CS 2120

While she is an amazing person and has the right mindset about teaching, I find the restructuring of the class to be detrimental to the students. She often contradicts herself and the tests seem disproportionately weighted on a question-to-question basis. I don't feel like the lectures provide adequate information to properly aid you on the homework or the tests. Talking to my peers this seems to be a commonly held opinion within my section. I would recommend attempting to find another section unless you plan to fight tooth and nail for a decent grade. Other previous reviews were done before the restructuring of the class and I would disregard them entirely. Retakes as well as previous commodities are a thing of the past in this class.

Despite her wittiness and jokes in class in an attempt to make the class more light-hearted, Professor Oricco rushed through slides quite often, trying to cram information in at the last second of class, making it hard to understand the course material. She often contradicts herself, and the tests and homework just do not accurately reflect what Oricco highlights in class. Furthermore, this semester, she made the course harder and wanted students to start doing worse in this class compared to previous semesters. She audibly voiced her concern to the class that she wanted to be more respected as a teacher and as a woman by making her class harder for students to do well in, which I respect, but could have come about in a different manner. Class difficulty and instructor respect, do not necessarily correlate. Our grades are based solely on 20-point tests and tricky homework graded on accuracy. She offers no opportunities to increase your grade in the class, while in previous semesters, she let students retake tests and offered more leniency to do well in this course, as well as no final exam. This year, we have a final exam for the first time in person when previously this consisted of retakes. I worked really hard to do well in this class, and I still did not do well on the tests. I often go to office hours to get help which is very helpful on the TAs parts, but they have admitted to me that this course is very difficult now, and they apologize for their struggles in not knowing how to do some of the problems. I've talked to several students, and many of them agree that it is unfair the way the class has operated this semester, and it is unfortunate that our grades will reflect this. When signing up for a class, you read the reviews to help manage your courseload, and she has completely changed those reviews now. Definitely try to find a different section of this course if you want your efforts to succeed to be reflected in your grade. Do not listen to any review for this class written prior to Fall 2023 saying this class is "easy," because she has completely restructured the course. I wish you all the best of luck in this class and other CS courses at UVa!

WOW, I LOVED this class! Orrico is the best CS professor I've had so far, because every class was both entertaining and useful. She is a great teacher and really cares about all of her students learning and participating in class.
The format of the class has changed. There were 8 HWs (2 for each unit), and 4 unit tests, and 1 final exam. The content itself wasn't too difficult, and the unit tests were mostly similar to the HWs and any hints she gave us before the exams. The final was essentially a slightly easier version of each of the unit tests combined.
The HWs took like 2-3 hours max, and she encouraged group work and use of chatGPT.

To be honest, she talks a lot about non-sense during class which made it hard to focus throughout the entire duration. Luckily she records her lectures so you can skip through the off topic discussion yourself but sometimes she would end up having to rush the last bit of her slides. The quizzes weren't hard and we didn't get any significant homework. Other than that, the class isn't too hard so long as you take notes and pay the best attention you can during lecture.

just mid overall. orrico is a little quirky but its dismissable. concepts are pretty easy to learn but you should make sure you understand them for quizzes and what not. weekly homework and that's it.

The content isn't interesting, but Prof Orrico tries her best to keep people engaged. The homework can be difficult, but you can work with anyone and you have a week to do them. The content itself can be difficult because it's really different from anything that I've learned before, but going to TA hours helped a lot. The tests are significantly easier than the homework.

The attendance policy was kind of wack (i.e. attendance was MANDATORY), but I think the lectures were helpful for understanding the content, so I didn't skip many.

I'm sad she won't be teaching next semester because she's a good prof and genuinely cares about her students. #tCFS24

This is indefinitely Orrico’s last semester ever teaching, but I felt it necessary to leave her a review. She is genuinely one of the most passionate professors I’ve studied under. She advocates for students and is fairly flexible about test rescheduling as long as you’re timely and kind about it. I've loved our conversations and her willingness to provide advice and insight. This semester saw a lot of controversy over how she handled cheating during exams and on attendance checks. However, I personally am grateful for a professor that takes honor seriously and gives out consequences as needed. I hope it sets a necessary precedent for other professors in the department. As for the class itself, it’s pretty manageable content, and there are a lot of resources available if you don’t understand lectures, including TAs, practice problem sets, and Orrico herself. It’s honestly pretty fun course content, and you'll have a good time if you apply yourself.

#tCFS24

Prof Orrico is one of the most disorganized and all over the place profs I have ever had the displeasure of meeting. Her notes are nonsensical meanderings that are barely legible, lectures are hard to grasp and very poorly put together. Content is not the most difficult, however given the style of the class it can easily become confusing. The grade breakdown consists of mostly exams, which means do poorly on one and it becomes tough to climb back up. I would not take this class with Orrico ever again she genuinely made this class unbearable to take and as much as she parades around as a friendly figure her class is catered towards few students and barely does much for the rest. DO NOT be fooled by the positive reviews from before the class structure was changed. If you must take the class with Oricco make sure you're on top of your assignments, and try your best to absorb the lectures, you can still do pretty well if you try hard enough as like I said before the content is not the worst thing in the world.

I wouldn't call this subject an easy A, but it wasn't super difficult either. Lectures were a mixed bag—Elizabeth is a fun professor who often goes on unrelated tangents and rushes to get the content in at the last minute of class, and she overexplains some things, plus the lectures were mandatory (with attendance checks) and I think she forgot to record them a few times. I'd also agree with the other reviewer saying that she really gives a lot of attention to those who participate.
The grading structure doesn't really afford any room to mess up: 2.5% for 8 homeworks each, 12.5% for each of 4 midterms (yes, there is a midterm on the last week of class), 20% for the final, 7% for "participation" (just show up to class), and 3% for in-class group activities (if you were in class to do them, you'll almost certainly get a perfect score for this category). Probably my biggest tip would be to make sure you are confident in every homework answer (e.g. go to office hours and whatnot), because I didn't go to office hours and lost a few points on each assignment, which really added up.
For the midterms (which I feel are medium difficulty), TA review sessions are provided (which could've been better because the TAs seemed out of sync with what the course covered now) as well as practice questions, which had errors and touched on stuff that the course did not cover. The final was much easier than the midterms.
Overall, I think this course is fine if you vibe with the content. #tCFS24

#tCFS24
Reviewing the practice materials and homeworks helped prepare me for the exams. Going to office hours was really helpful, as well as having a group to do and check homeworks with. The material all builds on itself throughout the class and the final was kind of like the 4 exams taken throughout the semester combined.