Students' Comments

Dr. Salamah Salamah

Office phone: (915)-747-6671 Email: isalamah@utep.edu

Students' Comments from Previous courses

CS 5387 - Software Integration and V&V (Spring 2014)

Excellent professor.
Learned a lot of things I can add to my programming/testing techniques, such as test-driven development and unit&integration testing. Very useful.
I would strongly recommend to have a lower number of students for this kind of courses, they were too many students in this class. You just should not allow so many students
It was a great class and Dr. Salamah was always available whenever I had questions and the feedback provided was very useful in improving the quality of my work

CS 4390 - Software Integration and V&V (Spring 2014)

Dr. Salamah is a very smart professor that has outstanding knowledge on Software Verification and Validation. My only complaints are his tests were a bit long and some questions not clearly specific.

CS 5386 - Software Architecture and Design (Spring 2014)

I think time was short compared to all the work we had to do
It was a great course. Very well taught. I feel like i learned a lot and hopefully will use it someday.
Great course. Challenging but not overwhelming. The team building exercise during the first class was a great idea.
It was a great class. Dr. Salamah was always available whenever I needed help. His explanations and feedback were very helpful in furthering my understanding of the subject area, developing research interest in this area and improving the quality of my submitted work.

CS 4311 - Software Engineering Design & Implmentation (Fall 2014)

I came into the class knowing that my grade will be affected by my team members. This class is where the work ethic, or lack thereof, of my team mates, which I had no control over, made my grades suffer. Because of this I realized that there should be a better scale for grading so that individuals who are motivated to do well in the class are not punished for having team mates who dont have the same motivation.
Dr. Salamah is a very good professor and has helped me a great deal. I could honestly say that his teaching style greatly benefits my learning style. All lectures in class were well explained and very elaborate. I feel that I have learned so much more in this class than I could ever have. I only wish Dr. Salamah would have taught more classes during my CS career.
Excellent Professor! Keeps us students interested in the subject and very dedicated to us and our learning. I would definitely like to take another course with him.
Dr. Salamah is great when it comes to preparing its students for exams, he knows the material really good and he challenges every individual in class to learn it, he makes things look easier. Great professor!!
One of the best professors I have ever had. Keep up the awesome work.
After two whole semesters of Software Engineering, there was not enough time allocated to finish the actual implementation of our senior capstone project (i.e., the DigitalHome System). Although these courses did a great job in teaching us core concepts in Requirements Engineering and Design and Implementation, the actual physical implementation seemed like a footnote in comparison. There was not much emphasis on keeping track of the progress of implementation. Furthermore, I feel that there an unnecessary excess in the amount of documents required to be turned in in the second semester of Software Engineering which took away valuable time from the physical implementation of the DigitalHome system. I feel that this class should equally emphasis delivering a finished, working system in addition to learning all of the concepts in Design and Implementation. As Dr. Salamah stated in class, a majority of projects in industry finish behind schedule and Software Engineering is supposed to mitigate this, yet based on discussion with multiple teams, everyone seems to be turning in a project that is less than finished. I believe that UTEP's computer science program has the ability to really distinguish itself as a first class degree program, but I think that the standards and expectation for students should be set much higher. Finally, I would like to highlight the fact that despite the lack of emphasis on the physical implementation, I really feel that Dr. Salamah is a fantastic teacher. I learned a lot from him and this class and am grateful for the opportunity to have studied with him.
Organization of class lectures does not need any improvement, you knew exactly what you were going to talk about in current lecture and in the coming weeks. Posting of lecture slides in their entirety is an excellence source for studying, thank you for that. Lectures were engaging and not boring at all so that's for not being a monotone professor. Areas of improvement: I feel that entirely too much time is spent in documentation in both Software I and Software II and very little time is allocated for programming. I understand the need for the documentation but it is kind of a drag to work on all these extremely large documents, only to not have enough time to have a full implementation of the system at the end of the semester. I guess it's just about the learning experience but more programming time is a must. That's really my only "complaint" other than that, great job. Thank you!
The professor needs to provide feedback on deliverables in a more timely manner.
The entire semester should be split up more appropriately to improve time management. There were too many reports constantly being assigned and too little time to finally implement the project. Additionally, we only had one or two classes to work with our groups. Most of the work for this class is done outside of the actual class and can take extremely long depending on the productivity of the group (which does not always work out with all of our varying schedules).
This class including Software I is too much. In my personal case I had to quit my job, because these classes were taking my entire time and my other 3 classes were suffering. Also for both classes meetings w the professors in my opinion are a waste of time. You meet with them one week and they say something, you change your documents, then next week they want to see what you had the previous one. Besides from the overwhelming amount of work for the class. Excellent professor. He really cared about his students and always listen to us and made the adjustments needed it. Made time for us dont matter the time for our questions. Also thank you for the cheat sheets, that made a huge difference in stress from software I to this class and the time he took during the weekends to have reviews.
Really enjoyed the lectures given by the professor and how class evaluations were given during the semester.

CS 5390 - Software Engineering Practicum (Fall 2014)

After going through the courses in this degree I feel like this course above any other is a great experience as I believed it to be a sample and great transition to what the real world will bring. I recommend this course to my peers

CS 5390 - Specification and Design of Real-Time Systems (Fall 2014)

Earlier feedback on lab assignments would have been good in order to improve future submissions. Was expecting to have more interaction the integration of hardware components.
I'm satisfied about the way this course went. I've learned more than I knew previously.
I enjoyed this course and felt Dr. Salamah did a great job. I'll try to list some things that I thought worked well and some that could use improvement. Worked Well:-Combination of lecture and in-class labs: good balance and helps in keeping us from falling asleep.-Homework Labs: these, more so than the in class labs, really made me think about the concepts were were learning about.-The Professor's attitude and availability. Very approachable and willing to help.Could Use Rethinking:-In Class labs: I listed them above as 'worked well' but they need improvement. A lot of the time I found myself mindlessly typing the commands in the handout sheet without really thinking about what I was doing.-Homework Labs: again, these worked great, but consider reducing the length of the labs. The time it takes to complete them can be frustrating.-This course being an elective, perhaps it isn't necessary to have a group final project. This increases the time/effort/frustration of the class and may be a deterrent for some students who are on the fence on whether to take it or not. I felt I learned way more from the individual lab assignments anyway. consider leaving the group projects for the core classes.-Sometimes the material we cover in class is way ahead of the Lab we're working on. This was confusing to me as I kept wanting to use the concepts we were covering in class, but the lab was a couple of lectures behind. Overall, great class. I rate 8/8 mate.
Well structured course. Only wish there was more time to go over lab assignments. Also the beginning was pretty rough with the numerous amount of issues with the software. I understand that is not under the instructor's control though.
This course was very challenging and mentally stimulating.
Class is awesome, Dr. Salamah is a great teacher.

CS 4390 - Specification and Design of Real-Time Systems (Fall 2014)

Class was graduate level difficulty but it was offered for undergraduate students. The instructor did not accomodate undergrads as he did the graduate students. Also the instructor told us to use boards but I spent the first two weeks of class installing the board. Later on I ended up using the simulator so I did not need the board. This class was too much for my schedule so as an elective this is too much.

CS 5387 - Software Integration and V&V (Spring 2015)

V&V course was good because the instructor provided good material for each testing subject. Exercises related to inspection, withebox, blackbox were very useful for my coding habits. However, I was expecting a real-word team project such as, maybe, inspect air traffic system, railroad, web application system. Testing and inspecting logic (LTL) concepts degrades my interest of the course. Personally, I will only take the subjects, exercises, exam, TDD, for my professional development before LTL subject. Sadly, I will forget it instead of learn it and keep it for my career.
Strengths:Very good instructor, makes the class interesting.Areas of improvement:Three hours is too long for this class, it probably would be better two classes of hour and a half.
The class is lots of work, the assigned group worked very well this semester, and you are good with providing ample time to complete assignments. You da MANN!
I enjoyed the class a lot. In my opinion, and compared to the other classes I've taken with you, this class had a great balance of individual work/group work.I think the actual material covered in class is immensely important, valuable and can be immediately applied in my job.I don't expect an A in this class, however, that is not a reflection of what I learned, it is more a reflection of the fact that there are only 24 hours in a day. I already have a clear advantage and a better understanding of SW testing than the majority of my peers at work, including the SW Test Group!Also, my lawn died because I didn't have enough time to care for it with the amount of work you give us. Really.The dedication and effort you put into the classes you teach does not go unnoticed. Thank you.
The course work assignments should be better balanced to an understand of the concept and not as an overwhelming and hard to understand domain outside of the scope of the course.
Tedious Work
Dr. Salamah did a great job covering all material. He provided assignments that helped reinforced the material covered in class.

CS 5386 - Software Architecture and Design (Spring 2015)

Tough course but worth it. With this course I feel that I can visualize a project, system, or subsystem from different perspectives.
Dr. Salamah is a great professor, he is always available to help and clearly explains the material. You da man!
The core concepts and documentation styles are good to know, but it is important to make the connection to the state of the art of the industry, as this degree is supposed to be a preparation for that area.
Too Much Work
In this course I learned about how to make SAD. In addition, I learned about there importance. It was definitely challenging but the Dr. Salamah did a great job coping with the amount work we had to deal with.

CS 4311 - Software Engineering Design & Implmentation (Fall 2015)

The only bad thing about this course is the workload. Dr. Salamah has been wonderful and understanding the entire time and I would gladly take a course with him again.
I really like this professor he cares that he students succeed that he would make arrangements to come here in the weekends to meet with his students. Not only that i feel explain things very well, and he understands that students in this course schedule, and i think he is funny. :)
I believe the course was well taught. I wish we would've had more time to implement the entire system, but overall, Dr. Salamah is an excellent professor and I would definitely recommend this course.
This professor is a wonderful man, yo! He tires his hardest to always be available for his students with questions about anything. Pretty chillin class.
This course is loaded with work but I have also learned a lot from this course as well.
Salamah by far stimulated my academic hunger. He thought clear lessons and pushed us to do better as a team. I am extremely grateful for that.The best class I have taken in all of my college career.
I was looking forward for implementation but we got very little time to implement the system. We didn't even went over the design patterns. Also most of the topics were left unclear since nor the teacher or the TA would answer my emails. Lastly, exams where too long.
Overall a very good course. Definitely monopolizes time. Some things that didn't work this semester was getting feedback on submitted documents. We got two deliverables back and that was it. The teaching assistant was around for the first day and was never seen again. Weekly meetings with the instructor were good ways to gain some feedback on things.

CS 5372 - Specification and Design of Real-Time Systems (Fall 2015)

I have learned a great deal of knowledge from the course. I feel that each class encourages me to learn more.
I have nothing but good things to say about Spec. & Desgn of Real-Time Sys class. The professor is excellent, always available to answer questions and help students. The course is very interesting and challenging. Even though the theoretical part of the class is interesting the best part, in my opinion, is the practical part. Not only does it allows us to improve our programming skills, but it also give us an insight into important concepts such as: concurrent programming using useful kernel objects, VxWorks Real-Time OS, and programming for real time applications.
It was odd to be tested on the syntax of VxWorks. I think it would have been more useful to be tested on the theory of the concepts in class. Also, the assignments were very similar (almost exactly the same) to the exercises done in class, so they felt like a waste of time.
Improvement: Synchronize the labs to what was discussed in class. There were situations where the labs were not in sync with the current topic of the class. It would be good if we could practice what was just discussed. It happened in 2 or 3 times during the course.

CS 4390 - Specification and Design of Real-Time Systems (Fall 2015)

This course is loaded with work. It is very challenging but I have learned a lot as well.

CS 4311 - Software Engineering Design & Implmentation (Spring 2016)

Salamah is engaging and communicative and he has lots of good positive energy that provides for a stimulating learning environment. The only problems I think I have with this course don't necessarily have anything to do with Salamah but more I feel with the field of Software Engineering itself or just how it's taught. I'm not sure. In any case here is my main problem: It's too subjective. There was a homework assignment that asked me to solve a problem using the following 2 methods:1.) Equivalence classes2.) Decision Tables. Now, by asking me to solve the problem using these 2 methods you have just inadvertently implied that both methods provide valid solutions. However, on the test for a particular problem I come to find that decision tables were the way to go. It's too subjective. At best I feel that all you can really say is that some correct ways are more correct than other correct ways, and some incorrect ways are more incorrect than other incorrect ways. But you cannot say that the method A is absolutely correct and method B is absolutely incorrect. Which is a majore problem I feel.
This course is a great step up from its preceding course, I felt well prepared for my assignments and the tests were not only manageable, but challenging too. Dr Salamah is a fantastic teacher!
Its software II so its already not going to be easy, but Salamah did his absolute best to make it understandable to us. We went in knowing what to expect and were not shocked when they came true.I really liked the sense of humor Salamah had. It kept the atmosphere light. The only thing I feel needs improvement is his meeting with us or the other teams. I realize the man is busy running the software engineering program and his multiple classes. But over the course of the semester I think our team met with him 3 times? This is in contrast to Software I where we met with the instructor or the TA weekly. To be fair we didn't always have to meet (no assignments or progress updates to give) but when we did I feel as if it was just something extra to do not a requirement. He was quick to answer emails though and that was a big plus.
Great class, hard but essential
Great course and professor. Explained software engineering concepts clearly, and structured lectures in an organized manner. He was supportive of the teams outside of class, and provided guidance throughout the semester.
I wish we had the work load more dispersed throughout the semester.
The instructor is very down to earth. He is very frank, but cares about the students. He is quite honest. He offers a lot of helpful feedback and responded to emails promptly. His lectures are quite clear. I found that the implementation part of the course to be quite overwhelming, and almost crushing. However, no matter how late at night it got the professor usually found time to meet with our team and offer very helpful feedback. I found the tests to be quite intimidating, I was quite nervous going into the tests. Perhaps in the future we can have a TA provide a review session, not that the instructor dud not. perhaps just a supplementary one. Overall the instructor was very helpful and the class was fun. The in class team activities seemed to really strengthen team bonds.
Dr. Salamah is a great instructor. His teaching style is engaging, and fun. He encourages you to take an active role in your own learning, and present work you have pride in.

CS 4387 - Software Integration and V&V (Spring 2016)

Dr Salamah managed to find a way to make an otherwise boring subject into a very challenging and interesting course
The amount of content in the course actually ins't all that different from things that were taught in Software 2. Being able to take that knowledge gave me a leg up on the concepts

CS 5389 - Software Engineering Practicum (Fall 2016)

Agile is not as easy as I was wondering. To be my last class it was the with bunch of challenges every single day.I really hope get my degree this year.Gracias Totales!!!!!!

CS 4311 - Software Engineering Design & Implmentation (Fall 2016)

He is a great professor one of the best in the cs department in my opinion.
I have no comments related to improving. Just wanted to say Dr. Salamah is one of the best teachers at UTEP in the CS Department. Thank you so much!
Everything was really nice and well prepared. The only thing that would be better may be giving more feedback on the assignments established on this course that would be incredibly helpful. Overall this course is one of the best ones i had to take here and so far the best instructor I had.

CS 4311 - Software Engineering Design & Implmentation (Spring 2017)

Best class of the semester.
Great exercises in class to reinforce what we learned in class as well as explanation of the material in class.
It might look like I just chose strongly agree and excellent because I was lazy, but this course was actually very helpful and the professor was well prepared and did challenge me.
Best teacher CS has! Makes class very engaging and fun while still learning.
Salamah is a really cool professor. I think it took him a while to find out I was struggling in class and with my team but when he did find out, he helped me understand what the problems were. He gave suggestions on how I can improve as a student in class and with my team. I ended up getting higher grades and vastly improving relations within my team. I really appreciate Dr. Salamah no matter what grade I end up with.
Dr. Salamah has been my favorite professor here at UTEP. He teaches effectively, keeps class interesting, and inspires me to be better.

CS 5386 - Software Architecture and Design (Spring 2017)

Teach the material too fast and give way!!!! to much work.
none
Excellent course. Excellent professor.
Problems with letting students know how they're performing in the class. Midterm exam was entirely too long, and felt like a waste because we did not receive feedback on it in a timely manner(or at all at the time this was written.) Overall, good class that taught me a lot about how software systems are architected.
Dr. Salamah provided us with a very good definition of what the course was going to be about. He wouldn't move on to a different topic unless everyone understood what we were currently discussing, which is a great thing for a professor to do. He seems genuinely interested in all of our success in the course and in lifeHe is one of the better professor in the Computer Science Department
This course is great and Salamah is a great instructor, but the team I got paired up with was extremely bad which increased the class in difficulty a lot.
Course its raelly good the way it is. I dont see how learning a AADL will help with design and architecture though.
Very challenging class, specially because of the exams which were more like individual projects. I think partial quizzes from the book's chapters would have forced all student to read it!

CS 4311 - Software Engineering Design & Implmentation (Fall 2017)

A potential area for improvement can be giving feedback on documents a lot quicker so that we know the grade we earned for that document.
Best professor ever. Very lively. Keep up the excellent work.
Great class, pleasure taking it.
This class was difficult, not conceptually, but in trying to always do things based on what you think the teacher wants and expects. There was always a feeling of never doing anything correct and that added on a lot of stress for the class. There wasn't much guidance and a lot of meetings were cancelled that could have been beneficial in the success of document assignments. It was always portrayed that the exams were "easy" when in fact the classes low grades show differently. Although given the opportunity to improve the grade was very helpful.
Ok course overall, not too good and not too bad. Really enjoy Dr. Salamah as a person but can be confusing at times as a professor. Most times he will ask questions that seem obvious to me but are really not as I find out the appropriate answers to them. I have trouble understanding what he is asking for at times or digesting his questions properly. I do appreciate him refrhasing the questions from time to time as this helps. Reasonable professor and I appreciate him wanting to help his students and giving them second chances on exams, that is very nice of him although sometimes this did not work in my favor anyway.
Dr. Salamah is an excellent instructor that clearly cares for his students. He is one of the best professors I've had at the university.

CS 5389 - Software Engineering Practicum (Fall 2017)

Awesome class, it was very challenging, but at the end we had a lot of fun and we are very happy we were able to deliver the product you need.
The UTEP Software Engineering program is a very complete and comprehensive experience of software development. While very challenging it was very interesting as well.

CS 4311 - Software Engineering Design & Implmentation (Spring 2018)

Very good class
Dr. Salamah is an excellent professor. He lectures in such a way that students are encouraged to pay attention. There are some pop quizzes during lectures, the fear of which encourages you, even more, to pay attention and take good notes, since you can use them (for unannounced quizzes only, announced quizzes are closed-note). I understand that Dr. Salamah had some scheduling issues because he has a lot to do in school and with his family, but he did an excellent job with rescheduling team meetings, even coming to school during the weekends. Dr. Salamah is an excellent professor. It's great that he teaches the last undergraduate course for Computer Science Majors.
The only thing I wish could be improved about this course is to break this classes into more classes and teach them instead of the intro. In other words, to morph the intro classes with some type of Software class experience. Dr. Salamah was sometimes tough and although his feedback was sometimes hard to swallow, it showed me that he really cared for his students. He is a great professor who I have started to admire. Both Dr. Gates and Dr. Salamah are great instructors that will push you and be of very great assistance. Elsa, the instructor's assistant, is helpful at times. The only thing I feel she needs to work on is to be able to give constructive feedback instead of being condescending. She is not a bad assistant, but there was times I preferred to avoid her and wait longer to get help from the professor.Overall this course has made me fond of the process software development requires. Although there was times of frustration because of time constraint, I have learned how it is to work with other people and the importance of time management, professionalism, and persistence. By far my favorite course of all the CS courses.
Dr Salamah brings an engaging approach to a class i originally wasn't excited for during registration. After leaving SE1 I felt this would be my least favorite class of the semester but Dr Salamah's lectures were not only topical but fun and mentally engaging. While the class did often go by quick leaving little time to reflect and write notes I did learn a lot and found what i enjoy doing most in computer science during his lectures (breaking down large systems to manageable entities). My only complaint is the availability of the powerpoints covered in class were often well after the class it was covered making it difficult to go over the topics. Besides that Dr Salamah is a true professional with a no bullshit approach to teaching i appreciate. He is someone i wish to resemble in my career in software.

CS 5386 - Software Architecture and Design (Spring 2018)

Dr. Salamah was excellent as always. The class was a bit confusing because no one understood the project very well. But that wasn't the professor or course's fault.
I am not a liked student in this program. I don’t kiss butt, I don’t really converse with their favorites. I bring this up because from the first day introductions in this course it was made clear who Salamah liked and whom he didn’t really care about. When you’re in the second group, life is made a little harder. A group member of mine attacked me and claimed accusations. I immediately emailed Dr. Salamah. He never responded, he never asked about it or anything. In fact a former student had told me to email Salamah and state that nothing was wrong. He told me Salamah has a reputation that even if you are not the one causing trouble in the group but whomever brings it up to Salamah gets shafted by being graded harder or (it’s visiable) that Salamah doesn’t even want to talk to you. Whenever I raise my hand, it seemed as though Salamah just didn’t want to call on me but his favorite he was more than happy to joke in class. For the mid term, I followed his instructions. He stated that I didn’t and resulted in a poor grade. Mind you it has taken him until this week to return them. But back to the day we turned in the mid terms, a favorite of his, Kim (the group mate that accused me and has been causing problems for me). Told him that Dr. Salamah that she didn’t follow the instructions, he stated and I quote Dr. Salamah “it’s okay as long as you did something”. Yes the part she did was more a bit harder than asked but still that wasn’t the assignment but I am 100% sure if I had made the same mistake points would have been deducted. He probably would remark that it’s harder than asked but that wasn’t the instructions. That’s a clear example of what I have been going through. If you’re liked by the CS Professors then as long as you did the work then that’s fine but for me and the rest who aren’t favorites, it isn’t the same. Another thing is that Dr. Salamah has been rude to me. For another assignment we had to come up with questions for the client. In class he mocked my
This is a very interesting course and I love everything about it. Dr. Salamah is very knowledgeable person and he has strong grip on his topics. The only problem I have faced is the AADL part which was taught by the TA. Very less time and effort was spent on this topic and everyone else in the class is on the same page. Whoever tried asking questions was highly discouraged with negative/strict response in return. Because of this issue, extra time and efforts was required to solve the problems in hand whereas there is pressure from other courses too.

CS 5389 - Software Engineering Practicum (Spring 2018)

This is one of the best (if not the best) class in the MsSWE program. I've learned a lot in the one semester and gained what actually could be translated into real world experience
A good project was selected for an agile approach. However, the course needs more structure and maybe some lecture time to ensure that the team is applying agile correctly. It seemed very ad-hoc.

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