Khosmood, Foaad  

I took CSC/CPE 101 with Foaad Spring 2013 quarter. I came into the class with no programming experience. This was also his first quarter teaching this course. I feel like Fooad was unable to empathize with a beginning programmer. He would become frustrated when students didn't understand the material or understand his answer to their questions. His lectures were disorganized (not to mention him showing up ten to fifteen minutes late consistently) and during lab, I felt he was somewhat condescending in his responses to questions. It was kind of a "how could you NOT understand this... it's so simple to me" type of condescension rather than outright jackassery. If you take 101 with him, he uses the same assignments (for the most part) as Hatalsky and I learned mainly from the instructions in the labs. Ask lots of questions to your TA, upperclassmen, or experienced programmers. Our TA was awesome and held very helpful study sessions so go to those!! It'll give you a good idea of what could be on the midterms.

To be fair i have never had a programming class before this one but i know that there are better ways of teaching c. this professor does not teach you a thing. You will be spending time learning outside of class all the time. He will come 10 to 15 minutes late to class with an unprepared lecture of just scribbling on the board. no organization. He has a very condescending tone when you ask him a question and looks at you like youre an idiot.

I took this class to see if I wanted to switch into computer science or computer engineering, and now I'm a computer engineer. This class was fun and I enjoyed doing the labs. I think Foaad expected us to have more coding knowledge because he usually teaches higher level classes, but he adapted pretty well. The work load was moderate but the classes themselves always lasted was less than 3 hours. During most of the lab hours we could just leave whenever we wanted and the lab would turn into the homework due on polylearn at a certain date. Even though I sometimes struggled through the labs, I was able to get an A through extra credit. Nice guy and very smart when it comes to comp sci.

Foaad was awesome. This is his first time teaching at Poly having just graduated from grad school but he did a good job. He definitely knew what he was talking about and while he didn't present the material super clearly at times, he was willing to help people with their programs and adjust the class as necessary. This class is a lot of work no matter who you take it with. The midterm wasn't too bad, but the final was hard. Expect to spend at least 10 hours on the programming assignments.

Very good professor. There is a lot of work but it's one of the hardest programming courses at cal poly. He's actually great in office hours despite saying you don't have to go to lab or go to office hours. It really is for your benefit and really if you go to office hours you should be fine. He's really good at helping debug and if he went through it with you its easier to get a grade correction/alteration on a specific program.

Foaad is an interesting teacher. When I had him, this was his first time teaching operating systems. The class itself is very similar to 315 and 225. Both, by the way, I did not like one bit. The whole point of the class is to let you know what goes on in your computer and not to make everyone a OS designer. There were 4 projects a midterm and a final. For the midterm, you could have an 8'x5.5' piece of paper of one sided notes. And then the final was an 8x11 one side notes. Luckily, I wrote down definitions to what we learned and got a question completely right since it was asking for all the definitions. This got me a C in the class. Overall, Foaad does his best to try and make the class as interesting as possible since the material itself is rather boring and sometimes very difficult to wrapped one's mind around. If you have a choice between Foaad and Bellardo I would go with Foaad only for the fact that he is easier, but Bellardo will make you learn. -IF66

Professor Khosmood was good at talking about the topics but not as good at explaining them. It seemed as if everything was talked about at a high level and didn't go in depth into the implementation. Also, the program specs are really long but contain very little useful information. Overall, he's a nice guy and probably just getting used to the teaching position.

Dr. K is great. I was repeating this course and he was infinitely better than the first guy. Yea, the material is boring but his slides have everything. He does warn you about having to read the book and if you do that you'll fly thru. otherwise the quizzes are going to be hard. He's great in office hours. watch out for the programming assignments, they are a big part of the grade.

Let me preface this by saying that Foaad is an intense guy, specifically in lectures. He's never cracked a joke or anything in class. With that being said, however, he's also a pretty stellar professor, especially in office hours. He absolutely knows his stuff, and he really does care to see his students succeed. He always looked for ways to improve assignments and lecture in any way, shape, and form. In office hours, he's a lot more lighthearted and you'll actually see him smile, which is very nice. That being said, he's not a bad guy at all to take for OS. His tests were pretty reasonable, albeit difficult. He greatly emphasizes reading the book, and you really should listen to that. If you read the chapters before lecture, you will be more than fine. The programs are difficult, but they're supposed to be; it's operating systems. It's not easy stuff. But if you start early, and if you have a partner(s) (highly recommended to grab a partner!), then you'll be fine for the programs. Each program is graded holistically, and in the specs, he usually will give a percentage of the grade for each task completed. I failed the midterm but aced the final, and ended up with a B. If you talk to him, Foaad will also take various circumstances into consideration when making your final grade. So tl;dr: start programs early, actually do the readings before lecture, talk to and visit him in office hours, and you will be way more than fine!

This professor sucked. He explained everything in a very topical, high level way, and never went into detail. The only concepts he ever provided examples for were the concepts that were already rather easy to understand. His program specs were incredibly confusing and not very helpful, and he never elaborated on them in class; he just expected you to figure them out. He also makes the programs a bigger part of your grade than any other professor. His quiz questions were often things he did not discuss in class, and were incredibly obscure questions from the book that were easily overlooked. Don't take 453 with him. Nico, Seng, and Bellardo are all better at teaching it.

Gives out a 2 hour quiz on the third week of class, holding students past the end of lab. The quiz was impossible, no one finished early let alone actually finished. He's too difficult of a professor who thinks all of his students hold PhDs and devote their lives to his class. Would not recommend.

Dr. Khosmood is a decent teacher. It's pretty obvious that AI/games are his passion. The class focused on various algorithms and approaches to AI. However, this class was more work than I expected because each week there are several small programming assignments and homework questions. The homework problems are from the book and can be unnecessarily difficult. Still, the workload is manageable. He tried something new this quarter by adding an "adaptive programming assignment." Basically, everyone had to write a program to play a game. We would then submit our assignments and he would run all our programs against each other. We did this 4 times but every time he allowed us to add more functionality. It was kinda interesting although I'm not sure if he will continue doing it. There is no final exam but there is a group project worth 30% of the grade. This project is pretty open ended: you pick a sub-topic of AI, research it and make a program that implements it. There are also quizzes about once a week. They were pretty hard but I think he curves considerably so they ended up not being too bad. Overall, I recommend this class and this professor.

Way too much material in too little time. Quizzes cover far too much material and are often on specific passages in the 40-page chapters. The group project is super hectic, worth 30% of your grade. He initially approves of your project but doesn't give you feedback or closely monitor your progress at all. Our group had worries that we were way over our head since the very beginning, but Foaad insisted we continue anyway. We put so much time into the project but at the very end we had little to show for it. Foaad acted like it was our fault for not "realizing" we were over our head sooner, and we received a failing final project grade. Overall if you MUST take this teacher, pick the easiest project that you can get away with. Some people already had projects there were close to completing for other classes and got them approved for AI as well (of course he didn't know they were for other classes). TIP: There is also a tournament where he competes your agents against each other, and grades you based on how well you do. You are guaranteed a B on each submission, so I highly recommend you do the bare minimum and take the B. I personally did the bare minimum, and by chance got an A, beating people who I know spent way more time than I did.

I normally dont write these, but i felt like I had to set the record straight. 480 was a GREAT class. My advice to anyone reading is this: if you care about AI take fooad. if you dn't then take someone else or better yt don't take this class at all. To us (my team) he went fast sometimes but was still fantastic and passionate... will talk to you for hours in office. The course doesn't have any midterm or final. Big chunk of the grade is project -- which was the best part for me. most in my class had lots of fun with this. I can't really feel for ppl who didn't take the project seriously after 8 weeks. i was actually expecting a lower grade myself cuz I just didn't do much reading, but was surprised I got a good grade. his curve is very generous.

This is the first C I have recieved in my entire life. I hope that says something to all of you out there watching their GPA. Do not take him--this class was a nightmare!