CS 3710

Definitely a difficult course, but I'd say it's the most interesting course that I have taken this semester. I think there's definitely a rework on the overall curriculum as compared to a few years ago. This course now covers a variety of topics that acts like an introductory course to all of the other higher level cybersecurity related courses.

Homeworks are overall fine if you understand the course content, except for a few homeworks such as Buffer Overflow. However, they do take a long time and you should start on it earlier. There are also TA and instructor office hours that you can access if you need help on the homework. As far as exams go, they are open-ended questions, and he wants you to answer each question under ~30 words, meaning that you have to know your materials and know what key points they are looking for.

Other than that, I think this class is fine as compared to the other reviews. It's definitely harder than Orebaugh, but you also get to learn more about the technical side of cybersecurity. Bloomfield is also a very knowledgeable professor and knows what he's talking about.

#tCFF23

Bloomfield is a great lecturer and did a pretty good job with this class. The main criticism I have was regarding the tests. They are all free response type, mostly asking you to explain concepts. However, at times the questions would ask you to explain something and the answer rubric (which is released with the answer key) required that students mention some specific fact that was only tangentially related and not asked in the actual question. There were also a couple instances of questions asking things that he specifically mentioned in class that he wouldn't cover and not to worry about.

Horrid course. Material jumbled, presented as a list of facts we had to regurgitate for tests. TAs unhelpful and very harsh grades. Bloomfield is OK; however, he is nowhere near the top lecturer in the dept.

Simply put, Professor Bloomfield kicks a$$! This guy knows how to teach while also making the class interesting and applicable to real-world scenarios. This class is only two years old, and it's apparent that he has put a ton of time into developing this course into one which makes it as easy as possible for his students to learn. Some of the homeworks are still rough around the edges, but they are coming along as he is learning from past mistakes and adjusting the homeworks accordingly. Last semester he only had to cancel one part of a homework. Some of them are very satisfying and interesting, while some of them are very difficult, but still incredibly satisfying when you complete (Looking at you buffer overflow!). Time-wise, don't get comfortable starting homeworks last minute. You'll be tempted to because the first 3 homeworks are all easy written assignments that can be done in 1 1/2-5 hours depending on how fast you are at writing papers. After that, the rest (excluding your easy movie assignment over Thanksgiving or spring break), are all programming assignments. That is where the meat of the class is and where it gets interesting, but the time spent on assignments will definitely ramp up considerablely. The longest homeworks (Buffer overflow, forensics) will take somewhere in the ballpark of 12-15 hours while the shortest ones (SQL injections) may only take 3-4 hours with others falling somewhere in between.

Bloomfield tries to get an average of 70-80 on his exams as a whole. So, for us, what happened was that our first exam was stupid easy (Class average was around a 92 and I got a 100!), but our second exam was stupid hard (Class average was around 60, and I got a 55. Boo). The final was somewhere in the middle, but just know that it all averages out to a pretty fair testing system, so I didn't have a problem with it.

Overall, this is an outstanding elective to take with an A+ professor. I highly recommend it.

I took this course the first semester it was ever offered by Bloomfield (fall 2018). It was pretty challenging... like if you’re lazy and just want an easy A don’t take this course. Bloomfield never teaches an easy class - you should know this if you’re a CS major lmao.
However, lectures were really really interesting and the subject matter was engaging. I never was bored, and bloomfield is a great lecturer. Learning how to do a buffer overflow (so ****ing hard, but very cool to implement) and other exploits was really interesting. If you wanna go towards cybersecurity in the future as a career, then yeah you should take this but be aware it’ll be kinda hard and a bit time consuming. I wasn’t interested or knowledgable about cyber security AT ALL before taking the course, and I have no regrets for taking it. I learned a lot, and left the class pretty satisfied (I got a B+). He gave a slight curve at the end of the course, which helped my low first exam grade lol