David Poole - University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC

Professor: David Poole

Department: Computer Science

College: University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC

Rating # 1

Overview:

• Course: CPSC312
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 2.0
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

• For Credit: Yes
• Textbook Used: No
• Would Take Again: No
• Attendance: N/A

Comment:

High averages may draw you to take this but do your research first and make sure you actually enjoy Haskell and Prolog. The first midterm for the each of the two programming languages tend to be simple but the second one (including final) is extremely difficult. Projects are marked with an unclear rubric so you won't know how to improve on it.

Rating # 2

Overview:

• Course: CPSC322
• Grade Received: A
• Overall Rating: 3.0
• Course Difficulty: 2.0

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

Comment:

Course is very dry. Weekly homework for this class. David is a nice guy but not engaging at all. He just seems to read off slides. Fortunately, this course is not super difficult. His lecture slides and textbook are very informative. You don't have to do a lot of critical thinking. Just follow his slides and examples and you'll be fine.

Rating # 3

Overview:

• Course: CPSC322
• Grade Received: A
• Overall Rating: 4.0
• Course Difficulty: 2.0

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

Comment:

His lectures can be a bit boring but overall is a pretty good guy. Easy A if you put in the effort.

Rating # 4

Overview:

• Course: CPSC322
• Grade Received: B+
• Overall Rating: 1.0
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

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

Comment:

AVOID THIS PROF. He is probably the worst thing that has happened to me.

Rating # 5

Overview:

• Course: CPSC322
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 1.0
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

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

Comment:

Friendly person but is horrible at explaining any concept. He will define a huge amount of vocabulary words, then sum up a trivial example with an incredibly long formula referencing those vocabulary words, then assign you a non-trivial question that is ambiguously described and does not map perfectly to his example.

Rating # 6

Overview:

• Course: CPSC312
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 1.0
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

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

Comment:

Very unclear lectures, tends to make extremely easy concepts very confusing, projects are a bit too open ended, but you do learn a lot from them, much more than the lectures.

Rating # 7

Overview:

• Course: CPSC312
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 4.0
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

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

Comment:

Has been improving class a lot and is one of the only profs that will act on feedback before end of term. Needs to make questions much clearer and much narrower to avoid people accidentally over complicating things for themselves.

Rating # 8

Overview:

• Course: CPSC312
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 5.0
• Course Difficulty: 2.0

• For Credit: Yes
• Textbook Used: Yes
• Would Take Again: Yes
• Attendance: Mandatory

Comment:

Not as bad as some of the comments. Can be confusing but tries his best to help and assignments are for participation. Nice that he puts his lectures online.

Rating # 9

Overview:

• Course: CPSC312
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 4.0
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

• For Credit: Yes
• Textbook Used: No
• Would Take Again: Yes
• Attendance: N/A

Comment:

I find Poole's lectures to be pretty clear on the material for the most part. The nice thing is that he records his lectures so if you miss class or need to review content, it's available to you. But you should attend for the clicker marks. He does his best to answer questions and he doesn't come off condescending.

Rating # 10

Overview:

• Course: CPSC312
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 4.0
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

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

Comment:

Poole provides a lot of sample programs that are really useful for answering assignment questions. He also records his lectures and provides ample clicker questions that enhance our understanding of the material. He answers questions without sounding condescending and seems like he really cares that we learn the material well.

Rating # 11

Overview:

• Course: CPSC312
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 1.0
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

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

Comment:

Concepts aren't explained effectively, nor is lecture information provided useful. They're obfuscated and ripped from his textbook. A below comment echoes my sentiment: "Makes material more confusing than it actually is." What should be an incredibly easy and straightforward course is not, due to poor teaching and provision of resources.

Rating # 12

Overview:

• Course: CPSC312
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 1.0
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

• For Credit: Yes
• Textbook Used: Yes
• Would Take Again: No
• Attendance: N/A

Comment:

He makes things super complicated even if they're super simple. He takes marks off even if your answers are right despite the instructions not specifying you couldn't do what you did. Totally unfair. Punishes you for working ahead. This is an easy course and yet was incredibly stressed due to his inability to teach.

Rating # 13

Overview:

• Course: CPSC322
• Grade Received: Not sure yet
• Overall Rating: 1.0
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

• For Credit: Yes
• Textbook Used: No
• Would Take Again: N/A
• Attendance: Mandatory

Comment:

Makes material more confusing than it actually is. May be a good person but a terrible prof.

Rating # 14

Overview:

• Course: CPSC322
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 1.0
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

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

Comment:

avoid

Rating # 15

Overview:

• Course: CPSC322
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 1.5
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

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

Comment:

Not good at instructing.

Rating # 16

Overview:

• Course: CPSC422
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 3.0
• Course Difficulty: 2.0

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

Comment:

Lectures are based on the book he wrote and they are very high level summaries. He goes over the material extremely fast and teach as if we are all Graduate students.

Rating # 17

Overview:

• Course: CPSC211
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 4.5
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

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

Comment:

Provides lots of examples and analogies to support his lectures. Midterm and final were okay, it's just one of those course where you really have to understand the material or else you won't do well since they're all connected. He's willing to help students outside of class. I think he's alright.

Rating # 18

Overview:

• Course: CPSC211
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 2.0
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

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

Comment:

He mumbles a lot! His class is boring...he has a little bit of accent. But most importantly is he is boring...end of discussion... I study CPSC211 lecture notes( be prepared to be best friends with the CPSC211 website)and ask TA things more than I ask him, and I don't recall ever asking him anything...

Rating # 19

Overview:

• Course: CPSC211
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 1.0
• Course Difficulty: 2.0

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

Comment:

Sooooo boring! Most of the class time was spent with Poole waiting for the class to answer simple programming questions, and the rest was spent listening to his rambling. Class content was very intersting but taught in an uninteresting and hard to follow manner. Poole is useless when it comes to outside help.

Rating # 20

Overview:

• Course: CS211
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 2.0
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

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

Comment:

"Do you understand?" Not really...