CPSC250 Lab is hard because the instructions can be unclear, and the projects can be time consuming if you have a heavy semester. The first half is more than doable, but the second half's difficulty increases drastically. Because the lab and lecture are not on the same timeline, if your lecture falls behind it can make completing the labs harder.

Classes, some object-oriented programming, dictionaries. All were very useful though.

The lab TAs are current undergrad students and the "professors" or seniors or master's students. Because of this, they do grade leniently and are flexible with due dates, but they do not always explain concepts the best or the instructions.

Attend class and work on the projects during the lab. If you are stuck at all, do NOT wait to ask questions. Clarify the instructions and attend the office hours to show you are putting in the effort.

This was a difficult class, but I learned a ton. However, if I had known how much of a time commitment would be involved, this would have been the only course I took last semester (I typically take 6 credit hours at a time). Dr. Rutzky recommends 10-15hrs per week as the litmus for getting an "A", and that was accurate for me. I got a 94 in the class and it was not easy.

A week in GEL-111 will have: - Lecture assignment - One or two Labs - A Discussion Board assignment - Possibly an SLO quiz Semester info: - There is a research essay - Four total exams (one every 3 weeks), with the fourth being the Final The weekly labs can be submitted up to three times before the due date and she will take the highest grade of the three. It's quite a bit of work and was the most intensive online class I have ever taken. The exams must be taken on campus, even for online students, so keep that in mind. Lab kits must be picked up/dropped off at Southern Campus, although Dr. Rutzky will meet you at Northern Campus if you make those arrangements (that's where her office is.) There are no study guides, just broad, open-ended questions about the content. You really need to k...read more

She is an exceptional teacher! Truly goes above and beyond to answer questions and give you as much credit as possible. As long as you communicate, she is open to extensions on lab/lecture work and gives good feedback.

Keep in mind this course required me to put in 10-15hrs of work per week to keep an "A" in the class. You might want to take easier/fewer classes during the semester that you're taking this course!

This class feels completely pointless and overly focused on tests. Instead of teaching practical skills or fostering meaningful discussions, it revolves entirely around memorizing material for exams. If you’re not someone who excels at test-taking, you’re at a major disadvantage, which makes the course unnecessarily stressful. There’s little to no emphasis on actually developing critical thinking skills in a way that applies to real life, and the constant pressure to perform well on tests makes it hard to enjoy or even see the value in the class. Overall, it’s more frustrating than beneficial.

This was a very poorly organized course. The Professor opted out of having a textbook, which is fine for an organized professor with solid teaching skills, but that was not the case in this scenario. Each week, we were assigned a dense AI written overview of seemingly a dozen topics that fall into a theory or branch of developing societies and 4-6 20-50 page readings and articles that we were intended to internalize and apply to a weekly discussion that was phrased in a difficult to understand manner. The professor always fell behind on grading, at first, she was behind by at least a month. This is not a good course for online learning. this professor does not have the skills to synthesize learning in this environment and is likely only equipped to teach in an in person setting.

This professor is extremely unorganized and became increasingly frazzled and passive aggressive (sometimes straight up aggressive) throughout the semester. We stopped receiving weekly communications from her less than halfway through the semester and she never quite learned how to operate the Canvas system properly. I would go out of my way to ensure I never took a course with this professor again. This was her first time teaching at UNT - so hopefully it was a learning experience for her.

Be prepared to teach yourself absolutely everything with this course as this professor provides 0 guidelines or foundation aspects to the topics gone over in this course.