CS 2110

Edwards is a solid professor. He helped me learn the concepts. The homeworks can be tedious and the tests are hard, but if you put in the work you'll get a good grade, plus theres an bonus extra credit assignment for +2% on your final grade at the end.

CS 2110, is in some ways, easier than CS 111x. I had Edwards, who comparatively to Basit is considered not that good but he taught the material well. His voice could put you to sleep, but he truly was one of the kindest professors I've ever come across at UVA. I tanked the first exam, but he was nice enough to give points back to me that I definitely did not deserve. One thing: ALWAYS fight for your points -- they send out scary emails saying don't fight for your points unless you know you can get it back, but don't listen, and always fight for your points. Exams are relatively hard -- the first exam and the final bodied me but the second exam covered easier material, and the class as a whole did better. I was well on my way to getting an A in this class but like I said, the final absolutely destroyed me so dedicate enough time to study for all the exam. There is a direct correlation with how much you study and how well you do. Read the textbook, but more importantly, read the slides. The homework vary in difficulty. Sometimes you can crank the entire thing out in 2 hours and get a 100%, but I would definitely recommend starting as early as possible on most assignments. Office hours are super helpful (definitely more helpful than CS 111x office hours), but most of the assignments can be done easily on your own. Make sure you submit your assignment into WebCat with a good 3 to 4 buffer period because a majority of the time, you will end up with errors that you need time to fix. Lab is a joke, I never went and did okay. Some people will say that lab really helped their grade, but I'll never know so do what you think you need to do. All in all, the class really did help me /like/ computer science more and it started shedding some light on incredibly important topics that are used readily in computer science such as algorithms and recursion.

CS 2110 was an extremely well-designed course, but only for those who can follow deadlines and spend copious amounts of time on the assignments. There was a weekly quiz, homework assignment, and small readings for each lecture along with a classwork assignment, but these weren't too bad as long as you could follow along with lecture material (readings went along with the lectures, so you had two resources if you didn't understand a topic). The assignments were mostly admittedly pretty hard, but office hours was extremely helpful as was using online resources for simple questions. The TA's were also helpful (on Piazza and during office hours), but you need to come to office hours a few minutes before the times start or you will be on the waitlist for at least an hour. My advice is to stick with the assignment instead of using someone else's code because you will need to use your own brain during the exams. As long as you study every single topic and the past homework/classwork assignments before the exams, you can get a B or above easily. Professor Edwards is obviously knowledgeable about Java and has a great personality, but he's unfortunately moving from Charlottesville :( regardless, the course is the same with every professor so I'd recommend taking it as long as you are interested in Computer Science!

David Edwards is an excellent lecturer and the class is very fun and a good amount of challenging.

Didn't actually have David- I had Erin and she is the most boring teacher. Didn't go to class the entire second half of the semester bc it was just such a waste of time.

This course has recently become much harder (the grading distribution that is currently displayed is not accurate). The tests and weekly quizzes have questions that sometimes seem to be intended to trick you, and the tests are fairly high stakes in that each question is worth a lot. The homework assignments start off easy but quickly get very difficult, to the point where TAs aren't always able to help because the code is several hundred lines long. The weekly labs are annoying, but they're not graded on accuracy. Overall though, I'm interested in software development and found this class enjoyable. It definitely helps with internship interviews too.

Super beat class. Professor has boring lectures, talks about stuff for about 20-25 minutes then throws up an in class assignment which takes way longer to do than the remainder of class since you have no idea how to do it. Also there is a weekly lab you have to go to and it is conveniently only available in the evenings from either 5:10-6:55 or 7:10-8:55 on Mondays and Tuesdays. Perfect way to interrupt your study plans. Homework assignments are heinously difficult (8-20 hours depending on how good you are), and pretty much can only be completed with TA office hour help. Although on a few assignments, the TAs didn't even know how to do the assignment it was so tough. If you have to take this class as a requirement like me, take it. If you don't need this class, DO NOT take it. It sucks.

Professors are always willing to help, but TAs are key to success. Go to the review sessions before the tests if you feel like you don't know what to expect or are worried. The TAs are super helpful.

Quizzes this semester were take-home, but they are tricky at times. Make sure you study for them and do some online practice problems on the internet by googling the topic at hand before you start. That way you'll have a better sense of what to expect. These quizzes actually mattered more than I thought. (I feel like if I did better on these, I would have gotten an A instead of an A-).

There's no practice test materials. They expect you to look at a general bullet-ed outline and study off of that (plus other materials on Collab- still, they are all very condensed and without practice problems). A lot of times, the tests will ask you in ridiculous details that they don't adequately prepare you with. Going from an intro class to this hard was a bit hard to adapt to because we had to hand-write everything on the tests, which wasn't required in the lower courses. For many including myself, we are transitioning from a different language to Java and it takes a longer time to adapt to than time given to meet deadlines. I feel like people who have learned Java before have a significantly easier time than those who did not.

It's definitely a do-able course for those that don't get CS intuitively, but it will require a lot more effort. I certainly had a hard time in this class. I can't quite tell if it's due to my unhealthy obsession of perfection or that the course is genuinely harder than I expected - or a combination of both.

Let's be real: this is a prereq for all CS majors and minors. When I took the class in Spring 2016, it was a piece of cake and many kids skipped lecture. The material can be picked up quickly by reviewing the slides, but some students will find the lecture useful. Nothing special, besides being a pre-req, but there has been a lot of work to improve it recently.

I went to both Basit's and Edwards lectures, wrote a review for her too because she is nicer and great for officer hours while Edwards always is missing at OH... so take it with Basit. They are making this class a little bit harder than previous semesters because lots of students have had it rough in 2150. 2110 has been seen as a joke or easy A in the past so they have changed it compared to last year. Basically, you have in class activities every other class and they have gotten rid of the machine learning/data mining extra credit stuff (it’s just homework now), so forget about that 3-4 % point bump (but they still have 1 % extra credit for completing course evaluations). This is the B+/A- type of class and you have to fail hard to get below a B-. so, if you want to do well just go to class and finish your homework. also, don't blow off the quizzes because the quizzes are 10% of your grade and there are only 4 so don’t mess up them (one is dropped) and for this semester they rounded grades which was good. Honestly, I went to both Edwards and Basit's lectures and I found Basit’s to be more relevant to the test since she actually goes over things you will have to know. Edwards review sessions are just Q&A and there is no real structure and everyone just leaves early. Basit is really nice and I don’t understand why people don’t like her. Class average on the first test was a 79.9(80 rounded) and a 73 or 74 on the second test (no average on the final yet but it was easy and short), so that should give you a perspective of how hard the tests are. The first test was fair and the final was easy but the second test was the most difficult since it covered the most material and was in the middle of the semester (we all were braindead). the final though is really easy (most people finished it in a hour 15 min.
The $150 text book is useless and boring, plus you can find online versions on the "inter-webs". I never used them a got an A so its fine. last tip, if you need help, go to OH early and make sure you avoid certain TA's, some TA's have no idea what they are doing and just make things worse (you will know who they are after your first time at stacks). Also, make sure to comment your code for HW so you won’t get any points taken away (some TA’s are really strict on comments and stuff). Labs are based on attendance and towards the end they got really hard. If you want an A/A- just come to class and do your HW. If you get a B on ever test and get perfects on HWs, labs, and quizzes, you will get an A/A-. This class will be the gentle breeze before the wicked storm of 2150. Good luck.
one issue with this class is that the study guides are very broad and the tests only cover 20% of the material in the study guides....in the final, only 10-15% of the things in the study guide were actually tested so good luck studying efficiently
got an A even though a skipped approx 10-12 classes so you should be fine.
2017 spring aprox stats: 3 A+'s, 43 A's, 21 A-'s , 11 B+'s, 8 B's, 2 B-'s, 1 C+, 2 C's, 1 D-, 1 F, 2016 spring aprox stats: 33 A+'s, 64 A's, 10 A-'s, 11 B+'s, 10 B's, 3 B-'s, 2 C+'s, 1 C, 2 C- , 1 D+, 1 D, 1 D- so you should do fine if you but some effort in but its just harder to get an A+/A than last year.