Reviews of professor Douglas Cook

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
I had a friend who took this class from another professor. During the semester I was a little unhappy because they seemed to have less work to do and easier grading. In the end I was glad I took it from Dr. Cook. I've seen that I learned the material well and I'm not sure that I would have in the other class.

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
Dr. Cook is honestly one of the best professors I've had at explaining certain concepts. He takes the time to think outside the box on how to explain difficult things. He also takes the time to make sure we're all following. Class is tough but mostly because I've never coded before. I learned a lot in this class.

Rating: 2.0/5, difficulty: 5.0/5
This class is very frustrating for people who have never programmed before. He has written a program to grade your code, let's just say that it's not very merciful. Professor Cook is a nice man but not very good at teaching the material. The amount of class time that he spends on the material itself is pretty minimal. Insane homework load.

Rating: 1.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
One of the most inconsistent classes I've taken in 4 yrs at BYU. Nobody gets 100% on any anything. Barely learn in lectures - just blows through the slides, talks through examples. Just 1 test (final), timed, average 67%. Daily and Weekly quizzes. So many lab reports - not clear on expectations (which keep changing) and graded harshly by TAs.

Rating: 1.0/5, difficulty: 5.0/5
Dr. Cook has teaching methods which he uses in class. I honestly have never been more confused by a professor. I get the class is difficult to teach with coding & numerical methods. The tests are impossible to get an A without writing exactly what he wants. Projects are awarded at best 80%. Class time is waisted answering questions not teaching!

Rating: 3.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
I had done coding before, so that part of the class was easy and I had an A all semester. That didn't matter because the final was hard, on learning suite, worth 20% of your grade, was only about numerical methods and was timed. He curved the class down also. Be ready to write and ask for help editing in office hours because his criteria is unclear

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
A lot of students expect to be spoon fed in class. Through my summer internship it became really clear that engineers are supposed to SOLVE problems. We wouldn't be needed if the answer was already known. Dr. Cook could just give us answers, instead he gives us the tools to build the confidence to answer questions ourselves!

Rating: 3.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
Professor Cook has good intentions . He wants us to learn on our own which is fine but there is very little guidance in this class when it comes to learning how to code. The textbook for this class is horribly written. If you want to pass this class make sure you are able to go to the TA hours.

Rating: 4.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
If you want to take his class, you better be an active learner and be responsible for your own learning outcome. That is his teaching style. He is a professor that is very easy to talk to if you spend time to talk to him.