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5 Ratings
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Sections 1
The content in the class is very interesting, but there are a lot of things that are unnecessarily painful and difficult about the way that the class is setup. The homework at the beginning of the year are very difficult and not very relevant to the coursework or tests that are done in the class, but once you get to Assembly and C programming the homeworks become significantly easier. I found that Delong is alright at teaching the class and seems to be on par with Daniel Graham about how the content is taught. I recommend listening to lectures by Delong and then also following up by listening to the recordings on the CSO website that Graham posts so that you get the most information out of the course. The exam scores also averaged to be an F, which was quite interesting, but the class overall is miserable. The content is very interesting, but the amount of studying that is necessary to pass is quite significant. Get to know when the best TA office hours are, and I recommend going to office hours for Matthew, Gavin, Justing, and Gavin if you can. If they still TA the class, they are fantastic.
Um Todd is good, he knows his tuff but he's just better at hardware IMO. I stopped going for lecture and switched to watching graham's lecture cause he went more indepth and literally explains every single thing, when i say every single thing , i mean it. Todd and graham are both wonderful teachers but if you really want to learn and understand and pass exams and stuff... Graham is the go. and CSO1 is terribly hard so make sure you doo all your assignments because its worth 40% and tests are usually curved so focus on your assignments a lot and also study for tests and do labs....0
Delong is just a crazy dude lmao. Graham is a much better lecturer and much clearer on how to teach the content. Delong goes into sooooo many details about circuits which have zero practical application for the class unless you go into hardware engineering. He constantly sh** talks CS majors and for a lot of the content if you have questions, he will give you the most obscure response as an answer. Ex: Somebody asked a question about C, which very clearly had an answer, to which he went on a mini rant about how he didn't create C and it was a bad language. Like, okay xD, answer the question??? Me personally I stopped going to Delong lectures and started watching/going to Graham's lectures and immediately had a better understanding of what was going on. My exam 2 grade improved TREMENDOUSLY from exam 1, and all I did was start going to Graham lectures. This semester was his first time teaching CSO so maybe you should say I should be nicer about it, but IDC bro was just incompetent. The overall course is hard, anyone saying it's not is just a pretentious liar. You have to put in the work, rewatch lectures, go to office hours and actually understand content. Of the required tier 1 classes (DMT,DSA,CSO), this is easily the hardest, and it should be no surprise when you see averages in the lower 70s for exams. Funnily enough, the labs and homework count for the majority of your grade so while it may be disheartening, an A - B is actually very doable even if you average like a 60 test average. Also, it helps EXTREMELY to know somebody who has already taken the course or to make friends and help go through the course (saved me a lot).
TLDR; Class is hard, Delong bad, It is doable and an A is achievable (shoot for B+ imo tho)
Delong is the best lecturer for this course IMO. He does hardware and the foundation of CSO is hardware so he's good at explaining that. The first 1/3 of the course is the hardest, and our exam 1 was hellish compared to previous exams. They chilled out after that so our exam 2 was fair. I'll update after the final. Homeworks vary, some are extremely difficult (hw1) whereas others are pretty easy (hw 4 and hw5) and some are mid. You'll spend a lot of time outside of class doing CSO. Whether it be homework, finishing lab, or studying for exams, there's always so much to do. The course is unnecessarily difficult imo, but it's not nearly as bad as some people paint it out to be; those people are probably part of the the 80% who don't attend Delong's lectures. If you simply show up to lecture, you'll be ahead of 80% of the people in CSO! Yippee!
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