Oren Gall - Penn State University

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Oren Gall - Penn State University

Professor: Oren Gall

Department: Computer Science

College: Penn State University

Rating # 1

Overview:

Course: CMPEN270
Grade Received: B
Overall Rating: 3.0
Course Difficulty: 4.0

For Credit: Yes
Textbook Used: N/A
Would Take Again: Yes
Attendance: Not Mandatory

Comment:

Overall decent professor. Lectures covered most of the material fairly, although some outside reading and help may be required. Exams are quite difficult, but usually doing and understanding the practice exams is sufficient for a C on the exam. Projects can take a long time to complete, too. He curves VERY HEAVILY. A C was a 57 this semester!

Rating # 2

Overview:

Course: CMPEN270
Grade Received: A
Overall Rating: 4.0
Course Difficulty: 3.0

For Credit: Yes
Textbook Used: N/A
Would Take Again: Yes
Attendance: Not Mandatory

Comment:

Lectures are boring, but they are all recorded. Lot of content to cover because it's a fundamental class, so I don't blame him for going fast. He curves the course by a lot (only need 86-87% for an A) and drops lowest HW/labs so your grade won't tank. Make sure to carefully review assignments for regrades because the TA's WILL mess up grading.

Rating # 3

Overview:

Course: CMPEN270
Grade Received: A+
Overall Rating: 4.0
Course Difficulty: 1.0

For Credit: Yes
Textbook Used: N/A
Would Take Again: Yes
Attendance: Not Mandatory

Comment:

Lectures can sometimes be boring and slow, exams are very tough, but material is understandable and Gall is easy to reach outside of class. As long as you pay attention in class you should be fine. He normally applies a huge curve at the end of the semester.

Rating # 4

Overview:

Course: COMPEN270
Grade Received: N/A
Overall Rating: 4.0
Course Difficulty: 4.0

For Credit: Yes
Textbook Used: N/A
Would Take Again: Yes
Attendance: Mandatory

Comment:

Only problem I have is how ridiculously the TAs grade hw

Rating # 5

Overview:

Course: CMPEN270
Grade Received: N/A
Overall Rating: 3.0
Course Difficulty: 4.0

For Credit: Yes
Textbook Used: N/A
Would Take Again: N/A
Attendance: Not Mandatory

Comment:

He is a very nice professor that I have a lot of respect for. However, the grading by some of the TAs is a nightmare. I failed the first two homeworks (even though I got everything correct) because I did not select the right pages on Gradescope which tanked my grade. On exams, there were times that I got points off even though I got the same as key

Rating # 6

Overview:

Course: CMPEN270
Grade Received: A-
Overall Rating: 3.0
Course Difficulty: 4.0

For Credit: Yes
Textbook Used: No
Would Take Again: Yes
Attendance: Not Mandatory

Comment:

follow instruction and will be good

Rating # 7

Overview:

Course: COMPEN270
Grade Received: A-
Overall Rating: 5.0
Course Difficulty: 4.0

For Credit: Yes
Textbook Used: No
Would Take Again: Yes
Attendance: Mandatory

Comment:

He is such a nice guy, and he will try his best to save your grade. I got 82.3 at the end of the semester, and he boost me to an A-. I truly think I do not deserve this grade, but he thinks I do. Super nice guy. Take his class!!!!

Rating # 8

Overview:

Course: CMPEN270
Grade Received: A+
Overall Rating: 5.0
Course Difficulty: 2.0

For Credit: Yes
Textbook Used: No
Would Take Again: Yes
Attendance: Mandatory

Comment:

Best professor among all the CMPEN classes I have taken so far.

Rating # 9

Overview:

Course: CMPEN270
Grade Received: A
Overall Rating: 5.0
Course Difficulty: 4.0

For Credit: Yes
Textbook Used: Yes
Would Take Again: Yes
Attendance: N/A

Comment:

Dr. Gall is one of the most supportive professors I have ever met at Penn State. He gave us lots of activities to do in the classroom and great experiments in labs which helped me REALLY understand what I was doing. I really appreciated the way the professor was always there after class to answer questions and always responded to my e-mails.

Rating # 10

Overview:

Course: CMPEN270
Grade Received: A-
Overall Rating: 3.0
Course Difficulty: 4.0

For Credit: Yes
Textbook Used: No
Would Take Again: No
Attendance: Not Mandatory

Comment:

Professor Gall is fine, but most of the problem is in how the class grading system. You will be dealing with TAs 98% of the time, and I find none of them to be very reachable and responsive when it comes to grading. The graders give no forgiveness for minor errors so get ready to meet the professor every week to tell the grade to correct them.

Rating # 11

Overview:

Course: CMPEN270
Grade Received: N/A
Overall Rating: 3.0
Course Difficulty: 4.0

For Credit: Yes
Textbook Used: No
Would Take Again: Yes
Attendance: Not Mandatory

Comment:

As a professor, he's alright. Lectures were recorded so you could always go back and watch them. Too bad none of that matters when the homework assignments are 100 times harder than what is done in lecture. And it's graded on accuracy with no forgiveness for slight errors. Tests are do-able. Textbook is a joke, google is your friend in this class.

Rating # 12

Overview:

Course: CMPEN270
Grade Received: A
Overall Rating: 4.0
Course Difficulty: 3.0

For Credit: Yes
Textbook Used: No
Would Take Again: Yes
Attendance: Not Mandatory

Comment:

I found CMPEN 270 to be a great and fair class. It wasn't easy, but anybody could succeed in this class if they studied the given material well. The design projects helped me learn a lot about the subject, and the tests were not harder than anything we went over in class. Overall, if you studied and put in effort, you did well.

Rating # 13

Overview:

Course: CMPEN270
Grade Received: A
Overall Rating: 3.0
Course Difficulty: 3.0

For Credit: Yes
Textbook Used: No
Would Take Again: No
Attendance: Mandatory

Comment:

Spends way too much time telling jokes and having "discussions" where we talk about very arbitrary topics during lectures. Then, he skims over important concepts that you would actually need to know for the homework and tests. Design projects had unclear instructions.

Rating # 14

Overview:

Course: CMPEN270
Grade Received: B+
Overall Rating: 3.0
Course Difficulty: 5.0

For Credit: Yes
Textbook Used: No
Would Take Again: No
Attendance: Not Mandatory

Comment:

His class was a mess. The professor is too cold and cant manage this course. The grading isnt consistent on exams and homeworks and they take time to grade them. Also the course grading wasnt scaled heavily as in past semesters. The exams were harder than past exams and we had 3 projects.

Rating # 15

Overview:

Course: CMPEN270
Grade Received: A
Overall Rating: 4.0
Course Difficulty: 4.0

For Credit: No
Textbook Used: No
Would Take Again: Yes
Attendance: Not Mandatory

Comment:

He definitely tried his best to do it online, and I found lectures to be great (I found his jokes ironically funny and those made the lectures so much better). He curved fine imo. However, the labs were absolutely terrible, we had to teach ourselves how to do them and were at the mercy of TA's to give us answers.

Rating # 16

Overview:

Course: CMPEN270
Grade Received: A
Overall Rating: 4.0
Course Difficulty: 4.0

For Credit: Yes
Textbook Used: No
Would Take Again: Yes
Attendance: Not Mandatory

Comment:

You don't have much of a choice on who you take this class with, but I thought he did a decent job overall. Sometimes his jokes were definite misses, other times I thought he was pretty amusing, it was a mixed bag. Only actual bad thing about him is that he can't seem to motivate his TAs to grade anything/organize labs properly.

Rating # 17

Overview:

Course: CMPEN270
Grade Received: B
Overall Rating: 4.0
Course Difficulty: 4.0

For Credit: Yes
Textbook Used: No
Would Take Again: Yes
Attendance: Not Mandatory

Comment:

The course is difficult by nature, 3 exams count for 75% of the grade, all other activities count for the last 25%. Professor Gall's lectures are very informative and detailed, and he is very accessible for students. To succeed in this class you need to keep up with the material, as it all builds on itself. Do not be afraid to ask questions.

Rating # 18

Overview:

Course: CMPEN270
Grade Received: B+
Overall Rating: 2.0
Course Difficulty: 4.0

For Credit: Yes
Textbook Used: No
Would Take Again: No
Attendance: Mandatory

Comment:

Oren comes across as a lazy professor in the way he has the class set up and the way he goes through the material. Seems like he has no communication with the TA's throughout the semester. It takes weeks to get assignments graded. Needed to learn Verilog completely on my own for labs. Unclear terms for grading and weighting scale. Not a fun class.

Rating # 19

Overview:

Course: CMPEN270
Grade Received: A-
Overall Rating: 4.0
Course Difficulty: 4.0

For Credit: Yes
Textbook Used: No
Would Take Again: No
Attendance: Not Mandatory

Comment:

My main issue with Oren is his inability to properly manage, set grading standards, and pressure his TAs to do their job. The TAs frequently take several weeks to grade homework. The exams were written by the 'head' TA who made them vry difficult and disorganized, and we have to TEACH OURSELVES Verilog, a notoriously difficult programming language.

Rating # 20

Overview:

Course: CMPEN270
Grade Received: B+
Overall Rating: 5.0
Course Difficulty: 4.0

For Credit: Yes
Textbook Used: Yes
Would Take Again: No
Attendance: Not Mandatory

Comment:

Teacher is awesome, main complaint are the TA's. Often grade incorrectly, take weeks to grade assignments, one TA missed or postponed nearly every study session they hosted, etc. On the first test half the class failed. The teacher is funny, caring, and willing to work with the students but the TA's seriously ruined the class for me.

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