Edmund Lam

First, let me point out that you can also find reviews about this guy under the name Edward Lam, but his real name is Edmund Lam. So let's get down to business.

OK, here we go.

I have to be candid on this one. This dude's not as bas as advertised. Honestly, I learned a lot of stuff in his class. True! He does seem to have an occasional outburst of unjustified attitude. My suspicion is that his wife or his GF probably nags him or kicks his ass on occasions. But he also has a lighter side. He hates slackers seems like. That's all! His 3 exams are all M/C, and they're not too difficult if you keep up with the lectures.

ISYS 565 focuses on learning networking concepts and the types of hardwares used in distributed data processing (hence, the course title, duh!). Lots of hardware terms to remember I must say. There is a group project he assigns for each group to present at the end of the semester, but it's not that bad. By the way, when you present your projects, he does have a tendency to cut you off prematurely if he doesn't agree with what you're saying so watch out for that!!

My suggestion if for you to participate in discussion as much as you can even if you don't know what the fuck he's saying--ask questions or offer a decent comment. He loves it when you show him that you still have a pulse. On the other hand, he'll pick on you by using your name in his examples if he thinks you're playing dead.

I had my first run in with Prof. Lam in Summer 02. I was about to take his course then, but I kinda chickened out when I saw him acting a bit wacky with the other students. He flushed everyone out of the class to go to the lab upstairs to do some electronic course sign up. But the way he did it I thought was so fuckin' rude. He either got beat up by his wife that day or maybe he had his period. Either one. So I thought: 'Man, I ain't gonna spend my precious summer with this psychopath. But get this y'all! He ain't a psycho--just a bit misunderstood. Although he, himself, will warn you about his rap sheet at the beginning of the semester to scare the crap out of you (perhaps to reduce the number of students in his rosters). He likes to portray himself as a bad ass lion, but he's just a harmless pussycat.

Once you gain his respect, you're in the driver seat. So work on that y'all. Lam can be your friend or your enemy depending on how you handle yourself in his classes.

And oh!--by the way--make sure you don't socialize with others in class about unrelated topics coz he'll go ballistic on you.

Have a nice day!

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