Reviews of professor Xiaocong Fan

Rating: 4.0/5, difficulty: 3.0/5
A professor is having good knowledge. Very helpful if you stuck somewhere and ask him. In last semester, he took 2nd midterm two times. You must not take material from seniors. He knows who have written what in the previous semester and may catch you. Reading Book will help you to understand the course.

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
The professor is very understanding of your situation. As long as you give him enough time to communicate he will try his best to accommodate. The professor genuinely cares about your success and although assignments can be tough he gives feedback that is necessary to fix to succeed in other SE classes.

Rating: 1.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
It's a shame he's one of the only SE professors at CSUSM. If you can, avoid this guy. He doesn't try or want to make ANYTHING easy for you. One of those professors that makes you hate class.

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
Professor Fan is nice and I can tell he genuinely care about his students. With that said, this class is very Java heavy, so if you want to do well, make sure you learn Java. There is one lab and quiz every week where you can work with one other person. Midterm and final are open notes and you can take as much time as you need.

Rating: 2.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
Professor Fan is an okay professor. Definitely makes things needlessly challenging, has an oddly specific grading criteria that feels micromanaged, and often isn't clear or concise with feedback. A lot is expected of the student for a measly 3 unit course.

Rating: 1.0/5, difficulty: 5.0/5
Professor Fan is just ok. I often had difficulty listening as he tried to explain very difficult concepts to understand with little background. Most work is group work, and I had great difficulties in understanding how to complete parts of projects. Most feedback I asked from him was vague and unspecific, and he is an overall tough grader.

Rating: 4.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
Took Dr. Fan for SE 490. Class was very well structured, access to class material is on the Capstone page. There were only 5 short quizzes(based of lectures and older class material from previous courses with him). Work was mainly focused on group projects (lots of research and presentation conducted for this class)/ No midterm or final exam.

Rating: 2.0/5, difficulty: 5.0/5
The experience in this class was tiring to say the least. Due to circumstances, the majority of teaching was online with supposed mandatory attendance, but learning in class or by reading the textbook was not very helpful. Frequently the professor would complain that students werent trying hard enough as he would grade quite harshly. Not pleasant.