CS 2100

The course is definitely not as much of a mess as the older reviews suggest. Honestly, my biggest gripe with the course would be the lectures — Prof. Morrison's slide decks are way too big (they appeared to be multiple slide decks merged together) and she moves way too fast during class (don't expect to handwrite notes and keep up). Still, going to the lectures was more beneficial than skipping (especially since she does coding demos as well), especially since the class as a whole moves very quickly throughout the material.

The grading breakdown is, in my opinion, very fair:
Syllabus Quiz: 1%
Programming HW (you get a few bonus points for turning it in 2 days early): 36%
Labs: 13%
Quiz A (an at-home, timed programming assignment with resources): 12.5%
Quiz B (in lab, multiple choice, no resources): 37.5%

The hardest of these are the quiz Bs: they definitely require you to study the material well, and some questions are just flat-out ridiculous. There is no final; instead, you can retake 4 quizzes (e.g. 2 quiz Bs and 2 quiz As).

No comment on office hours (I never went to them), but Piazza is a helpful resource I used a lot.

My biggest tips for the course are to finish the homework early to get all of those bonus points (although you can get a late extension if your program is partially working, only use these as a last resort) especially if the quiz that week is going to test on the homework's topic. Also, come into the class with at least a basic amount of Java knowledge. But overall, this course is definitely manageable if you dedicate the right amount of time to it.

I really enjoyed this class! We spent 1/3 of the semester reviewing Java and 2/3 of the semester going over data structures and algorithms (trees, searches, LL, etc.). Professor Morrison gave up to 3 bonus points if you turned in homework assignments early, so I would definitely recommend taking advantage of that. Also, make sure to take advantage of TA and professor OH!

It wasn't too bad. i liked morrison, sometimes she explained things way too fast but to be fair the curriculums pretty packed. for the most part she seemed patient and she always kept the mood light. i have a couple of friends who skipped datar lectures and just watched morrison recordings bc they were easier to understand. dont expect to understand everything in lecture --- pay attention and you'll def get a lot of it (which will save ur time), but still expect to do some learning on ur own outside of class. it might seem like u get extra credit opportunities, but don't miss ANY of them if u care about getting an A (be ready to lose points on mcq quizzes). the class kinda biased towards people who have been coding for a while, so if ur fresh out of 111x, i def recommend familiarizing urself with java a little bit before diving in. on the other hand, if you've done APCSA + some other coding practice, the writing quizzes and hws will be easy.

Morrison is great! Very friendly and explains the material intuitively. I also feel like the multiple choice quizzes are more straightforward than people make them seem to be: just make sure you review the slides not gone over in class and you'll be fine. Important subject matter and well-taught. If you haven't taken APCSA or don't have Java experience I'd recommend doing CodingBat or some other programming practice at the beginning of the semester.

This class is essentially a free A if you stay on top of your homework early to earn the extra credit. During my semester, there was more than 6% of extra credit available, making an A very attainable. Toward the end of the class, the workload ramps up quickly, so don’t put things on the back burner for too long. If you manage your time well throughout the year, you won’t even need to take a final, which can free up more time for your other courses.

Professor Morrison is great—very enthusiastic about DSA—so pay attention in lectures and use online resources to refresh your memory. All in all, if you approach the coursework strategically, this class should be a relatively stress-free path to an A.

Briana Morrison herself is great. She's enjoyable to speak to and tries to help students. Also offers a lot of extra credit, which you should always do. With that being said, she spends over half the lecture answering student questions, and the other half reading off a powerpoint slideshow that doesn't do a great job explaining. This class throws you into Java, and if you have no previous Java experience, you're screwed. The TAs are barely any help, they think giving you any type of help is equivalent to flat out giving you answers. If you ask them for help, they'll just ask you questions to try and get you to think with no direction and leave you even more confused. There's also too many assignments a week to handle and if you miss more than 1 quiz, hw assignment, and lab due to extenuating circumstances, good luck to your grade!

I didn't actually have her class. I had the other session with Datar, but thank goodness Prof Morrison recorded her lectures because I couldn't understand a thing from Datar. She goes through content fast, but she does provide clear examples that help with understanding. Try to take her class, unless there's an actual better professor for the course.

Overall I would say this class is okay. The teaching is very confusing and you must do a lot of work outside of class if you really care about understanding the material (this is very important for CS majors). Her teaching in lectures is very quick and she will often breeze over very important topics. She also will not show code and syntax examples in class, only pseudocode which is tricky if you don't have java experience. Overall this class is an easy A- or A. There is so much extra credit offered so as long as you stay on top of your work you should excel. Do not worry when you get really low grades on the multiple choice exams, everyone does, your grade will be saved by the extra credit.

Some of the older reviews make this class sound insanely hard, but I can definitely say the class is way better now. The grading is incredibly forgiving with large amounts of extra credit available all the time (submitting assignments early, extra credit labs) which means as long as you submit every assignment a couple days early you're pretty much guaranteed an A. Sometimes the in-lab quizzes were annoying, but there's more than enough extra credit + quiz retakes to make up for it. On the other hand, some of the assignments could be frustrating since the professor didn't really show concrete coding examples in lecture after we finished the "learning java" unit. If you go to lab/office hours though, the TAs are pretty nice about helping.

DO THE EXTRA CREDIT, she offers alot of it which helps yours grade so much. If you lack experience with java, she offered a little class on Fridays to gain more practice because it can be hard to go right into writing java without already knowing it.

The odd quizzes are just coding and they're open book so it's typically easy to pass them but the even quizzes are mcq and my best recommendation would be to review the non class slides that she did not go over and that'll help.

Work on the hw as early as possible to get the extra credit and to also just get it out of the way so you have time to do other stuff.

The TAs are a hit or miss but just find a good one in labs and use them for check offs.

DO THE EXTRA CREDIT PLEASE!