Douglas Jones - University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA

Professor: Douglas Jones

Department: Computer Science

College: University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA

Rating # 1

Overview:

• Course: CS2630
• Grade Received: C+
• Overall Rating: 1.0
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

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

Comment:

To start off, I took this class during the summer and it completely consumed any bit of time that I had. This professor is intelligent but possibly the worst professor I have ever had at Iowa. Coding is done in a UNIX shell with a custom assembly language designed by him and there is 0 help online. I highly suggest taking this class w/ a diff prof.

Rating # 2

Overview:

• Course: CS2630
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 1.0
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

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

Comment:

You are forced to write in a poorly made custom made assembly language by him. His lectures are pointless, forcing you to spend 99% of your time trying to understand a very ambiguous manual written by him, filled with tons of errors. Often lectures about useless facts from the 1970s. Very outdated and pretentious professor. Would not recommend.

Rating # 3

Overview:

• Course: CS2820
• Grade Received: A
• Overall Rating: 4.0
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

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

Comment:

You have to work for it, with Prof Jones. He isn't always clear in lecture, but provides a TON of resources to look at outside of class. You can see ALL of his prior classes, complete with detailed notes. He uses the linux terminal and vim to code - to the student's advantage since it allows you to learn about development process beyond coding.

Rating # 4

Overview:

• Course: CS2820
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 1.0
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

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

Comment:

Absolutely awful professor. The amount of content we covered, esp. in comparison to the engineering equivalent to oop, was pathetic. I feel cheated having taken this class, I got so little from it. It's both too easy (very little content and actual coding) and too hard (asinine project requirements and impossible to parse tests).

Rating # 5

Overview:

• Course: CS2820
• Grade Received: C
• Overall Rating: 1.0
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

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

Comment:

He is a good programmer but he is not a good professor. He always give student bad grade, that some way depend on his emotion, and when you get a bad grade, he won't give you feed back, you will never know what wrong with your HW, like once I done my homework, but he just give me 1 point for submit it. When I talk with him, he didn't talk reason.

Rating # 6

Overview:

• Course: CS2820
• Grade Received: Not sure yet
• Overall Rating: 1.0
• Course Difficulty: 2.0

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

Comment:

Extremely bad professor

Rating # 7

Overview:

• Course: CS2820
• Grade Received: Not sure yet
• Overall Rating: 1.0
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

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

Comment:

Bad porfessor

Rating # 8

Overview:

• Course: CS2820
• 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:

I give you 1 pro tip on how to deal with him- DON'T!!! JUST AVOID HIM! He's the worst professor I ever had. He doesn't give partial credit on exams, he's outdated and doesn't even use IDE and requires you to follow stupid coding standards(Note: you'll be programming in f*cking linux console via VM in a console based editor). Terrible prof! AVOID!

Rating # 9

Overview:

• Course: CS2820
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 1.0
• Course Difficulty: 3.0

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

Comment:

Terrible professor. Lectures are pointless. He is a very smart professor but doesn't care about teaching. Homework and coding assignments are pretty easy though.

Rating # 10

Overview:

• Course: CS2820
• Grade Received: B
• Overall Rating: 1.0
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

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

Comment:

HORRIBLE professor. His lectures are disorganized and often aimless. He spends more time talking about programming languages that haven't been used since the 70's than he spends on current and useful information. His exams are poorly written and confusing, avg scores are well below 50%. Homework is always completely unrelated to lecture material.

Rating # 11

Overview:

• Course: CS2820
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 1.5
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

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

Comment:

His lectures are off-topic quite frequently, and his assignments and machine problems usually take me one to two hours to figure out what exactly he wants. For the Java course everything is fine since we can get help elsewhere. Never take his Computer Organization unless you have to. Book is badly designed and nothing else helps.

Rating # 12

Overview:

• Course: CS2630
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 3.0
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

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

Comment:

Jones is a very, very intelligent guy. People complain about his tangents, but they usually pertain somewhat to the subject. The tests and machine problems are hard, but they're doable if you dedicate enough time and truly try to comprehend what is being taught. Doug is one of the better CS professors I've had.

Rating # 13

Overview:

• Course: 22C060
• Grade Received: Not sure yet
• Overall Rating: 3.0
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

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

Comment:

Extremely difficult, and if your classes conflict with his office hours it is hard to get him over email. Overall however he is a good teacher and if you pay attention you can get a decent grade pretty easily.

Rating # 14

Overview:

• Course: 22C060
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 3.5
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

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

Comment:

The class was really hard, and he goes of in tangets during class, but they are usually pertaining to the topic he was lecturing over. I found it interesting, and I found him extremely helpful when i went into his office hours if it was clear that i had made a solid attempt on my own.

Rating # 15

Overview:

• Course: CS2630
• Grade Received: INC
• Overall Rating: 1.0
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

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

Comment:

AVOID AT ALL COSTS!!!! Lectures not helpful. Random tangents. TA is unprepared to help as well. Prof is condescending. If you ask for help, he often tells you to look it up online. Absent during tests, so he could not answer any questions. Writes on board during lecture, but does not explain whywhat he is doing. Awful experience.

Rating # 16

Overview:

• Course: 22C060
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 3.0
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

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

Comment:

Homework assignments are for the most part are straight out of the book. Machine problems are hard but encourage problem solving skills. Tests are insanely difficult but open-book and open-note, and he lets you use previous tests. Using resources he provides it's an easy A or at least a B.

Rating # 17

Overview:

• Course: 60
• 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:

Makes you read and buy his own little book that has not been pushlished/vetted. During lecture and in the 'book' seems to take pleasure in making things more complicated and difficult than they need to be. Inordinate amount of coursework. If at all possible stay away, you were warned.

Rating # 18

Overview:

• Course: CS112
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 2.5
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

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

Comment:

He's really a mixed bag. Some days you can walk into his office, ask two or three questions and he'll tell you everything you need to know to be successful. Other days, he'll give you the run-around. Class is difficult and I would suggest attending every day. No textbook makes things harder. The curve helps a lot though.

Rating # 19

Overview:

• Course: CS2630
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 2.0
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

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

Comment:

In my honest opinion I would avoid him if possible. He announced all of the HW at the beginning and has no intros tin providing you with the knowledge to be successfull at it. He says to come in for help and if you do he belittles you and is an overall stuck up professor. Avoid like the plague.

Rating # 20

Overview:

• Course: CS60
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 1.0
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

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

Comment:

Assigned the first several homeworks the first day of class several months in advance, doesn't seem to care if he covers the material on them before theyre due or not. He say's he is accessible, but if you ask for help he will belittle your intelligence. In turn, his generally hard homework becomes insanely difficult. Same applies for machine prob.