Hitchner, Lew  

CSC 100 class is virtually a joke, but it's good for people completely new to programming. I'm glad I took it rather than 101. The 2 hour class is made up of half lecture(which takes place via powerpoint slides) and half lab. The lectures are extremely boring and I did fall asleep a few times, but they show you what to do for your lab and homework. The lab assignments are very easy and most of the time I got out half an hour early. The material presented in the class included a stupid java tutorial program called alice, a fair amount of programming in python, a matlab thing, some database query-ing, and a few other misc things. Most of the homework was very easy for me, but if you don't get the programming, be sure to talk to him, otherwise you will get lost very early on. Overall, good teacher, a little boring.

This isn't the brightest teacher out there. I've had far better. His lectures arent as informative as i'd like them to. Mainly they're full of information you really don't need. I know i'm a freshman and all, but i know the difference between "Open Project" and "New Project", yet he diecides to spend half a lecture explaining their differences. He hammers obvious points into your head that you already had the ability to completely figure out on your own. You want to go to sleep so you can ignore all the irrevelant information thrown out there. But then you'll miss something important when he does get to a good part. Problem is, he spends a lot of time on useless stuff and not enough on useful information. The labs felt like nothing but busy work. Either that or they're very long. He introduces you to a lot of programs that look cool and fun to use and are helpful to the class, which is cool, but he introduces so many of these programs you never really get to use any of them. Anyways, you can pretty much do the labs without really paying attention to the lecture. Thankfully he prints out a bunch of his notes so you can reread those and figure out what to do. Probably most annoying is that he is very frequently unprepared. expect a lot of cancelled demos or broken handin commands and a bunch of sudden rescheduling. roll is taken, so you have to attend lecture. He had no midterm, but the questions on the final were kinda vauge. Plus, when you have to read directions to anything he writes, you'll notice that, like his lectures, the directions are full of fluff and its hard to find the information you need. Overall: though its really easy to get an A, this teacher just makes me mad. dont take him.

Ok... there is one MAJOR flaw with this guy, otherwise he's a solid teacher. I spent more time sleeping in his lecture than all my other classes combined! He will teach us something new and then repeat the same lecture 10x!!!! If he'd just ask the class something like, "do you understand what i'm talking about?" but no... the entire class is sleeping and he still is rambling on about the same topic. when he does move onto a new topic the class is awake, then most of us put our heads down again... i know the material that 101 learns is pretty simple stuff, SO DON'T DRILL IT INTO US!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Whew... alright, i'm done.

Hitchner's a nice guy. To bad he has to teach. The first few weeks you get sloshed with material, and the next day in class, he loves to remind eveyone about the reading that was assigned the night before that is totally hard to understand. Dont worry however, he doesnt waste time going over it in class, he's got something about Java stacks and heaps. He spends most of the lectures during the middle of the course talking about a load of crap that is useless. His labs are a joke, people woulndt go if he didnt check everyone off everyday. Also, his labs you have to do homework on becuase they are way too long to do in class. Good luck getting help during the lab, he's always helping someone else and has no concept for people with their hands up. His tests arent bad however, cept when he asks you to do things that were barely covered in class. His assignments were the worst! He does write the algorithms for everything which is nice if you feel overwhelmed with a 10 page assignment. But the assignments themselves are hard ass hard with stuff never covered before, he assumes you have a lot of experience. His office hours are good, he will help you with whatever you want and try to talk to him because he is interested in his students, he just doesnt know how to teach his students. PS, JAVA SUCKS!

A relitavly good teacher at what he does. Sometimes his explainations of subjects can get a bit wordy, but overall he knows how to present the subject matter in a way that's understandable. The only problem i had in his class, is that you spend half the time on his tests just trying to figure out the directions! They can sometimes be vague. No, english is not this guy's strong point ;) But otherwise i reccommend him, especially if you have not had programming expierience in the past.

Awesome prfessor!! He is willing to help anyone at anytime if someone needs help. So, take hime if you think you will need a lot of help in this class.

Hitchner's a good teacher for 101. He knows what will be important in 102 and 103. I had some difficulty in his class, though, because he has a tendency to discuss topics which are well above the level of a 101 student. He called "giving [you] a taste of what's coming", but I found it confusing to hear about arrays when I was learning cin and cout. I understood his reasoning for introducing future concepts, but I felt he discussed them a little too much. On the other hand, he has a lot of hands-on experience and can answer tricky questions very well.

A very good professor, but he does tend to get a tad boiring in lecture. However, if you have a problem, he can and will help you.

Hitchner really knows his stuff, maybe a little too much. I did not understand his lectures at all. His examples were very complex and even my friends around me did not get it. His first midterm was extremely considering I have not had much programming experience prior to taking the class. When you go to his office hours, he helps you out A LOT then. I would take advantage of that. I did that and my grade rose from a D to a C. Agaian, his midterms were fairly difficult and required a lot of studying from me.

This teacher is super hard, but he really cares about his students. If you have never had a programming class and want to make computers part of your profession, I recommend taking this class when you have an otherwise easy quarter. It will take about 10-15 hours of your week, and Hitchner is so nice that you just want to do well for him. Definitely, he is a poly material teacher.

Hitchner is an effective instructor. He is methodical in his presentation (this is a methodical subject). I never wondered what he wanted. His labs are very structured, maybe to the point of obsession. I've never worked so hard for an average grade, but I certainly understood the material when I was done. I recommend him, but have sufficient time (10-15 hrs.+) to complete programming assignments.

I thought Hitchner was an excellent teacher. I had him for 101 and 102 because i liked him so much.I recieved an A- in both classes and i didn't have to work extremelly hard. If you have a choice to take Hitchner or any other teacher for 101 and 102, i would strongly recommend that you take him. With Hitchner you will learn the material very well. Just make sure that you do all the programs and labs and then understand the material fairly well for the test and you will at least get a B. He gives you about 6 programs to do during the quarter, and there are about two different lab programs do every week. The only time this class got me busy was when i had to complete the big programs, other than that it really didn't take up to much of my time. Also, in my opinion it is not necessary to go to lab hour, he posts everything on the internet and you can do it all at home, that is what i always did.

I'll agree that professor Hitchner has his stuff down. He's very well rounded in the programming world, and can answer nearly all of your questions. That's his plus side. His downside is... the guy cannot speak and or write something that makes any sense. His tests are sometimes semi difficult, but the most difficult thing about them is the fact that you CANNOT understand what he's trying to say. If you ask him a question about *ANYTHING* involving wording, he says.. "you should already know that." Secondly, all of his programs currently are ones he has used in the past. His documents are out dated, and on nearly every program, someone in the class had to email him and say "hey... this doesn't make sense" and only occasionally would he correct it. His attitude is horrible, he's completely rude to those who ask questions that are really posing them problems, and overall - he could do a lot to improve his social skills with students.

I took this class way back in 1999 when the course taught C++. I feel like I should give my own two cents from my own experience after reading all the bad ones people have had of him. He was good all in all. Everything was explained very thoroughly and the grading was very fair. The deadlines weren't too unreasonable and I felt like he was always there if you needed any clarification. This material isn't the easiest shit out there and by no fault of Hitchner's. I would recommend him to anyone.

Professor Hitchner is not the greatest in the world at explaining things, even in class or in lab but if you do all the work and put the required time into the class you will definitely learn. He will start you off doing stuff not explain it, you will not know what the hell your doing until the 2nd week of classes but if you copy the book and try to figure it out the first week you'll be fine. The bottom line is if you dont mind learning a lot of the stuff by yourself this class is for you otherwise you'll be spending a bit of time in office hours. Overall he's not a bad teacher but not a great teacher. One more thing, he only rounds the final grade to 2 decimal places, i got a 69.8 after he rounded it and he did not move me up to a 70 so i could get a C-.

I have to say he is a good teacher. Although he is a little bit hard at beginning, he will really help you if you know what is you question. Sometimes, he will even stay late to help you solve your problem. He doesn't like you to bring disk, so you better save the code on Unix account before you go to his office to seek for help about your code.

I had Hitchner for quite a few classes and he really does a good job of teaching it. His tests are way off what he covers in class, but if you ask him enough questions during the exam, he'll help you out a bit. Otherwise you actually learn the material and the common final turns out to be pretty do-able.

I took a C++ class from Prof Hitchner back in 1997. It was the hardest class because of my lack of computer experience. Almost computer illiterate. Barely passed with a C-. Most finished lab projects came from my peers. One thing though, he made it mandatory to use vi editor. He said it will help us in our career/future. That was the best advice. I I am 40 years old now and have been working as a web developer for over 14 years. He gave me my career. Vi editor is still my main editor of choice April 19, 2013.

I thought Prof. Hitchner was a fine professor, not the cream of the crop - but by far not the worst out there. I had Scheftic for 101, and I think she prepared us well, although she is herself is a nutcase. Anyways, I found his lectures extremely boring, but they were good to go to as some stuff he brought up wasn't in the book and was on his exams. His labs were either super longggg or super easy - no middle, but he had them written in baby-steps and I tried to have them done by Wendesday so I could skip Friday lab. His exams are not that difficult, I felt he grades them very fairly and even leniently. There were times were I kinda knew the answer - but not really so I'd bs...and I'd get most of the points. However I did much better on his lab quizzes than his conceptual ones, and I felt the common final was more geared towards the lab quiz format. Office hours were helpful, but not as helpful as some profs. His programs are good programs. He gives you the basics and lets you fill in the gaps, which was awkward for me the first few programs because Scheftic gave more hints and such. I didn't feel they were terribly hard. Anyways, he more than prepared us for the final, and I would take another course from him.

Hitchner is a really nice, old fellow. His lectures this quarter were based on Powerpoint presentations, and in every lecture hour he always went overboard, trying to cram material into the hour. (It became somewhat annoying.) He is very helpful in lab and office hours. He took quite a long time to grade the programs. Expect a lot of work when it comes to the programs and labs; 102 will take a good chunk of your time, unless you are already familiar with the Java standard library. The course isn't too hard itself (including the midterm, lab midterm, final, and common final) but is time-consuming.

If you have taken Computer Science in high school, i suggest taking Hitchner. However, it seems that my friends who were in his class and did not take any comp sci in high school...struggled quite a bit. He is a REALLY nice guy. But lecture with him is kind of ridiculous. He usually throws too much information into one session. He always goes quite a few minutes past class time. However, i enjoy his humor and makes lecture a little bit more entertaining. And then labs are also a little ridiculous. His labs, themselves, weren't hard...but getting him to check them off was. He would spend a lot of time with one student helping them with their individual problems and would be able to solve them. But for 30 students to check of their lab in one hour is a joke with him. On a good day he might check of 6 people. So again, i wouldnt suggest his course for n00bs in programming...but anyone has some good java experience should be ok.

A hard teacher, but you really do learn what he teaches you. No one had a solid A in my class, only 3 A- were even given out. Very good at responding to students problems both in class and in office hours. If you have to take a CSC class, and he is teaching a section, I'd try to get his class first.

Professor Hitchner is a very nice, approachable professor. His tests were very straight forward and you were allowed a page of notes. 4 quizzes, but he only gave us 3, a midterm and a final (2 parts, common and his final). The final was tricky because on his final we had to write several paragraphs describing processes, not just fill in code or trace through code like the common final. The programs were another story altogether. They were EXTEMELY long and difficult. 21 hours per program and still feel as if you didn't accomplish half of what was required. He seemed to grade the fairly lenient since he waited until the last minute to grade them. During finals week he still had 4 of the 6 programs to grade and 6 of the ten labs. A lab per week of 1, 2 or 3 parts and a program every 2 weeks or so. A ton of outside programming for labs and programs since you had to finish one to do the other. This professor said something in office hours that really bothered me. "Women often have a hard time with programming concepts." I think students in general have a hard time with the concepts, don't single out women. This class takes about 20 hours a week to get a decent grade in, but if your having trouble, go to office hours. He is helpful in office hours most of the time.

Prof. Hitchner is a fairly good teacher. I knew a lot of the stuff going into CSC 102, but his explanations were pretty good and he did a good job at explaining abstract concepts and stuff (like linked lists) so that everyone that was going to understand, would. He has a monotone voice and doesn't vary lectures much so it can be kind of boring at times.

A decent instructor but a VERY nice guy. Very helpful in answering questions. Sometimes a bit confusing during lecture. Only big caveat: VERY slow grader. If you can take him over another instructor, do it.

Not an amazing breathing taking professor who will change your life that you will never forget, but not a bad teacher by any means. Grades fairly, moderate ammount of work. No reason to take anyone else.

Hitchner is one of the worst teachers for CPE103. He taught ok in CPE101, but for this course he is extremely awful. He rarely answers your questions or if uhe does try to answer he either doesnt know what your asking, doesnt know the answer to the question, or he rambles off confusing you even more. His assignments have several errors or he needs to change them some how, and if a student sees the problem and tries to bring it to his attention, he brushes them off thinking the person does not know what they are talking about. This quarter he had an error on one of his quizes which makes up about 10% of your grade. He later found an error and made every student take it again, which of course made me get a lower score than when he first gave it out. SO AVOID THIS TEACHER FOR CPE103 unless you have no other choice.

Some people just need to be taught respect and self-disipline before they take CPE 103...like the guy/gal who wrote, "Bitchner is absolutely an idiot"...man...some harsh words there... Anyways, CPE 103 is in general a hard class. You need to put in a lot of 'time' and 'dedication' in order to really earn your grade. If you think you are a smart ass and can get through this course sleeping, I recommend you just buy the book and learn it yourself, cause that would free up a space for others who need this class!! I would have to say that prof. Hitchner is a very hard working person. I would see him work overtime at the end of every class period just to answer questions. And in return, he requires you to put in as much effort, if not more. He will work you so hard, but all the materials that you learn from him will pay off at the end. He tries hard to explain the materials from the text, in fact he is still learning himself as I found out that he goes to another professor's 103 class to take notes! Now that is dedication! Sometimes he might be a little confused and have a mistake here and there, but as far as a efficient professor is concerned, I think Hitchner is up there! I recommend Hitchner to anyone taking 103, anyone who wants to learn. I think he'll do even better this coming Fall quarter because last quarter was his 1st time teaching this course. Don't believe me, try it yourself, sh_t.....

CPE 103 is a tough class. Hitchner is a challenging teacher. His labs are rough but he's not anal about when you turn them in; you get about a week's grace period. The book is a bit hard to understand, because the material is so different from 101 and 102. If you study hard and come to class, you will learn a good deal of information. He is somewhat helpful in his office hours if you make a point to be there. The Java Lab environment is difficult for most people to get used to, because it is UNIX and there is no JCreator with the nice auto-tabbing, color-coding, and "workspaces". Hitchner, of course, loves to brag about the superiority of UNIX machines. However if you can learn to use BlueJ you'll do fine. BlueJ is actually more useful for "debugging" anyway.

Professor Hitchner is very relaxed and is always willing to help you, sans you don't upset him. CPE 103 is more challenging than 101 and 102 and the book isn't all that great but Hitchner does his best job to convey the difficult material. Before the final he usually holds a study session that is helpful and gives you hints as to what will be on the test. You can tell he really enjoys computers. Tests are very fair, study and you will do fine. Take him if possible.

Bitchner is absolutely an idiot. His teaching is so ineffective that no one is getting A in my class. And he doesn't curve. If no one is doing well, there must be something wrong with the professor. The worst thing about him is that he does not try to help students. He graded all the assignments throughout the quarter just one week before the final so that we could not get any input on the programs and labs to prepare for the midterms and quizes. This is a professor who does not work hard and does not try to help the students. Avoid at all cost.

BOYCOTT!!!

there is not enough material in this class to fill a small urn. Which is what I would like to be in most this boring class...

I think Hitchner was a reasonable professor, but not a great one. He was passionately interested in computer graphics and to an extent was able to pass that interest onto the students, although at 8:00 in the morning, I'm sure it wasn't easy. And while a little more guidance could have been given concerning the projects, I found them fairly straightforward and interesting. However, the lecture got pretty boring at times and more than once I had to fight the urge to fall asleep. In my opinion, the great failing of this class was that he repeatedly let the theoretical concepts of computer graphics prevent us from learning practical knowledge. Overall, I think Lewis Hitchner was a reasonable professor with a strong passion for computer graphics, and I think he was a great guy, but I don't think he was a particularly great professor. I very much hope that changes one day.

This was an incredibly frustrating class. I came in with such high expectations. I mean, it's graphics, it should be cool, right? Hitchner sure didn't take any time to prove me wrong. He gave a hour-long lecture on MAKEFILES. Yes, MAKEFILES boys and girls. It's a *400* level class. If someone at that level doesn't understand something like that (and I'm sorry for them), go see him in office hours!!! Watch out at the end of class. He gave a program with huge time commitments the weekend before 10th week. Four days to complete it. YEAH RIGHT. On the plus side, his tests are so simple as to be laughable. So that's a bonus. Watch out for the snooze factor in lecture.

I hear that all the computer graphics professors are good, and Dr. Hitchner is no exception. He assigns a good deal of work and expects you to know the material on exams, but is also excellent at helping you through the labs and projects and presenting the subject. The lectures can get a bit dry when the details come in, but you just have to get the general idea. He gives out course notes that summarize everything you need to know, and are great for review. Labs are straightforward and often lead into the 3 programming assignments. If you get stuck, go to office hours or ask questions during lab. This is a class where you can do all your work at home and just turn it in, so the people that know exactly what to do won't show up at lab and you'll have plenty of time to talk to Dr. Hitchner. He would like you to demonstrate your labs and projects to him, and if you can show that it works (or even that it just shows you could make it work) then you'll get full credit. The labs and assignments are worth more than half your grade, so be sure to do them. Exams are a lot of writing and drawing, but the questions are fair and should be no problem if you've done even half of the reading. A hint: most of the math and linear algebra (which forms a huge portion of the text) is unnecessary. When you need to know this stuff, you will be provided with the formulas. The final was open notes, including class notes and any you take yourself. When done, you'll learn a whole lot about how graphics works, which is precisely the point of this course.