DS 2026

If you are a data science major and have the choice between Gianluca and another professor, I urge you to take another professor. He is one of the most frustrating professors to take a class with. While the course has a structure, he does everything in his power to move it around, rearrange it, and be as incoherent as possible. He will use every whiteboard only to constantly make mistakes, he will drag on points longer than they should, and use a lot of time to explain topics that won't be on the exam. The course layout is 15% for the 2 midterms, 30% for the final, and 40% for the coursework. The exams are all cumulative. The coursework is straightforward yet very time-consuming, often taking me around 5 hours to do if I want to understand what's going on. The information we learn is really neat once you see it all come together, BUT IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO EVEN SEE A SEMBLANCE OF A PICTURE WITH PROF. GIANLUCA PAINTING. I ended up with a 94 in the class only because I started studying for the exams 10 days in advance. He often also waits for the class before an exam to introduce the last topic that will be on the exam, giving you a whole new lane of probability to figure out 2 days before the exam. Often times they would also have chunks of content on the notes (such as world series simulations or Monte Carlo simulations) that we would spend 3 weeks on just to not be tested on (although this is me being picky). I went to his office 4 times over the course of the semester, and 3/4 times left more frustrated than when I came in. He is funny, and he attempts to engage the class, but the way he teaches content is not for me.

Boy oh Boy. Where do I begin. Incredibly terrible professor. He didn't even know what he was teaching us and the class was a joke. You're allowed to use a sheet of paper of the exams (because they know everyone would literally fail if we didn't), so the class is actually pretty easy but man is it boring. Horrible professor and I really learned nothing. I think I actually lost knowledge on the subject over the course of my time with Gianluca. Yeah. Not a fan.