Carolina Ruiz - Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA

Professor: Carolina Ruiz

Department: Computer Science

College: Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA

Rating # 1

Overview:

• Course: CS539
• 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:

She is a kind and smart person. She teaches difficult courses, but tries to her best to do it well. Her accent can be a bit difficult to understand, though. And the amount of homework is huge. Other than that, she is a good professor.

Rating # 2

Overview:

• Course: CS548
• Grade Received: Not sure yet
• Overall Rating: 1.0
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

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

Comment:

I wouldn't wish this class on my worst enemy.

Rating # 3

Overview:

• Course: CS548
• Grade Received: A
• Overall Rating: 4.0
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

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

Comment:

My major is data science, and to be honest, I found this class is one of the most useful DS classes in WPI. No matter how tough it is. Though I admit the project is a nightmare...

Rating # 4

Overview:

• Course: CS548
• 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:

Lecturequiz(20min)+explaining quiz(1hr)+student presentations(1+hr). HW is beyond human imagination in terms of vagueness and boredom. Has a title similar to a top conference but surprisingly irrelevant. However, I love this course anyway. Those who hate it know nothing about life. After taking it, any other class looks comparatively awesome.

Rating # 5

Overview:

• Course: CS2223
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 1.0
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

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

Comment:

Ruiz is actually the most EVIL and incompetent professor I have ever encountered. Not only does she not speak proper english, be able to answer any question correctly in class, she also falsely claimed that I cheated in an exam and forced me to accept an NR. When I told her I'd take it to the judicial board, she said she has tenure and laughed.

Rating # 6

Overview:

• Course: CS2223
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 1.0
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

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

Comment:

Homework takes 2 weeks to complete, and you have 1, not to mention she completely changes the assignment the day before its due. Her lectures not worth going to she reads off the slides from other professors at other universities. She blames the students for a test she wrote poorly. This is not taught as a CS class, I don't know what it is.

Rating # 7

Overview:

• Course: CS2223
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 1.5
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

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

Comment:

Extremely difficult to understand when she is going over problems in class and often doesn't know how to answer questions asked by the class. She has more than once answered a question about a hw answer with "I don't know why its that answer lets move on". TA's were awful and not consistent graders, I would get an A with one TA and 50 with another

Rating # 8

Overview:

• Course: CS2223
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 1.5
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

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

Comment:

her clarity at communicating what she wants from students during assignments and in class is awful. didn't understand most of the lecture. homework's are very ambiguous and hard to understand

Rating # 9

Overview:

• Course: CS539
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 4.5
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

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

Comment:

For machine learning - this class was a lot of work but probably the most rewarding for the effort. There were 8 project reports ~10 pages each and she read every page and made relevant comments. You don't get that kind of feedback and time investment from many professors. She knows her material, teaches it well, and expects a lot.

Rating # 10

Overview:

• Course: CS539E
• 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:

Her class is very very very well-organized. She explain things clearly, assign projects and reading in good pace with class materials. She is very helpful and care about students. She is strict on projects, but if you keep learning and improving yourself you'll get a good grade

Rating # 11

Overview:

• Course: CS4445
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 3.0
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

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

Comment:

Data mining is probably the most dull class I have ever taken. Do not take it. If you are required to take it, change your major. Ruiz is ok, the material is just terrible.

Rating # 12

Overview:

• Course: CS2223
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 2.5
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

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

Comment:

Very smart woman, but an awful lecturer. Hard to understand, especially when she starts talking a mile per minute. Often unable to explain concepts throughly. Based on the past ratings, I think she has eased up a bit--homeworks and exams were manageable. Not easy by any means, but not unreasonably difficult either.

Rating # 13

Overview:

• Course: CS2223
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 1.0
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

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

Comment:

Avoid this professor at all costs. She wastes tons of lecture time discussing topics that will NOT be tested, and and her exams are excruciatingly difficult. Unless you want Algorithms to seem like a grad course, STAY AWAY. She makes you wish you took the course with Hofri instead.

Rating # 14

Overview:

• Course: CS2223
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 1.0
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

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

Comment:

She's boring, unclear, and unhelpful. She'll take 30% off your hw grade if it's not in her hands within 1 min of the start of the class. Avoid her at all costs.

Rating # 15

Overview:

• Course: AI
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 4.5
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

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

Comment:

Great class, very fun, but very tough. projects were sometimes out there a bit, and sometimes we tried and failed at them, but we were graded mroe on the attempt.

Rating # 16

Overview:

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

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

Comment:

Ruiz doesn't teach easy courses, so don't expect to just slide by with her as a prof. Plan to spend at least 3 hours a day studying, etc and plenty more when you have a project. She teaches hard material better than any other prof in the CS department though. You will learn quite a bit. Going to her office hours really helps too.

Rating # 17

Overview:

• Course: CS4123
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 2.0
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

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

Comment:

data mining is okay, theory of computation not recommended. where precision and accuracy was required, we got confusion and half-right diagrams and theorems. not enough for a class where tiny things matter.

Rating # 18

Overview:

• Course: CS4341CS4XXX
• Grade Received: B
• Overall Rating: 5.0
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

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

Comment:

ai and dataming, both were great classes and I learned a ton. People with negative comments just dont want to do work. she was fair and quite warm towards all of the students in my classes

Rating # 19

Overview:

• Course: 4445
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 3.5
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

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

Comment:

Homework is nitemare, long and time consuming, but grading is easy, the proj is a joke--reading other's java code? i always write down what she says about the algorithm in class and that gives me a perfect score.

Rating # 20

Overview:

• Course: CS4445
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 4.5
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

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

Comment:

What the other posters regarding deadlines and long homeworks is true. If you have questions keep bugging her (that's how we got deadline extensions). You better not be taking other hard classes. Great class and Prof., but very time consuming and painful.