Ramesh Rao

Prof. Rao is a nice and friendly professor who provides his students with excellent knowledge and more if needed. He is always available in his office, and he cares about his students. He is the only one excellent programming professor so far in ISYS. I don't understand why some students gave him some negative comments. You can get the good grade if you follow his quiz examples to study. The project and final exam are pretty much the same as the samples he gave. I believe I learned the basic skill about C++ in his class. I highly recommend his classes to the students who need to take these classes.

Dr. Rao is friendly and approachable, and seems genuinely interested in his students. He often stays after class, just chewing the fat with a handful of students. He's helpful during his office hour, and despite teaching five classes during the Fall of 2002, he always managed to return graded material the very next class meeting.

There's a 5% quizz, a 20% midterm, a 40% final, and a 35% project. It's hard to get an A but it's also pretty hard to fail. He knows that most people have no real interest in programming, so he's pretty generous toward the bottom of the barrel. On the other hand, if you show him an interest in programming, he'll give you all sorts of good advice.

C++ is hard to learn, and Dr. Rao doesn't sugarcoat it. But if you want a solid foundation in the language, he's the teacher to take.

Prof. Rao is an okay teacher if you can look past his insensitive comments. He appears to be very good at what he does. He also brags about having extensive real world experience which I believe to be true. But the problem is he's not very good in transferring his knowledge to his students. He lectures too fast and he doesn't seem to care if students absorb the concepts of his lectures. He likes to dish out what I call "mini-insults" once in a while like saying "don't worry about certain C++ concepts coz chances are you ain't gonna be a programmer anyway." By the way, he likes to crack at his own jokes.

His 3 exams are fill in the blanks and program writing. There are some lab assignments and a group project similar to the lab assignments. He seems to favor those students who took ISYS 265 with him as if they were of higher intellect than those who took 265 with other instructors. He appears to be very arrogant and conceited at times so watch out!!

Dr.Rao is a great instructor. He has much patience with the students when students ask questions. The subject in this class is very hard if you don't have time for it.But if you want to get a job done and learn, this is the guy.

Dr. Rao is the best programming instructor in ISYS. The students who gave him the bad comments didn't make an effort in this class. This subject is not easy as we all know. No subject is easy in ISYS. We need to spend a lot of time on it. We cannot blame the instructor if we don't do well in the class. All we can do is that we have to work hard and put more effort on it. Most students told me that you would learn a lot if you took Dr. Rao's class.

Rao is not easy. That is because C++ is not easy. But he is very knowledgeable and fair. He is open to any questions you have on the material at a basic level and at an advanced level. This class is very demanding but reasonble. His test and quiz questions are very similar to his example tests and quizes. And he grades his tests very leniently, he tries to give you points. He might be hard to understand at first but you get used to his style. If you want to learn C++ take Rao and be prepared to study hard. If you don't keep up and study these classes 265/365 will blow you away.

I think Dr. Rao is an excellent programming instructor in ISBA. We all know that C++ is not an easy subject to learn. We’d better have a lot of time on our hands for this class, especially it is our first time to take this class. Dr. Rao is willing to answer questions all the time. He tries to make every single effort to help the students, such as he extends his office hours for students. We can also download and print his PowerPoint lectures and examples at home. His quiz and exams are the reflection of our ability to solve the problems. SFSU needs more instructors like him.

First of all, C++ is not an easy programming language to learn. I always warn those first time in programming that C++ is not something you quickly learn overnight. It takes practice to fully absorb the concept. Rating the professor, I think overall he has a good command of the subject. He includes basic examples in his lectures even relate it to something we do or commonly see. I don't know what other easier ways to explain C++. His powerpoint lectures help a lot (it makes students pay more attention to his lectures and less copying). Yes the professor doesn't check homeworks but it is our responsibility as students to do them. If you do them, you'll do fine in his exams. Exams are fair -- you write the functions, which is better than writing the whole program. He also answers questions during the lecture, the best and simplest he can. Project could be tedious but he provides the basics and students supposed to finish by doing the rest. What I found in that class was a lot of students were accustomed to spoon-feeding type of learning and that's sad considering this is college/university.

Taking his class was like having a nightmare. However, you wake up from a nightmare, you will be happy because it wasn't true.Waking up from his class, you will still be terrified because everything was ture. Finally,I lost all interests in computers. I have no hope now.

Well, I agree that programming is not an easy class especially if it's your first time learning it... Dr. Rao sometimes assumes you know something, but when you ask him to slow down, he'll do so. He has powerpoint lectures for the class to download and use as notes, which means that you can listen to the lectures and not worry about copying everything down. Homework is optional and so there's no stress. But, again, that can be an incentive to be lazy. :) His final project is based on everything that he taught in class, and so it's quite important to go to class everyday. Overall, Dr. Rao does a good job teaching C++ and he's always willing to help his students whenever they need it. (Just ask!)

Dr. Rao is a very intelligent man, he knows his material very well and is competent at C/C++ however teaching and knowing the material are two different things and that is what differentiates Rao from other good instructors at SFSU. Keep in mind that this is a begining C++ class and not a intermediate course. Rao treats students as if they already know the material, he does a very poor job of explaining the concepts behind C++. He does not offer helpful assignements that assist us in getting good grades on the midterm. The only easy thing about this class was the project and thats basically just putting together a few codes that are left out. Rao has the majority of the codes written out for you for the program. If you want to take C++ and actually learn something I think you should take csc 210 with Brandstatter, I heard he's a really good instructor with a commendable teaching style.