Ed Lank

First of, read the other review of professors at SFSU's CS Dept.

Then, read reviews of this professor.

Finally, read this: Because he might not teach at SFSU after Spring of '06 you might be the last and the fortunate few to have taken any course he's taught, take comfort in knowing that your time was well spent. Gift some comfort to others that come after you, but know that Dr. Lank is one of the few greats among a sea of Levines and the like.

For others that come after: Complain to Dragutin, Jozo, Marguerite, James, and Ilmi that a great teacher has left their department.

Teacher: Good teacher with upbeat, informative lectures. He knows the material well, and expects that you know the prerequisites- especially CS330. He definitely puts in the effort, but he could be more organized (or less busy). He was frequently late for class and took forever to grade tests. Minor gripes though- he's one of the better teachers in the department.

Class: The class starts out hard, then gets easier as it progresses. Homework generally consists of mini-projects where you code well known algorithms (mostly sorting), then analyse them. The material is not too difficult, but the tests are rather specific. It's easy to miss a lot of marks on one question. Lank gives LOTS of opportunities to pull up your grade though- there's no excuse to get below a B in this course if you put in the effort.

Not bad of a teacher. Kinda surprising that he teaches here at SFSU. He should teach more classes and replace many of the outdated teachers here at SFSU. Especially Barry Levine, that guy is the worst of the worst. Ed is great and deserves more recognition and maybe a tenure. He gives good lectures and writes on the board which is a change from the other lazy ass teachers at SFSU who just teach directly from their readers. This guy actually gets paid to teach. Great class. You learn enough about algorithms and he keeps it interesting. Doesn't muddle through all the useless points. Lotsa usedful and current knowledge that will help you for the future.

More exams would have been helpful. He runs through the material fast during lecture. Maybe a three hour class once per week is a horrible idea. It cheats one of their education. I wish this class was three times per week during the morning. I wish we had a lot more homework or tests and no project. I think in these cases the teacher would have recieved an easy A.

He puts a lot of work into teaching. That means he helped the students to learn the meterial. He is good with people because he has good communication skills. I think he communicates very well. But his lectures are too fast. Note: this was the first semester that he taught this course, and his first semester at sfsu. He is a good addition to the computer science department, I think.