Gary Baumgartner - University of Toronto - St. George Campus, Toronto, ON

Professor: Gary Baumgartner

Department: Computer Science

College: University of Toronto - St. George Campus, Toronto, ON

Rating # 1

Overview:

• Course: CSC324
• Grade Received: A
• Overall Rating: 5.0
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

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

Comment:

You have to try to understand his words, not the course material. Once you are used to his wording, all you need to do is just follow his instruction on assignment and type codes. And helps and answers questions great-fully when you visit his office.

Rating # 2

Overview:

• Course: CSC104
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 1.0
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

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

Comment:

He explains things very poorly. He stares at his laptop and mumbles to himself throughout lectures. He contextualizes nothing. You will not know how well you are doing because he doesn't get around to posting grades. I strongly urge anyone thinking about taking CSC104 to find an alternative. He made an interesting subject completely awful.

Rating # 3

Overview:

• Course: CSC104
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 5.0
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

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

Comment:

Gary Baumgartner is just excellent

Rating # 4

Overview:

• Course: CSC488
• Grade Received: Not sure yet
• Overall Rating: 1.0
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

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

Comment:

Extremely disorganized, no slides or lecture notes. He spends each class writing code without explaining anything. Be prepared to learn what he thinks is interesting (Racket) rather than the actual topic of the course.

Rating # 5

Overview:

• Course: CSC324
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 1.0
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

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

Comment:

Confrontational when people asked for clear explanations. Be ready to look at him program on screen during the whole class. Not the best way to teach anything.

Rating # 6

Overview:

• Course: CSC324
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 5.0
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

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

Comment:

He is a brilliant professor who is very helpful outside class and on Piazza. He always takes the time to help you out and the lectures are informative. The course isn't very difficult if you keep up with the work.

Rating # 7

Overview:

• Course: CSC236
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 5.0
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

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

Comment:

He assigns a lot more problem sets than other instructors who have taught the course but they are well designed in that after completing them the student will grasp concepts that are often difficult for them to wrap their head around. Gary is also high accessible outside class. If he's in his office, he'll often make time for you.

Rating # 8

Overview:

• Course: CSC104
• Grade Received: A+
• Overall Rating: 4.0
• Course Difficulty: 2.0

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

Comment:

I took CSC104 with him based on past reviews (and to complete a breadth requirement) and was happy with the turnout. He is a little disorganized but I look past that because I can tell that he really cares about his students understanding what he says. He's really helpful during his office hours, and I liked his last lecture a lot.

Rating # 9

Overview:

• Course: CSC165
• Grade Received: B
• Overall Rating: 1.0
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

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

Comment:

bad lectures and super hard god level finals....

Rating # 10

Overview:

• Course: CSC236
• Grade Received: A
• Overall Rating: 4.5
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

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

Comment:

I know that a lot of people say they can't follow his lectures, but I actually really like his teaching style. If you want to do well you just need to give yourself time after each lecture to process what the examples he used all have in common - it's subtle, but if you do this you will do really well. I have him now for CSC324 and it's great.

Rating # 11

Overview:

• Course: CSC165
• Grade Received: F
• Overall Rating: 1.5
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

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

Comment:

If you want a high grade, I suggest dropping this class asap when you find out he's the course coordinator; his assignments are vague, his tests are super difficult and near impossible to fully prepare for, and he's also a tough grader. Either you have an extremely high IQ, or prepare yourself for a march toward Mordor when you enter his class.

Rating # 12

Overview:

• Course: CSC165
• Grade Received: C
• Overall Rating: 2.0
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

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

Comment:

Gary is an ok prof. He's pretty helpful in office hours but lectures were disorganized and hard to follow. The exam was also very challenging and I feel like he didn't prepare us that well.

Rating # 13

Overview:

• Course: CSC165
• Grade Received: B+
• Overall Rating: 2.0
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

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

Comment:

He is really smart and his examples are super helpful - but, you won't be able to understand him in class. He is very unorganized in terms of teaching: he enters the classroom, starts right away with random examples, leaving the students puzzled of what he actually wants to teach. Overall terrible class experience, but his examples do help study.

Rating # 14

Overview:

• Course: CSC165
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 3.5
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

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

Comment:

Tries to get audience participation, but the class isn't always there for him, and he doesn't know when to move on if nobody is willing to answer. If you know the material please answer at least one question per lecture so that the class can actually go somewhere. Extra points if you can make it go somewhere productive.

Rating # 15

Overview:

• Course: CSC236
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 5.0
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

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

Comment:

The best teacher in my life. Even though I did poorly on this course, he never gave up his students. It is worth to take his course to see the brand new world. I highly recommend if you attend his office hour. Think you learn a lot, but there is a tax (Mark).

Rating # 16

Overview:

• Course: CSC236
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 2.5
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

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

Comment:

He is rated high because he is nice (personality). However, he is very disorganized and very unprofessional. (He is just like a high-school teacher.) He has no lecture slide, re-uses previous online notes of others.

Rating # 17

Overview:

• Course: CSC236
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 3.5
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

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

Comment:

Professor Baumgartner is clearly passionate about the course and tries hard to get his students to understand it. However, a certain amount of mathematical maturity is needed for this course to make sense. The final was also incredibly challenging.

Rating # 18

Overview:

• Course: CSC236
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 2.5
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

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

Comment:

Firstly, Gary definitely seems like a professor that cares about his topic of teaching. However, I find he is not very good at teaching this topic. His lectures are very confusing and proceed in a non-linear fashion. His tests are very unpredictable in terms of difficulty with a final that most students agree was incredibly hard.

Rating # 19

Overview:

• Course: CSC236
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 5.0
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

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

Comment:

Really good prof. love him:)

Rating # 20

Overview:

• Course: CSC236
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 4.5
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

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

Comment:

I really like this professor. He's very clear at explaining rather abstract concepts and found his assignments thought provoking (although it does take time to do them).