Brenda Mak

This teacher is a nightmare. She started off the semester being sweet and nice, but as the semester went along, she became more and more irritable. Her lectures are unclear and overly fast paced. Her exams are extremely difficult. I suggest keeping on top of things with the semester project, because if you procrastinate, you will really fall behind. If you can take this class with another teacher, do it. But she is the only teacher who teaches ISYS 463 at this time. Avoid at all costs!

Do not take a class with this instructor. You have been warned.

If you have a choice to take another teacher for ISYS464 - do it!!! B. Mak is a bad teacher.

The material in class is suited for seasoned DBA administrators, and not for beginner students. Worst thing - you cannot reason with her.

I'm too lazy to go into details, but trust me - take another teacher, if you can!.

I am taking chao for 564 and mak for 464 and I saw good revies for chao, bad for mak. I would say mak is a pretty good instructor, completely opposite of what i've read, but i do think chao is very bad! UPDATE: 1.She has designed this course with so much content, it is not suitable for a semester. She has several weekend tutorials to help cope with the limited amount of time she has. In my mind, class on the weekends is a no no. 2.Her grading is fierce. This nice lady will smite you with her pen! Be ready to grab your security blanket if you are only semi familiar with the material. 3.This class is not designed for a newbie of databases. I would say seasoned veterans of databases are perfect candidates for the course. 4.Near the end of the semester she seems frustrated with students. She has been recently threatening to eliminate the curve.

Conclusion-This instructor puts a lot of work in the course, but be carefull. She will sting you like a scorpion if you do not master her class. I think the course will be changed in future semester. Pass this one up until it happens.

I've read all the negative comments about Professor Mak but I just don't see where all the animosity is coming from. It seems to me that any criticism of her in the past was taken to heart because it seems like she's a changed person.

She never got angry with the class. And she always seemed very approachable. She's always offering the class extra office hours. Before the midterm, she held study sessions which were helpful. She wasn't required to offer additional time outside of her office hours, but she did it anyway.

Maybe she really put in an effort to change her ways? Maybe the people who have criticized her are just bad students looking for an easy explanation for not doing well in the class.

Her lectures were pretty clear. For some of the more difficult topics, the class went slowly and we often did practice questions to reinforce what we went over in the previous lecture. I learned a lot from it.

I will say that the exams can be difficult if you dont study, especially the SQL questions. You really have to know the material very well in order to do well. The material only got more difficult as the semester went along.

Overall, I'm glad to have taken her class because I learned a lot about pertinent topics related to the field. It was obvious that she put in a lot of effort to prepare the lectures.

She is one of the most indecent instructor you can take. Her lectures are fast and unclear, and her exams are a joke. On the first exam, she made so many mistakes on her test, such that she had to give a retake. The questions on her tests are not based on the lecture, nor are they based on the book. Study sessions would've been helpful, but there wasn't any. She often gets irritated when you ask her questions. And she gets furious when anyone point out her mistakes on her exams, assignments and lecture. She always thinks she's right when she's wrong. An example of this is the group project, which she grades unfairly. She marked everyone's points off for not including something that she NEVER had told the class to include. And during the final exam, she threatened and forced everyone to leave the class 15 minutes earlier than the scheduled ending time, which prevented a lot of people from finishing it. Overall, her class was difficult and frustrating, and her tantrum and moody attitude only made it worse. I worked really hard and this sucks because not only is this the very first D I have but also this D jacked-up my GPA.

This teacher is retarded! She is clueless on what she's doing. She gets all pissed off when students ask her questions and can never give them an answer. Beats around the bushes and try to look like she knows the answer or whatever she's talking about. She punishes the students for mistakes SHE made in her lectures or exams. This lady gives you multiple choice questions in her exams which none of the choices are the correct answer and she takes off points & mark the students wrong.

Avoid this lady, MAK is whacked!!!!

What can I say. She called the cops on me and a friend on the last day of class.

When the UPD monkeys got there (out of breath b/c they're so out of shape), they asked a bunch of questions only to find out that Prof. Mak is a jumble of raw, unattended nerves. After about 45 minutes, the UPD geniuses figured this out, let us both go, and held Prof. Mak for further questioning. What can I say. It's SFSU.

During this 16 week course, you will learn three things: while loops, while loops, and while loops. Don't expect to learn any of the advanced Java APIs, and don't expect to learn anything about servlets.

After your done with this course, you will never want to learn any other programming language. You'll feign at the sight of a loop, even a hoolahoop.

You may learn the definiton of social promotion though. You will witness students that fail every single exam receive a passing grade (between B- and C+), simply by kissing her rather large ego. You will understand what it means to get by under the radar. However, if you want to learn Java, or any other object oriented programming language, avoid this instructor at all costs.

Prof. Mak has that curious ability to be knowledgable, professional, and sorely incompetent.

If you find yourself in the situation of needing the upper division course to satisfy graduation requirements, speak to the department dean. Figure out a way where you can continue learning, without having to go through 16 weeks of sheer agony.