One of the hardest courses you'll be taking if you're in the CS pathway, but not for the reason you'd think.

The issue here is that the course is extremely rushed in terms of content. There is a *lot* of content to cover within this course, so it's obvious that the professors *will* go through slide after slide quickly. From this, there are many minuscule details that are left out within lectures that will appear on the midterm exams, which I assume is the bulk of why people miss easy points. It's pretty easy to get a B or C on a midterm since missed points add up quickly.

This does *not* mean that it's hard because it's hard to comprehend or too complex. The content being too hard is not an issue here, it's just that there is *too much* content to cover. Every topic can be understood with a decent amount of practice, but it can get overwhelming with just how many topics there are.

This means to go to office hours or lectures to ask questions. This shouldn't be an optional thing, and *should* be a mandatory thing if you really want to get all of your bases down on what to know. If you don't ask questions in lecture or office hours, chances are you're going to miss a good amount of questions because you missed the small details you *could* have asked about. No, the professors and TAs don't bite.

Just be very cautious of the increasing difficulty that CSO1 has. It's no DSA1.

Professor Yi is very nice, but she has a thick accent so it's hard to follow along in lecture. She sometimes would be a bit confused by lecture content, and overall her lectures were worse than Hott's. I recommend just going to Hott's or watching his recordings. Outside lecture, she's super kind and helpful. She posts annotated versions of her slides after class, and if you go to her in office hours she's much more put together and usually is prepared to address mistakes/misunderstandings from the lecture. Overall, it doesn't make much difference between her and Hott (you can go to the other person's lectures). It was her first semester teaching overall, so she might have improved by the time others take this.

(Took in F25, but could only list as S26)

I took this course in Fall of 2025 and I found this course to be difficult but enjoyable under Professor Yi's teaching. She is a recently graduated PhD student but is very knowledgable in the CSO field and her research is also related to this course! One piece of advice I would recommend is to always go to office hours! They are extremely useful, in general any questions that you may have could be answered and the concepts taught in class could be clarified. ONE note is that the CSO curriculum is just rushed (how Professor Hott designed it) so a lot of information will be just breezed by and it WILL still appear on the exam so do take note of it and make sure to have everything clarified and understood before the exam. Overall, I think Professor Yi is an fabulous professor and would love to take a class with her again!

Professor Yi is very kind and knowledgeable, and she is also very accessible outside of office hours. She does have an accent, which may take some time to get used to, but her office hours are extremely helpful. Additionally, Profesor Yi posts detailed, annotated notes after each lecture that clearly explain the material, which I frequently use when studying. Overall, she is a great professor who wants her students to succeed.

The course can be challenging but interesting. There is homework and a quiz every week. Homework often takes several hours to complete (especially the first assignment), so I recommend starting early and going to TA office hours if needed (gets busy near deadlines, up to an hour wait). There is also an option to extend homework deadlines by two days by submitting a form one day in advance with valid reasoning. The readings are helpful and serve as good references.

Note: I took this course in Fall 2025, but it wasn't an option when creating this review.