I'm writing this review after the context of taking CS 2100, 2130, 3140 to say that taking DMT1 (CS 2120) under Rohan Chandra was just unbelievably frustrating and difficult, and folks who have taken 2130 know that isn't a light statement. To give a reference, CS 2130 is considered to be the "specialized" part of a CS degree. It goes into the itty bits and microbial parts of a computer, and it's like breathing manually. In comparison, CS 2120 is supposed to be all about logical reasoning, coming to a conclusion based on that reasoning, and proving why that reasoning results in the conclusion. Not underestimate it, but that's supposed to be loads easier than the former albeit a bit tedious.

Chandra seems to have the foundations in which to take away from this class as he is able to solve many of the prompts given by the curriculum that he created... Only that he doesn't actually teach you the core concepts of why these prompts are important. When he does it on the board, a lot of the steps that he takes feels arbitrary because he just whips these numbers out of no where. So what ends up happening is that the first ten minutes ends up being relevant information and the rest of the 75 minute lecture is him basically fiddling around on the whiteboard on the more elaborate machinations of the concept. It isn't until deep, careful, and meaningful reverse engineering of the prompts and attempting to replicate it on your own terms is when you may or may not understand the concepts. This is, of course, until you get punished by the exam because it asks for an advanced application of the core concepts: a skill that I would have developed if the basic ideas were properly communicated in the first place.

I thought I was crazy until I took CS 2130 with Hott. Yes, it was certainly very difficult and I had to put my hours into that class, but the thing is that I was able to succeed in that class by a much more significant margin than this course because Hott was consistent in the concepts he gave and what was reflected on the exam. CS 2120 exams always felt like a shot in the dark because I never felt confident if the conclusions given by this course were what was expected of my performance.

I talked with a bunch of other folks from the CS sphere and they seemed to agree with me: for what this class is worth and is supposed to teach you, it's definitely way harder than it needs to be. It's to the point where I'm signing up with PHIL 2420 (basically just another DMT class) just to make sure that I'm not going crazy with this.

Chandra is a man of good character, but doing DMT1 with him is NOT it. If there is an alternative, I would recommend you do that.

This class was very difficult. Professor Chandra is nice but in terms of work, we are only graded mainly on homework and tests. Both of which were really hard. I highly recommend that you go to the professor's office hours rather than the TA's if you do take this class because the professor explains things better.

I also recommend taking this with a different professor in general because what was that.

Agree with the other reviewers. I would try and take it with the other professor. Even though Chandra is clearly knowledgable and nice, he makes this course painful. The exams are worth so much of your grade and he is not really understanding when rewarding partial points. The exams were very similar to the practice exams for the most part though, which was nice. What the other reviewer said about getting most of the questions but not rewarding a lot of partial credit is exactly what made this class painful, and I just wished he fixed that. It is not an easy class to get an A/A-. #tCFspring26

Professor Chandra was a great lecturer, although his handwriting is hard to understand. He was very helpful in office hours and a really nice guy. However, the structure of his course was incredibly difficult, especially in comparison to the other professors. The exams were worth 70% of our grade, and felt unfairly difficult compared to the homeworks. I did very well on the homeworks and always felt decently confident going into the tests, but I never did super well on the tests (70's range). I was able to get through most of the questions on the tests, but there were little things that I messed up which altered my entire answer and there was not a lot of partial credit. Which, in my opinion, for a proof heavy class, is not a good method of scoring. Overall, I enjoyed the way he taught, but the class was so stressful due to the high weight of the tests in combination with their difficulty that I would not recommend taking this class. One additional note, the homeworks are very long, but I did not find them super difficult, just time consuming.

The course material itself isn't too hard, but Chandra made it pretty difficult to keep up. The weekly homework wasn't too bad, but the TAs weren't helpful and told me to change my correct answers to incorrect ones multiple times, and when I went back to ask them about it, they said they couldn't do anything. Chandra is a nice guy, but not the most engaging lecturer. He also grades very hard and covers harder material than the other classes. The midterms were much harder than those of other professors, and it is not an easy class to get an A or A- in.