Barry Levine - San Francisco State University

Professor: Barry Levine

Department: TBD

College: San Francisco State University

Rating # 1

Overview:

• Course: CS413
• Grade Received: C
• Overall Rating: 1.0
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

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

Comment:

This guy barely teaches at all. All he does in class is "Read the book, chapter xxx and the reader, chapter xxx." He even combines two sections of class into one big class with more than 100 students. Worst professor ever.

Rating # 2

Overview:

• Course: CS413
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 1.0
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

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

Comment:

The class was an awful experience. His lectures consists of him reading word for word from his laptop which is displayed on the projector. The last few projects (labeled milestones), contained such little information on how to implement the code that it took many hours of using ctrl-f in his 300 page course reader to even get an idea.

Rating # 3

Overview:

• Course: CSC413
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 1.0
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

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

Comment:

Absolutely horrible. His projects make no sense & take hours, & he barely gives you a week to do each project. For exams theres a study guide of 70 questions but he doesn't provide any answers so you have to figure everything out on your own. He gives no partial credit on assignments/exams. Harsh grading & all he does is read off his computer.

Rating # 4

Overview:

• Course: CSC413
• Grade Received: A
• Overall Rating: 3.0
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

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

Comment:

Assignments are time consuming and demanding, especially the later ones, but definitely hold value. His lectures are a bit of a pain; he goes through his reader on the projector, summing it up as he goes, which is worse than just reading it yourself. He is passionate about what he does though (teaching and his OpenMRS work). He is super kind.

Rating # 5

Overview:

• Course: 413
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 4.0
• Course Difficulty: 1.0

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

Comment:

Nice guy!

Rating # 6

Overview:

• Course: 430
• Grade Received: A-
• Overall Rating: 5.0
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

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

Comment:

He's a knowledgeable teacher, but old fashioned and old schoolstyled.

Rating # 7

Overview:

• Course: CSC413
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 2.5
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

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

Comment:

I don't think Prof Levine is as bad as people make him out to be. His projects were long and tedious but you definitely learn a lot from them. Levine also gives good advice on CS career related things. His main downside is he can be a brutal grader on the exam and gives little hints as to what will be on them. Exams are like 60% of your grade too.

Rating # 8

Overview:

• Course: CSC413
• 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: Mandatory

Comment:

Definitely has to be the worst experience I've ever had with a teacher. Contradictory assignment guidelines, extremely harsh on grading, material presented extremely unprofessional. Slides and code are all word format, no syntax highlighting (as is the reader). Makes attendance mandatory but goes on tangents constantly. Go for another teacher!

Rating # 9

Overview:

• Course: CSC413
• 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: Mandatory

Comment:

Barry is literally the worst teacher at SFSU. If you need a class and he's teaching it, DON'T TAKE IT. Trust me, you'll be putting yourself through unneeded torture. He constantly talks about himself and how great he is. After a half hour of that, he reads word-for-word from his useless reader. You will not learn anything from this class. Horrible.

Rating # 10

Overview:

• Course: CSC413
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 3.5
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

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

Comment:

Interesting class, but really hard . Recommendation for new student: BE prepare more to do work and work hard. Don't Panic. Finish works as soon as possible and Don't expect too much help. Read the reader as many as you can.Finally, Make sure your program run for the test case is only way to win. Good luck!

Rating # 11

Overview:

• Course: CS413
• 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: Mandatory

Comment:

Worst professor I've met during all my years of education in terms of professionalism. Very biased and enjoys making students suffer. His teaching is unclear and he won't accept criticism. There should be a system to prevent this kind of person from teaching in a university.

Rating # 12

Overview:

• Course: CSC413
• 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:

Avoid by all means, he's not considerate of students, their needs, their GPA, or anything else. Lives in his own bubble where he will only talk about himself

Rating # 13

Overview:

• Course: CSC413
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 2.5
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

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

Comment:

If you're a "perfect" student, you will get an A. Most will get an mediocre grade. Do not take this class lightly if you cannot handle doing long tedious projects every week. The professor has the not so useful reader in a word doc and this puzzles me why we have to shell out $$$ when the professor can just email us the reader.

Rating # 14

Overview:

• Course: CSC413
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 1.0
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

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

Comment:

You want a terrible teacher who is full of themself and doesn't care about students at all? Not only does he make you sit through his boring personal stories, he'll take attendance right before to eensure everyone who's supposed to be there is to hear them. Get 100% on everything but the final and somehow you'll get two letter grades down.

Rating # 15

Overview:

• Course: CSC413
• 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:

The rumors about how awful and useless this professor is are totally true. While I received and A in his class, I did it all on my own as Levine was useless in teaching any kind of information. He is truly a disgrace to the SFSU CS department. I cannot believe they made him professor. He is awful at teaching and not interested to teach anything.

Rating # 16

Overview:

• Course: CSC413
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 3.5
• Course Difficulty: 2.0

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

Comment:

Everything you need is in Professor handbook. Even sometimes the requirements for the assignment are not cleared, if you take time and ask, he will explain it to you. The hardest part is wasting too much time on this course and trying to understand the course works. Tests are easy if you understand the assignments

Rating # 17

Overview:

• Course: CSC520
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 5.0
• Course Difficulty: 4.0

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

Comment:

Dr. Levine did an excellent job of covering this interesting (yet confounding) material. I felt really overwhelmed with the greek letters(it felt like math), but Professor L. took the time to clarify my (and everyone elses) every question. Only once was I "dwelling" on a subject too long(he spent most of a class explaining it directly to me), at

Rating # 18

Overview:

• Course: CSC413
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 4.5
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

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

Comment:

Barry is an excellent teacher. Everything you need to pass his class is in his reader: the only people who complained were those who waited until the last minute to start their projects(Lam3r5), people who expected him to tell them how to program(l053r5) and people who expected him to spoon-feed them everything(m0r0n5). I felt everything was crys

Rating # 19

Overview:

• Course: CSC413
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 1.5
• Course Difficulty: 5.0

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

Comment:

He's so rude and unhelpful and he doesn't want you to come to his office hours, but the TA's which barely has some time and is flooded with students. He hates to teach, so if you want to learn something, you must demand explanations from him

Rating # 20

Overview:

• Course: CSC520
• Grade Received: N/A
• Overall Rating: 5.0
• Course Difficulty: 1.0

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

Comment:

Dr. Levine explained with crystal-clear simplicity a subject that lost many of us just because of the greek characters, LOL!Print out his lecture notes, and take your notes on them, as he goes over them in class.If you are confused at all, just ask.It really was a simple class, considering it could have been all mathematical proofs!Thank you Barry!