CS 2102

HERE IS THE LOW DOWN: Don't leave homework for the night before. FIND A GOOD GROUP EARLY and vow to finish it by Mondays so you can go over it Monday nights and have two days to go to office hours to get help. David Edwards really wants to help his students.

After the first homework, I thought I would drop, but many of the homeworks are easier. The TESTS ARE EASIER THAN THE HOMEWORKS.

I sat in the back during lectures, and almost no one paid attention, but I strongly recommend sitting front and center so you can at least absorb something. Most of the concepts aren't impossible. As I said, find a good group for the homework, cause it can take up to 8 hours. BUT the tests are way easier!

Best class ever. It was so easy that I never studies and got an A+ . Also, the professor was very cute.

This class is no fun. Do not take it unless you have to. Edwards is really into this sort of material but unfortunately does an awful job of transferring that passion into his teaching. Class is boring and, generally, not very fun. In spite of the title, this is by no means a "math" class. It's some strange blend of logic and proofs that I honestly still can't explain. This semester Edwards switched to a less "traditional" style of teaching in which most of lecture consisted of the class trying to puzzle through in class problems to very little avail. Plus, the homework assignments are pretty tough, and it's difficult to schedule upwards of 5 hours per week of groupwork with a partner when everyone in college has crazy schedules. Overall I am still not sure what discrete math is.

Most of the people who are leaving negative reviews I would imagine likely didn't try /very/ hard in this class (or as much as they should have). The exams are somewhat difficult and may seem confusing, however Professor Edwards provides all of the needed material online and there are practice problems in the book. I will admit that I found this class somewhat difficult and boring mostly due to the fact that this class is after all, a requirement based around mathematical proofs and logical reasoning.

This however should not be mistaken as to being a problem with the Professor. Edwards is in all honesty one of the most genuine and caring Professors I have met, and he really does want everyone to succeed. If you talk to him he will always respond, and he is VERY prompt with his e-mails. He does look out for his students and understands any complications you have, (i.e he will give you an extension if your partner never responded to the portfolio).

This class is only as hard as you want it to be. Get started on your homework assignments early, and do the posted readings before class. If you really make an attempt to do well you will, and I recommend that you do the homework sets independently (without the aid of a partner) if at all possible, as it will help you on the midterms/exams.

If it means anything, my anecdote is that my partner never responded to me and Dr. Edwards personally responded to my portfolio as my temporary partner, and e-mailed me back the feedback in only about two hours after I send him the email, while we were taking our final. Edwards really does care about each student and I honestly do believe that he is a good professor, though I don't think that many will find this class very interesting. (But that's not Edwards's fault)

The difficulty of the class mostly stems from the fact that discrete math is very hard to teach. There are a lot of things that you need to intuitively "know." However, as long as you do well on the homeworks, you'll be fine. I got a B+ while my partner for the homeworks got a B, even though he did 20% worse on both exams. So really, as long as you put in the time, you'll be fine even if you don't really understand discrete math.

Yeah... this class was kinda some arse. Make sure you know how to do all the problems. Sometimes it's more helpful doing the problems yourself before working with your group just to make sure you don't rely on them and actually figure out how to do the problems. The weekly practice sets are hella long though so it's kinda annoying. Edwards is pretty dry so it's not like it's easy to pay attention in class either. But overall, just expect to teach yourself. The material isn't too bad and it's very reasonable to get an A / A-, but yeah I failed tho, so don't be like me lol.

WOW. I had really low expectations from my friends for this class, but overall I enjoyed it a lot. The class is essentially an introduction of higher level math (proofs, number theory, set theory, etc.) and it teaches you how to use logic and think mathematically. I enjoyed working on the problem sets each week and they got harder as the semester progressed. My advice is to stay on top of lectures and psets throughout the semester. The material speeds up half way through.

The first thing I will say about this class is that don't let it fool you: the first three weeks seem pretty easy, but then when you start learning proofs, this class gets way harder. After about week 4, it's proofs the rest of the class. Homework is weekly and difficult. Start early on it and find a partner you can consistently work with, because you are allowed to work with a partner. You have the whole week to do a problem set of about 10 questions, so start on them early in the week.

Then there's the portfolio. This thing makes no sense at all and I personally hated it because it's incredibly complicated and not really useful at all, but it's worth a fair amount of your grade so take it seriously. The TA's in this class can be picky at times over very small details which is annoying. There is one midterm and one final in this class, both of which are very challenging even if you've studied for 10 hours, but the best advice I can give for those is to study all of the rules for proofs.

On the bright side, Professor Edwards is a really nice guy, and wants to have all of his students succeed, and he'll answer questions very quickly if you email him. Overall, I wouldn't recommend this course to anyone unless you're doing it for a major/minor requirement.

God awful course. I didn't mind the workload (there are problem sets every week) but the exams were terrible. Class averages were usually in the low 70s for exams, and no curve was added. In addition to problem sets, we also had to do portfolio problems and an RSA encryption assignment. The portfolio problems were mostly grade buffers, but still a pain to do. RSA was also fun, but also a pain considering most of the TAs didn't know how to do it, and there were little support resources for learning. It's a more difficult class than it honestly needs to be, and it decimated my GPA. Take it with Evans - I don't know how much more you'll learn, but I've heard he's really generous about grades, and you don't have to do all of this extra work. Edwards was a cool guy, but generally unhelpful.

tl;dr take it with Evans, save yourself a world of regret.

Definitely one of the worse CS requirements. Annoying problem sets that make you BS things you don't really know or found through Google. He grades pretty leniently on the problem sets though, so you have a lot of freedom in the wording as long as you get the conclusion right. Exams were stressful but not impossible. We also had to do some group project with making your own problem and stuff which was nothing too bad. I just forgot to turn them in sometimes lol. Came out with a good grade, and it seems like a precursor to Algo (CS 4102) so expect more of this later.