Premkumar Devanbu - University of California Davis,Davis, CA

Professor: Premkumar Devanbu

Department: Computer Science

College: University of California Davis, Davis, CA

Rating # 1

Overview:

• Course: ECS032A
• 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:

He taught 32A really well a class meant for people who haven't coded before. His slides are thorough and he has a lot of patience when trying to help people. Pay attention and ask questions when you need to and you will be fine. Find yourself stuck? Go to one of the many resources available they set up. (Also I love all of his Monty Python jokes!)

Rating # 2

Overview:

• Course: ECS032A
• Grade Received: A+
• Overall Rating: 5.0
• Course Difficulty: 2.0

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

Comment:

Professor Devanbu did a great job teaching ECS032A. He was funny, his slides were well organized, and he made the material easy enough to understand even with no computing background. Homework was given weekly, and it's definitely necessary. All of the homeworks were based on concepts from lecture, so they were good practice for his tests, too!

Rating # 3

Overview:

• Course: ECS32A
• Grade Received: A
• Overall Rating: 5.0
• Course Difficulty: 2.0

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

Comment:

Homework assignments were based on the textbook reading and live coding done during lectures. Devanbu is hilarious and wonderful in lecture. Tests were not too difficult and curved well. He is a bit unorganized, but as long as you do the readings and pay attention to his live coding (and skip discussion), you'll be good to go.

Rating # 4

Overview:

• Course: ECS32A
• 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:

Only one assignment per week, very manageable, only would take a few hours to complete. The tests were harder, lots of trick questions, but he always posts a review that is helpful. He's a really nice guy, though his lectures are hard to stay awake through. I only went to lecture, ditched discussion, and never read the text book. Did pretty well.

Rating # 5

Overview:

• Course: ECS161
• Grade Received: B+
• Overall Rating: 4.0
• Course Difficulty: 2.0

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

Comment:

ECS 161 with him was a relaxing. The lecture itself was not intense due to the fact we had to cover a lot of dev tools/topics generally. The projects are very doable, but may require a lot of self learning and reading online documentations. Multiple choice exam/final was hard, no practice exam to practice off. Project was 50% of your grade.

Rating # 6

Overview:

• Course: ECS160
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 2.0
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

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

Comment:

I had Prem for 161 and 160. He's a nice guy, he's genuine and he's enthusiastic about teaching. His class organization is awful, though. Program specs are hilariously unclear, but "you should have tested it more." You can write 150 lines of code, and 2 irrelevant differences in how you implemented it will cost you the credit. Exam memorize.

Rating # 7

Overview:

• Course: ECS160
• Grade Received: B
• Overall Rating: 1.0
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

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

Comment:

These were some interesting topics, but there were some random irrelevant topics too. The course overall was extremely unorganized and the exams were were worth way too much for a course that's supposed to focus on group projects. At the end I feel like I didn't learn anything that I couldn't learn from Googling.

Rating # 8

Overview:

• Course: ECS30
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 3.5
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

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

Comment:

Lot of small but easy programs. I enjoyed the class and learned a lot, but I honestly wish we had more programming assigned. I coded on average for about 4-5 hours a week which made the jump to sean davis for ecs40 pretty difficult. Overall, he's a good guy and he is very helpful if you need it.

Rating # 9

Overview:

• Course: ECS030
• 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:

Read the textbook because a good portion of what you need for hw and tests aren't covered in lecture. His lectures are helpful and interesting though. Programming hw will take hours but he holds weekly hw sessions and is very helpful. Don't be surprised if you can't do the last assignment. 2nd midterm is harder than the final. Pretty fun guy!

Rating # 10

Overview:

• Course: ECS30
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 2.5
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

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

Comment:

Lectures were boring so I stopped showing up. HPrograms were pretty simple except for the last one. Lowest homework dropped. I seriously advise to save it for the last homework. MC MIDTERMS AND FINAL. The first few people who submit the last homework and have interesting solutions for it get to do research with him in his lab, which was cool.

Rating # 11

Overview:

• Course: ECS30
• Grade Received: B
• Overall Rating: 2.0
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

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

Comment:

I 3 programming, I hated his class. He's bad at managing large classes, and lectures aren't necessary to get a good grade. Office hours always crowded, doesn't respond to emails. He seems to not care about students that much. The assignments aren't really hard IMO, but using Gradebot and the terminal were the most annoying part of this class.

Rating # 12

Overview:

• Course: ECS30
• Grade Received: B
• Overall Rating: 2.0
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

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

Comment:

Funny guy but the material is basically regurgitated from the textbook. Midterms and final were like taking quizzes. The questions were vague and filled with bait answers like c. logic error d. not enough info e. none of the above. Annoying that you can do poorly just by missing a few questions.

Rating # 13

Overview:

• Course: ECS030
• 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:

Did well on the assignments but that's probably because I've tried C before. Exams were a different story and getting a good grade on a test is basically luck. It's hard to study for a midterm and be confident that you will do well because the tests are random and the practice exams weren't much help. Some multiple choice worth 10 points others 3.

Rating # 14

Overview:

• Course: ECS30
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 3.5
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

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

Comment:

I appreciated how much help he offered - Wednesday night coding sessions, plentiful office hours, etc. It is also clear that he wants to constantly improve, and I think he has over the years. He is a bit disorganized at times, but not significantly so, and his lectures were helpful occasionally fun. I would say he's all around good professor.

Rating # 15

Overview:

• Course: ECS30
• 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:

His lectures sagged way behind homeworks. He tries to make you drop the class early but dont! It's taught more like ECS 10. Very unorganized but helpful in office hours.

Rating # 16

Overview:

• Course: ECS30
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 1.0
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

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

Comment:

This class is bearable but Prem makes the class harder than it should be. He is very disorganized and does not teach into depth. He gives coding hw on topics he barely touches on. He only goes into the material usually the following week really quickly. Very repetitive and cannot explain well. Overall, one of the worst professors, avoid if you can.

Rating # 17

Overview:

• Course: ECS30
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 2.5
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

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

Comment:

This class was extremely organized. There were numerous mistakes on his homework directions, many instances of miscommunication with his TAs, and he handed back the midterms in a very inefficient manner. He's a decent lecturer, but the lack of organization made the class frustrating.

Rating # 18

Overview:

• Course: ECS30
• Grade Received: B+
• Overall Rating: 3.0
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

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

Comment:

He's not as bad as everyone says.... Just give him a chance and work hard and I'm sure you'll do fine. What really worked for me was finding a nice quiet room, a study buddy, and a beer. The assignments went by in a breeze! Not gonna lie tho, the midterms are completely random; not based off lecture (more so off of the reading and hw)

Rating # 19

Overview:

• Course: ECS160
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 3.5
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

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

Comment:

I felt like he was a decent lecturer and gave good examples when needed. The midterm and final were bearable. The project, which you have to finish in about 1 1/2 months, is pretty tough. You get no help with learning android. I would recommend taking this class with him over levitt.

Rating # 20

Overview:

• Course: ECS160
• 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: N/A

Comment:

I liked his teaching style when I took 30 with him, but 160 was a completely different story. For a class that teaches about structure and organization, his class was far from it. Not helpful in regards to our final project and did not prepare us for the midterm or final in any helpful way. I urge you to take another professor if you can,