Professor
Mazzocco Maurizio
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2021 - Despite all the negative reviews, I think Mazzocco is a decent professor. I don't know what all the a**hole reviews are about because he genuinely wanted us to learn and would always answer questions we had about the material. The only negative thing about him is probably his refusal to accommodate students who had legitimate reasons, often concerning their health, for missing original exam windows. He does have a policy that allows you to drop the lowest of two midterms in the situation that you can't take one, or if you failed one, so that's helpful, but it's still somewhat unfair to students who absolutely couldn't make it. So if you know you can't make the midterm or final exams, I wouldn't take the class. The workload is pretty light, it's just a weekly problem set of 1-3 questions with 1-5 parts that you have a week to do. There's a total of 8 problem sets and they account for 10% of your final grade. The TA's will pick one question from each problem set and your grade for it is based on that one problem. I found them pretty manageable and easy to complete, and I got 100% for all. There are two midterms and one final, and the exams were all on CCLE for this quarter. Because they were held online, they were all MCQ, with two "essay" questions that were more heavily weighted with multiple parts. If you scored lower on the final than on the two midterms, then each exam is worth 30% of your overall grade. If your final is higher than your midterm grade(s), then the lowest midterm is dropped. The final would be worth 50% of your grade in this situation and the higher scoring midterm would account for 40%. You have an hour and fifteen minutes for each midterm and three hours for the final. The only one I didn't have extra time for was the final, but I did answer every question. The average grade for every exam was a low C (~71-73%), but I always scored above the average. He posts past exams for you to use as study guides, and I completed about 5-10 of those in preparation for each exam. I didn't read the textbook and it isn't really required, so I just followed his slides. I got a 91.5 on the first midterm, 89 on the second, and 84 on the final. I had a raw score of 89.4, but after the class was curved, I had an A (not sure what the actual percentage is). If it helps, my friend had an 84 and got an A- after the curve. The TA sections aren't mandatory, they just go over questions similar to ones you'd find on the problem sets. I only attended the first section and the review sessions they held prior to an exam. Overall, I think this course was decent, you just have to put a little time and effort in to get a decent grade. I'd definitely take a class with Mazzacco again. I am a decent test-taker though, which is how I think I managed to get an A. If you usually do poorly on tests, I wouldn't recommend him since 90% of your grade is based on the exams.
Fall 2021 - Despite all the negative reviews, I think Mazzocco is a decent professor. I don't know what all the a**hole reviews are about because he genuinely wanted us to learn and would always answer questions we had about the material. The only negative thing about him is probably his refusal to accommodate students who had legitimate reasons, often concerning their health, for missing original exam windows. He does have a policy that allows you to drop the lowest of two midterms in the situation that you can't take one, or if you failed one, so that's helpful, but it's still somewhat unfair to students who absolutely couldn't make it. So if you know you can't make the midterm or final exams, I wouldn't take the class. The workload is pretty light, it's just a weekly problem set of 1-3 questions with 1-5 parts that you have a week to do. There's a total of 8 problem sets and they account for 10% of your final grade. The TA's will pick one question from each problem set and your grade for it is based on that one problem. I found them pretty manageable and easy to complete, and I got 100% for all. There are two midterms and one final, and the exams were all on CCLE for this quarter. Because they were held online, they were all MCQ, with two "essay" questions that were more heavily weighted with multiple parts. If you scored lower on the final than on the two midterms, then each exam is worth 30% of your overall grade. If your final is higher than your midterm grade(s), then the lowest midterm is dropped. The final would be worth 50% of your grade in this situation and the higher scoring midterm would account for 40%. You have an hour and fifteen minutes for each midterm and three hours for the final. The only one I didn't have extra time for was the final, but I did answer every question. The average grade for every exam was a low C (~71-73%), but I always scored above the average. He posts past exams for you to use as study guides, and I completed about 5-10 of those in preparation for each exam. I didn't read the textbook and it isn't really required, so I just followed his slides. I got a 91.5 on the first midterm, 89 on the second, and 84 on the final. I had a raw score of 89.4, but after the class was curved, I had an A (not sure what the actual percentage is). If it helps, my friend had an 84 and got an A- after the curve. The TA sections aren't mandatory, they just go over questions similar to ones you'd find on the problem sets. I only attended the first section and the review sessions they held prior to an exam. Overall, I think this course was decent, you just have to put a little time and effort in to get a decent grade. I'd definitely take a class with Mazzacco again. I am a decent test-taker though, which is how I think I managed to get an A. If you usually do poorly on tests, I wouldn't recommend him since 90% of your grade is based on the exams.
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