S3glBnocrmigqvV7oOfZzw==spring 2026
This was my first class taken for the OMSCS program. Initially I felt the subjects were pretty interesting but I would not take this class if I understood just how much writing it was going to be.
For 10 weeks there is one assignment a week, each being anywhere from 6-8 pages max, single-spaced. I found myself dedicating about 9-10 hours a week in studying and writing these papers, which might be a lot for someone working full time.
There are no books, which is nice and I appreciate, but there are a lot of required online readings which are inconsistent in length and complexity of subject; these are subject research papers related to the topic for the week. I rarely read these, and would gleam through them, they didn't feel as important to me.
Quizzes are open note, course material, internet, and this semester there was no honor lock, so no proctored quizzes, which helps. I did mostly ok on these, but multiple choice with multiple possible correct answer quizzes are kinda awful, and really easy to lose points on.
In terms of the course quality I found the course material inconsistent in quality, and recommend you listen to Dr Liu's presentations. The slides alone were useless when studying for the quizzes for me. I personally found the concepts to be a little commercial based for my tastes, and while there were ethics implications mentioned, it was very little, and I would've liked more long term talks about how some of this tech has messed with the earth. Also felt like the descriptions for the homeworks and quizzes were inconsistent, and hard to follow. I had to ask a lot of questions for clarification. Homework descriptions were sometimes incomplete and needed to be updated.
The final project is basically a large homework assignment, (3 check-ins and a final draft of those check-ins) and I was disappointed in the grade I received, despite the effort I put in being more so than typical. All my feedback was pretty positive for the project prior to the grade, so for the TA's to come back and say it wasn't a good project was pretty hard for me and confusing.
Regardless the TA's running the class were very easy to reach out to and communicate with through ED. I do still feel like what the TA's were looking for in regards to the final project and homeworks was inconsistent unless you ask very specific questions.
Dr Liu was around and answered questions. I would say it's an OK class, I don't think I'd do this again. Too much writing.
Rating: 3 / 5Difficulty: 3 / 5Workload: 10 hours / week