Repeating courses that were taken elsewhere? CS

PhantomVirgo
Tue, 15 Sep 2015 17:03:27 +0000

The majority of professors genuinely care about their students. Of course, when there are at least 100 people in most classes they can’t keep track of everyone.

Some examples from personal experience:

Chris Nitta (had him for ECS 150 last spring, taking him again for ECS 160 this fall) was on the class forum pretty much constantly and would give very detailed answers to any questions people had very quickly. He went above and beyond to make sure everyone had all the information they needed to finish the projects and understand the material. His workload was crazy for ECS 150, but the fact that he was very responsive made it easier to handle.

Sean Davis (took him for ECS 30 and 60) is known for his crazy workload, but is also very approachable and will work with you until you understand something. He also allows you to edit your programs for functionality, which is nice. I remember a couple cases where me and my partner couldn’t figure out why our program didn’t work and he went through our code with us to find the problem and suggest solutions.

Professor Bai (had him for ECS 122A) has a policy of having his office open to students every day after a certain time. This past quarter you could come in between around 4:30 and 6 and he’d be there. This was in addition to his regularly scheduled office hours a few days every week.

You get the idea, I think. Many of the professors will go above and beyond to help you, but with the class sizes they can only do that if you actually seek them out. Some of the professors’ teaching during lecture isn’t the greatest, but the main ones I had issues with were ones that were better at teaching in a small group setting (e.g. office hours). Professor Gusfield was like that, to name an example.

So again, the biggest downside to the department is how crowded it is. It’s definitely manageable, but I’d say the biggest downside is needing to be very proactive about seeking the professors. Basically, if you’re looking for smaller classes and personal attention from the professors during class, UCD CS isn’t for you. However if you’re one that doesn’t mind bigger classes and who’s proactive about seeking out help, you’ll be fine.