I love this guy. There are so many resources available to study (quizlits, tons of canvas quizzes, and Zybooks). There's also a bunch of extra projects. ALSO i put an online exam into my google calendar wrong and missed the deadline and I told him exactly that and he extended it no questions asked! Super understanding!!

Good for cs 200

Williams has zero empathy & communication skills, people like him shouldn't even be professors with such terrible interpersonal skills. I had issues out of my control and his response to these issues was blatantly unsympathetic & unreasonable, resulting in a lot of stress. His co-professor Kuemmel is equally as bad, skip past 200 if you can!

funny guy, i took this class in high school tho. slept thru every lecture and maintained a 99 throughout the year. i do like the way the assignments are spaced out and the labs r cool. GIVE CREDIT FOR IB SL COURSES THANKS!!!!!!!

Very nice guy, decent lecturer, can tell he is very knowledgeable in CS. Workload/Zybook was easily the worst part of this class, after 2 weeks it feels extremely repetitive/busy work. Would recommend locking in during lectures for the best experience.

Professor Jim's lectures are engaging and he's genuinely passionate about the material. While the workload can be demanding, he explains concepts clearly. Using unstuck AI alongside the textbook helped me stay on top of the course.

Any word that starts with "wh" he says as "hw" so whenever he says what it sounds like hwhat and whenever he talks about whitespaces in code it sounds like hwhitespace and it gets pretty annoying. As a teacher pretty good though.

You'll be working on something for this class every day of the week. For me, the lecture attendance was mandatory (tophat), so was lab attendance (TAs checking u in). You get content from Zybooks, it gets reiterated in lectures and Canvas videos and then you apply it in labs/projects. Professor seems to care that students understand the material.

This is honestly one of the worst classes I have ever taken. Prof Williams recommends studying 20 hours a week just to pass. I feel overwhelmed with work and can honestly say I'm not retaining anything and I regret taking this course. I don't recommend it AT ALL!!!

Decent professor. He really cares about the students and wants everyone to do well but I personally find him to be relatively monotonous/boring. Class is structured super well with about 50% of your grade being participation/completion based. Coding projects aren't bad but the tests can be somewhat tricky. Final exam was way easier then the tests.

Lots of homework but it really helps you understand the material and reinforce your understanding. You can get help in the class pretty easily.

CS 200 is a class that could be taken without a professor. His lectures were pretty useful, but most people did not go. He explained things very well, and it was really easy to get help in this course if needed. Nice guy and very knowledgeable in the subject area.

Jim is a great professor. He's engaging in his lectures, helpful if you have questions both in-person and via email, and you can tell he genuinely enjoys both the material he teaches and teaching itself. There is a lot of weekly work but it's manageable - I came into this class with no programming experience and I did well overall

Do participation activities before going to lecture. Lectures are a good learning source only if you do those beforehand. Prof Jim is very helpful outside of class and is definitely very knowledgable. He explains the concepts pretty well and is very approachable. You can see that he is excited every time he teaches something new.

I hate going to in-person classes but he uploads so much content on the Canvas page so that you can learn on your own. If you learn best from working with others, this class could be hard for you. If you like learning on your own, you'll like it. He's a funny and nice professor too

Expect to teach yourself everything, read a lot and do hw for 15+ hours a week just for this class. This class put me in therapy.

Professor Jim is a very passionate person about his class. He cares about the students, even taking time to talk about mental health. He also explains why he assigns us work, listing research on the most effective teaching methods. He is very clear to understand in lecture and by far has the most beautiful voice I have ever heard!

Lectures were ok. Much of it was not helpful, but I still benefited from attending. Most of the learning came from large amount of zyBooks homework. Not a fan of topHat during lectures. Very important to stay on top of the work.

Lots of tests. Get ahead when you can, the workload can be intense at times. Pay attention to the little things. How to code is often less important than how the code works from a memory perspective. The online zybook textbook work can take a while.

- Don't take this class - Lectures are awful, stay at home and do TopHat - Try doing Zylabs as early as possible, TA room is FILLED the day before - Exams are nonsensical, just a bunch of memorization - Human ZyLabs are HARD, make sure a TA goes through them before submission - Labs are chill just show up, use 3 absences during finals

Jim is a great professor with lots of energy in the class. Classes were not mandatory except for labs

Jim assigns a lot of homework, but it was helpful overall and the majority of learning comes from the hw/zyBooks. His lectures felt a little useless in comparison. I understand that they were meant to solidify our understanding of topics, but the coursework moved at a faster pace than the lectures. Not a fan of using honorlock for exams btw

Jim's lectures are amazing, he tries to accommodate everyone, I came in with 0 programming experience and 0 confidence but at the end of the course, I feel very confident and prepared for CS 300 and I also feel I learnt a lot of valuable information from this class. The TA's for the Team Labs were amazing and I received a lot of help from them.

Jim is a great professor, CS 200 itself is a very easy class if you don't slack and just do the assignments on time, most of the course is taught through zyBooks, and online lecture materials posted by Jim. There are also amazing TA's in the Office hours and in the weekly Team Lab sessions. It is very easy to get help, if you ask for it.

Absolutely would not recommend!! Literally teaches students nothing and expects them to learn everything on their own on top of hours of homework and zylabs, which require you to be proficient in all the concepts. Literally Youtube, Edx and Codeacadamy can do a better job of teaching you to code with a fraction of the time. Avoid him at all costs.

people giving Jim 1 star cuz there is lots of homework is dumb af. Its an intro coding course, of course there is going to be a lot to learn. If you have any innate coding ability this class will be very easy and youll find the homework simple, if a bit cumbersome, but ultimately beneficial as you learn the basics of Java.

His lecture is useless and I work load is heavy every week. I need to spend more than 2 hours per day in this class, Therefore, it's not worthy to take his class.

Terrible Homework

He really cares about being fair to students. Go to office hours!!

One week's lecture activities will not take you more than two hours. zyLabs are like playing video games, although some students complain about the 10-minute re-submission lock after you submit your program for a grade. Team Labs are fun sometimes. HIS ONLINE CLASSES ARE THE BEST! I love the way he structured the course.

I actually liked Jim, but more than that I loved CS 200, it actually made me switch from being in the humanities to being a comp sci major because I loved it so much. I would say that it is super important for you to work ahead in this class and not get behind because there is a ton of work. Lectures don't really help but they aren't terrible.

The prof is nice, I quite like him. He shows caring in lectures and is pretty interesting. I dropped it because I'm not required to take this and I just can't bear the work each week. As an elementary class it's not too hard, just annoying. But if you do spend time on it, it would definitely give you a solid foundation in those harder classes.

Between the Canvas quizzes, Zybooks participation activities, challenge activities, team labs, and Zylabs, it's about 10+ hours every week for 3 cred. As far as tests go, he has tested every 2 weeks which is more low-stakes. Not much class time, only 1 lecture and 1 lab per week. He is all about making it engaging, fun, and accessible and it shows.

This class is supposed to prepare you for CS300 and I think it did that pretty well. Jim is a very average professor whose class mostly consisted of completing online material such as Canvas quizzes and textbook problems. Lots of busy work for those with good programming skills coming in, but overall gives you a very good CS foundation.

homeworks homeworks homeworks

While his lectures might not be too effective, he is super helpful if you visit him during office hours. If you don't understand the concept in a lecture, don't blame the professor, get up and GO TO OFFICE HOURS.

Prof.Williams is really good at getting you excited about the ideas behind coding. However, the online videos are slow and the Canvas (classroom website) activities are not always well explained. Even though Prof. Williams is great, %92 of the learning is done through an online program which you pay for like a textbook, and could learn on your own.

The lectures weren't all that helpful if you read the textbook. He was generally helpful and thorough if you asked a question, but sometimes he doesn't see them in the Zoom chat. The class also went from really easy to very hard suddenly, and I probably spent about 10+ hours a week working on the labs, reading, and Canvas page.

CS 200 isn't too bad under him if you put in the work and do the homework. Lectures are kind of useless, you learn all of the material through the textbook and canvas activities.

Professor Williams isn't by any means a bad professor, it's just that the overall structure of the class is very time consuming . Lectures felt pretty useless, material is expected to be learned outside of lecture so it felt like I was wasting my time every time I went to lecture. Also the amount of work in this class is insane for 4 credits.

Literally the worst and laziest professor. Legit runs everything online, making it difficult to understand the concepts and keep up with the course. It assigns so much work as if this is your only class. He has lectures and small lesson videos, but they don't make any sense; instead, I had to use youtube to teach myself java. Avoid him at all cost!

Jim genuinely cares about his students and goal as an educator. He is approachable & accessible. Initially, I found him "bad" but that changed when I put effort into class and paid attention to lecture. Lectures are gold; ensures that everyone has a chance to interact and adapts lectures to accommodate students' doubts. Prepares you for CS300 well.

Mediocre

I'm shocked that Professor Williams has such a low rating. CS 200 is a lot of work, but if you get into the groove of staying slightly ahead of the curve, you will be fine. I came in with ZERO coding experience and managed to do quite well in his class. The TAs are extremely helpful, and lectures are interesting. BE PROACTIVE, and he will be great.

Really nice guy, knows what he's doing and talking about. But, lectures are so pointless and so stupid. My friend and I would just play the Oregon Trail game the entire time. If it wasn't for lecture being mandatory, I'd have never gone.

Honestly surprised by the number of bad reviews. Jim is very kind to those just learning, but he does expect work to be put in. Course created to boost success. Don't fall behind. It is a self-teach class, but if you do all the activities, you will learn the material well. Reinforce ideas. I loved this class and wish Jim taught higher level CS.

Everything you learn is online through zyBooks, an online self-learning website. For a 3 credit class, it has three times the amount of work compared to Calculus 2. Lectures are only once a week and they are pretty useless. Professor is not entertaining and is slow.

Be prepared to teach yourself everything, the lectures are not helpful. If you have no prior coding experience, this will be a very difficult course for you.

He even doesn't teach things during the lecture. Students need to learn by themselves.

He doesn't talk in class, things rely on self-study

It's basically a self-learning course. I learned everything (literally) on my own by reading in zyBook. The lectures, I tell you, is completely useless, and the homework load is ridiculous.

A lot of reading, a lot of work and a lot of homework in a short time. Basically, it is a self-instructional course. I would recommend taking it only if it is online.

If you want to fail, take this class with this professor.

Words cannot express how fed up I am with this professor and this class. Prepare yourself for 6 hour days of reading, labs, quizzes, etc for weeks on end. If you plan on taking this class in the summer, beware. You will have zero time for family, work, sleep, or showering. This class has no mercy when it comes to exam grading.

Arrogant and unhelpful instruction , lectures are utterly useless. There is a lot of work on labs and activities that do not help at all. useless introductory course.

I had no coding experience and this class made me want to continue in CS. Jim is a nice guy but this class is designed for you to learn with Zybooks. Human-graded Zylabs are not that hard as long as you follow the style guide. I'd recommend taking this class with Jim, but be prepared to learn on your own. Also look into taking WES-CS 304.

Prolific amounts of homework, and material is almost entirely self taught. Lectures were basically useless. A lot of work for a 3 credit class that's supposed to be for "beginners". However, if you are willing to use piazza often, that is where he really helps students out. I asked a question in piazza once and he went into my code to give advice.

The lectures are pretty much utterly useless, as it's just the same thing you learn in the participation activities but with no explanation. And for a 3 credit class, the work load is ridiculous. Be prepared for >12 hours of homework a week.

I like Jim's class very much, his lec will come in two forms! In-person and online classes. I took the in-person class and his class was not mandatory There will be an online test every three units that will use honor lock which is really simple, although I don't have any I can also get very good grades for this class based on the basics!

Gave little to no direction regarding topics in class, only coded the whole lecture without explanation. Homework was due Wednesday, Thursday, Friday AND Saturday and the zylabs were VERY lengthy, time consuming, and VERY stressful since he did not explain the concepts. I would choose Renault over Williams if offered again or literally anyone else.

Jim is a good professor but his lectures are kind of drag and don't really help all that much. Most of the learning in this class is from the online textbook and group "labs" that you do every week. Jim is still very helpful and makes himself and all of the TA's readily available to help.

Jim's class is easy, but his lectures are utterly useless, instead of learning something, most of them Jim just made us chat with our peers. I think in the whole semester I went in a total of 4 lectures and still got above 95%. If you actually enjoy going to lectures and learning with a teacher, Jim is probably not the way to go.

I found lecture to be very useless and stopped attending. The module quizzes Jim has in canvas are incredibly dry and unclear.

I had no coding experience, lectures probably could have been run differently as we basically just went over practice problems and not actual learning and throughout semester less people showed up. Helpful at answering questions, it was a lot of work for me with no experience so definitely budget a bit of time for the class, exams arent too hard

The grading criteria is very ambiguous. Learned nothing from lecture. The human graded assignments were just a mess.

Besides everything that everyone has said previously (lectures, zylabs, etc.) Jim can be arrogant and condescending at times. It's an intro class, but his expectations don't fit that.

I'm not sure why this class even has a professor. All the material is in the lecture videos, which are mostly unhelpful. The worst part of this class is the complete lack of feedback. You never really know what you don't know or what you're supposed to know. Only take this class if you have to.

His lectures aren't helpful and most of the time you are learning the material on your own or through various other resources. The BIGGEST handicap of this class is the little to no feedback being offered, especially on exams and projects. The TAs aren't that helpful either.

an awful professor. Students need to learn all of the concepts by themselves on zybooks. His lectures are useless, and few students attend the lecture after weeks. Again: Try to AVOID him!!!

Introductory course to programming. The material itself isn't necessarily difficult, but the workload for a 3 credit class is greater than usual. The lectures aren't mandatory and you'll be doing most of your learning through zyLabs (Coding projects). The biggest problem is that there's little feedback on exams and human-grade zyLabs. TA's are meh.

Took this class with no prior cs experience--extremely difficult. Should be worth more than 3 credits bc of all the weekly assignments. Lectures are useless and the textbook is confusing, you are basically expected to teach yourself. Given v few resources to review for exams. Expected to understand way to much content with no explanation from prof.

Didn't show up to lecture a single time, left with an A. His Canvas page is kind of a mess, and you have a gazillion different due dates throughout the week. Learning will mainly be done from the textbook where homework is assigned, of which there is a lot. On the bright side exams are taken online (Honorlocked) and aren't too difficult.

lol having a professor for 200 is kinda a joke. the online lectures are just going over similar to hw problems but are extremely boring. tbh zylabs should be the professor of this class. anyways 200 is just a big workload nothing really that hard so just keep that in mind

Jim serves almost no purpose in your grade for the class. All of his lectures are literally ice-breakers and you gain nothing from going. All of your work & learning is through a pretty good online textbook. It's a lot of work but definitely do-able, however Jim won't really help you through it.

His lectures are next to worthless. It is basically a time to meet the person next to you and chat. When he is talking in lecture it is extremely boring. ZyBooks (the online text book & assignment) is so bad. There is so much reading just to learn nothing. I learned basically everything by doing the ZyLabs (weekly coding assignments).

I don't know where to start. I Starting off, this is a flipped classroom. You have to learn everything on your own time. Luckily, I had already learned Java, so it was pretty easy, but my friends who had never coded before were so lost. Another thing is that his lectures are a joke. He doesn't review anything that you had to learn.

I can't even explain how much work there is. Decided to take the class with no prior coding knowledge... an absolute nightmare. SO much homework, tests are extremely difficult. Lectures provide no help, team labs do nothing. The projects are extremely difficult as well. DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS

Just don't.

Little to no feedback on exams, you just know what "section" you scored less on without knowing which problem is wrong. The work can be generally overwhelming at the start (if you have no prior coding experience) with Canvas activities and Zybooks (which is necessary). Nobody goes to the lecture.

I've never taking programming/cs before. While it was difficult / quite a learning curve, I felt like the structure and instruction in this course made it a lot easier and manageable. There's quite a lot of homework. Exams are fair and you get two attempts.

Had more hw in the 1st 4 weeks of this class than I did for a 3 cred. class that completed in the same period. I have a 3.8 gpa, taken 120 college credits, this is the worst designed class I've taken, + I'm bombing it. No lecture, prof just made 250+ 2 min. vids and hid them in dozens of module tabs. tests not based on hw material. 20+ hr/wk 4 hw.

Overall a good class; very homework-heavy; lectures were decent. My only criticism was that tests answers were hidden after each attempt. Instead an email was sent to you on what "concepts" you missed. Other than that, very possible to get an A in as a weeder class. I had no experience with coding and ended with an A.

Super nice guy and many projects go into grading so you can bounce back from a bad score. I went from an F to a C!! Shout out to Jim ��������!!

Jim is a very nice guy. The class is very time consuming, but you get out what you put in. Some of these other reviews conflict with my own experience; if you put the effort in, youll acquire some basic coding skills. Exams are easy so long as you keep up with the material.

The class was honestly fine, the biggest problem is that even though there are two attempts allowed on each exam, there's no useful feedback available between attempts, so unless you identify a specific question that you didn't know the answer to, the second attempt isn't really helpful.

Assigns way too much for a 3 credit class, horrible on explaining concepts, boring lecture videos and difficult exams with no room for actual education, I've felt like I've learned nothing.

I had him for CompSci 200 and he didn't really teach the course whatsoever, he just used his lectures to code and display it on the board. I would 100% recommend to take it with Marc Renault if at all possible but to give Jim the benefit of the doubt, CS200 is absolutely a weeding class, so keep that in mind! Also homework due dates are W,Th,F,SA,S

He is a very nice person, he responded very fast on Piazza. The workload for CS200 is big for people who have never taken any cs related course even though it's an introductory course. I have no experience in coding, so I struggle a lot in the beginning, but if you go to office hours, TAs are very helpful and solve my problems very quickly!

This is a weeder class, so be prepared to work. There are many assignments and some labs are difficult. That being said, this was still my favorite class this semester. I am new to java and still managed to keep up with the material. Jim's lectures were asynchronous and very helpful. He also just seems like a nice dude.

Jim may be a bit boring, but the lectures are useful to hammer down concepts. ZyBooks and ZyLabs are where most learning takes place, so plan your own time accordingly. Jim was openly available to help in person or Piazza, and he gives a very thorough intro to Java. The tests are a bit tricky, but they help you understand the nuances for CS300.

He's funny, personal, and clearly knows how to teach along with being proficient in the area of study. He made this the easiest class that I always looked forward to.

Jim is by far the best professor I have had here at UW Madison. We all had to register with TopHat which is an app used to submit answers to questions the professor goes over in class. TopHat was very useful in keeping me engaged with what was going on and testing my knowledge. I think my class had a B average which is pretty good.

Jim was a fantastic professor and was always ready to help you to understand the material. It's not his fault that the class material is hard (it is a weeder class), and you can see that he tries really hard. Give him a chance (but you will have to work as well).

If you've never taken a CS course before, get ready. The class is really hard for people who have no prior knowledge of any coding. The exams are difficult so STUDY. The projects are extremely confusing and insanely difficult. This class killed my sleep schedule. You have to learn everything on your own to pass this class.

Book was good. He tries to trick you on every question in the tests, and when they're weighted at 50% of your grade, your grade doesn't show your competence in Java. Says you should be prepared for the next class with a B, so teaches at a level that people only learning from him get at most a B. Gotta put in way more work outside class to get an A.

An enthusiastic and engaging lecturer. If you don't have prior programming experience you will have to keep on top of the material or else you will fall behind, as all topics are very closely linked (it's intro programming, duh). If you properly manage your time for this class, you won't be as salty as the people leaving angry reviews.

Taking CS200 with Jim Williams was the biggest mistake I have made at Madison so far, and I have made a lot of mistakes. The word "Introductory" does not belong anywhere near this class. If you do not have a year (at least) of computer science experience, you will get left behind (partially due to the terrible formatting of the class as well)!

Jim, you not a homie dawg. Firstly, we just figured out about this import java .util. (*) thing which you never taught us. Second, wumpus caves is a dumb name for a project. Especially one worth that much of our grade. Third, there is no review built into the schedule of the course except terrible review sessions on mondays. MORE REVIEW. DO BETTER.

Jim is so nice. CS200 can be hard for people who don't know anything about programming but Jim's lectures- although a little boring but it's CS you know- always covered everything you were expected to know. He always took time to answer any and every question a student had and gave me a genuine interest in programming.

He's actually really helpful when it comes down to clearing any confusion and expectations for the course.