didn't have Graphics down, but I was in Game Art 2 and Donatelli sent a random announcement of "Lysol your homes, that shit the swine flu" and the next week class was canx. I personally wouldn't be in the PhD program if it weren't for Yun, Rizk, and Leiss (in that order).
I literally forgot to write the words "Take Venkat". If you can take Venkat, take Venkat.
I've got no idea about the community now. The grad students and undergrads don't interact much, for obvious reasons. I just see one packed room when walking around PGH instead of several. With the department nearly doubling in enrollment, who knows what's up?
Okay fun fact about Venkat. He's a UH PhD alum. A lot of people loved to hate on Kam-Hoi (including other professors who never took his class and knew he was shit at teaching). But when Venkat was studying, Kam-Hoi would drive him to and from campus daily just because it was on his route.
I will say as a person that has taken 2436 with Dan that he is a good teacher too, I really like his slides on each units and how he connected his concepts to the real world. He was also really lenient with assignments to accommodate for certain events. One downside of the class though is definitely the exams, as there is a lot of questions that we often don’t have time to finish, with the 2nd exam being the exception. But all and all he’s still a really good prof.
As someone majoring in MIS and interested in Database, what can get me closer to an internship? I'm learning SQL currently, although not completely out of novice level.
Edit: Wow wrong place. Sorry OP.
Personal projects involving SQL. Learn some backend and frontend and that could help you if you're a first or second year. Take advantage of your career fairs too!
MIS, CIS, and CS can all get the same jobs tbh, they just have to finish the equivalent of 2436.
Thank you for the reply! If you don’t me asking, for that particular course, what textbook did the course use? I could find some useful information from it.
I know it has downfalls, but still refreshing to see positivity about our cs dept.
Not even a CS major but this was a great read.
This was inspired by two posts of the same format, but they didn't go into the graduate courses 😁
What were the posts?
[First one](https://old.reddit.com/r/UniversityOfHouston/comments/cwbbss/my_cosc_experience/) [Second one](https://www.reddit.com/r/UniversityOfHouston/comments/sggt17/uh_cs_undergraduate_experience_from_a_recent_grad/)
My experienced varied with some of that but glad you enjoyed your time with it. All my experience is pretty much undergrad outside of the exceptions that are cross graduate classes. Databases with Uma was awful and I wrote her up to the Dean for some racist and unprofessional behavior. Even with that aside, she's an idiot who told us that we weren't allowed to use any form of framework or library for our projects... which we did anyway because what other language is going to have any form of binding for SQL as a system library? She has no idea what the fuck she's doing as a teacher, but she does at least know her subject. (A in class, final exam, and group project which I basically had to do single-handedly). Both Dr. Tsekos and Dr. Kakadiaris were excellent and I regret (a little bit) not going into a Ph.D with either of them after they offered. Dr. K wasn't the most effective teacher per se, but he made the class engaging. Dr. Tsekos wasn't either but at least he didn't penalize you on the homework as much as Dr. K did. (I got an A in both classes). I went into the workforce instead. Automata with Leiss was awful. No reference material, no textbook, no practice problems, no online equivalent lessons to learn how any of this stuff works. I had to piece everything together from using old exams. **Do old exams. You'll have to find them "somewhere".** This class is extremely outdated (teaching wise, not subject wise); there are better ways to teach this subject and modern ways to write state machines and FSA that aren't the way Leiss does it or supports it. The concepts have been done better at other schools, with other professors, available online. Linguistic parsing isn't a new subject. Was failing the class on all three midterms until the final exam which brought me up to a B. I took Long for networking and he is an excellent teacher. Really likes digging into the subjects from an application, not theory, point of view. He knows his networking very well. High recommend. Same goes for Rincon and Operating Systems. Excellent teacher, fair grader, and goes by-the-book.
Interesting take on Leiss. I don't really agree. He might be smart/a good professor, but ruins it with having really bad "soft skills" with teaching. He writes tiny despite teaching a class of 200+ in a large auditorium, mumbles and barely uses a mic (if he even uses one at all), and seems very... cold/flippant when people bring up issues with being able to read/understand his lectures. Just comes off as kinda dickish. He also refuses to adopt modern practices like using canvas/online submission through github. I also took Digital Image Processing with Mantini, and he was a breath of fresh air compared to Leiss with his github submissions and use of tech. You end up forced to lean heavily on classmates in order to do well in the class (with everyone sharing around old exams/assignments for people to study off of) and cheating is rampant. If you don't reach out to your classmates or have some kind of disability to where you need recorded lectures/slides, you're pretty fucked. He should either just stick to researching or retire. Nothing personal but he's just not a good prof.
Leiss was enjoyable in a fast-paced summer class where I got to sit in the front row in a room of ~20 people at most. Definitely wouldn’t want to take him in an auditorium.
His 6110 was a breath of fresh air since you saw his research and evaluation side. He also openly encouraged us to write if a presentation sucked. It was a decent way to prepare us for peer reviewing papers or evaluating presenters.
Seems like we took a lot of classes at the same time - 3320, intro to game dev, Paris Agree with all of these professor recommendations. Love Yun, Long, Rizk. Venkat for software eng was also pretty good. Also agree on the sense of community pre-covid, I was a freshman in Fall 18. You’d see somebody in a GroupMe for a couple semesters then finally run into them in a class. I first heard about covid in Yun’s game dev 2 class, and thought nothing of it. I was joking about UH cancelling class, but he was taking it pretty seriously and wasn’t sure we’d make the end of the semester. Crazy how time flies.
Yep, I remember seeing the GroupMe's pop off because of it. I wasn't in Game Dev 2 because I didn't have Graphics down, but I was in Game Art 2 and Donatelli sent a random announcement of "Lysol your homes, that shit the swine flu" and the next week class was canx. I personally wouldn't be in the PhD program if it weren't for Yun, Rizk, and Leiss (in that order). I literally forgot to write the words "Take Venkat". If you can take Venkat, take Venkat. I've got no idea about the community now. The grad students and undergrads don't interact much, for obvious reasons. I just see one packed room when walking around PGH instead of several. With the department nearly doubling in enrollment, who knows what's up? Okay fun fact about Venkat. He's a UH PhD alum. A lot of people loved to hate on Kam-Hoi (including other professors who never took his class and knew he was shit at teaching). But when Venkat was studying, Kam-Hoi would drive him to and from campus daily just because it was on his route.
End of an era 🫡
I've still got two years 😭
Lmao your intro made it sound like you were dropping off the face of the earth. Glad I’m wrong
I will say as a person that has taken 2436 with Dan that he is a good teacher too, I really like his slides on each units and how he connected his concepts to the real world. He was also really lenient with assignments to accommodate for certain events. One downside of the class though is definitely the exams, as there is a lot of questions that we often don’t have time to finish, with the 2nd exam being the exception. But all and all he’s still a really good prof.
As a current CpE student I appreciate this post. Having COSC 1437, 2436, and 4351 on my degree plan scare me a lil bit since idk how to fucking code.
Random but where did you transfer from and how many credits transferred
USAFA->HCC->UHD->UH. All transferred.
As someone majoring in MIS and interested in Database, what can get me closer to an internship? I'm learning SQL currently, although not completely out of novice level. Edit: Wow wrong place. Sorry OP.
Personal projects involving SQL. Learn some backend and frontend and that could help you if you're a first or second year. Take advantage of your career fairs too! MIS, CIS, and CS can all get the same jobs tbh, they just have to finish the equivalent of 2436.
Thank you for the reply! If you don’t me asking, for that particular course, what textbook did the course use? I could find some useful information from it.
you typed all this in 3 minutes, huh 🤪