CS 3102

The instructor really disappoints me. The course is easy but extremely unfair. I am completely shocked by the notification 1 day before the final. I couldn't figure out why the professor would send the announcement at such a late date. In addition, throughout the course, I completely had no idea about what the syllabus is. The write-up assignments shifted frequently. From my friends, I know this instructor was Bloomfield's student. I could not imagine if UVa let him teach CS2150. He had no idea about how to run the course consistently. His behaviors really hurt me.

Brunelle and Evans co-taught this class, and let me tell you, their structure and planning was awful. They did not have a single lecture, but instead taught us through old videos and lectures posted on the course website. Not only were the videos outdated and unhelpful, but I don't see why they couldn't have just had in-person lecture (we had a lecture hall and a scheduled time!). Also, we ended up with a terrible TA, Andrew. He is incredibly unfair with his grading and took pride in ridiculing us during every cohort meeting.... just drop the class if you get him. Oh and here's the worst part.. the day before the exam, Brunelle and Evans decided to announce that some students get exempt from the final! This was confusing and unfair to the students that still had to go take the exam despite performing just as well (if not better) than their exempt classmates.

Brunelle doesn't even have the slightest idea what he's doing with this class. Sure, he gets the material, but he does not know how to structure a course or accommodate to students. I really hope he gets reported to UVA for literally only making half the class take the final exam. Ridiculous!

Take this class if you don't care about learning anything, because you truly will not leave with a single piece of useful information

If you want to spend hours doing a problem set every week and have other group members do way less work and get a better grade than you, take this course! After carrying most of my group all semester, one of them (who got lower grades than me) got a final exam exemption. Extremely unfair that not only are the final exam exemptions not even based on course performance, but the lack of transparency was very dishonest. They never told us final exam exemptions were possible or how they would evaluate them (since it clearly isn't how well you do in the course.)
In general, half of the TAs give you free As and the other half are uptight, elitist, and will let you know they are better than you because they understand concepts you will never use in real life. You better hope you get the first or you will be ridiculed in your meeting every week. Bottom line, this course is challenging, and you will need to spend a lot of time understanding the content which builds on itself. The grading is extremely inconsistent, obscure, and the most frustrating part of this course if you don't get a d*ckhead TA. If you do, that will be the most frustrating part of the course.
P.S. The gpa average on here is inflated. Past classes didn't take a final.

I saw a few reviews on here that had bad things to say, but I don't get it. The class was great and interesting. The videos let you learn at your own pace, and lectures/office hours are optional if you need the extra help. The hardest part is working with your cohort effectively, but the system helps people who are both strong and weak in the subject alike either by working on communication skills or learning from your peers. I honestly would not have done the course any other way, and it was a big relief having it not be stressful and mostly fun.

If you like socialism, take this class! Other people will be awarded for your accomplishments and hard work will be overlooked! No one cares how much work you put into this class, all that matters is how your god-complex TA thinks you'll do on the final because only some people will apparently be exempt from it! ONE day before the final, only some people were exempt from the exam. According to Marx, I mean Brunelle, only people who exceeded expectations and "were expected to get As on the final" got exempt. They also blamed having a lecture hall that was too small to fit the whole class...okay, then reserve another classroom. UVa is big enough. Those who got exempted were people who didn't put work in and rode off of other people's work. My cohort group had trouble relating material learned asynchronously on videos to the weekly cohort problems. They gave us an inch and expected us to go miles. The readings were not helpful, and going to lectures just confused me more. You're expected to watch about 10 videos weekly, these are old lectures that are not helpful whatsoever. In addition, you are supposed to meet with your cohort and "prep" for your assessed meeting with a TA and go over the problems and compare answers. A lotta work for a whole lotta nothing. I don't remember a single thing I learned in this class except "anything finite is computable", and that's the most basic concept ever. Never taking a Brunelle class again.

Day in and day out, the class wasn't too bad. Just about everything was group work and I had an amazing group and TA, which made things easy and manageable. However, tbh I am not sure I truly knew what was going on about 50% of the time, but with everything being group work, I still performed really well because a few people in the group did know what was going on. There was one cohort meeting, an assessed cohort meeting, and a write-up weekly that were all the same set of questions which was nice. The professors are fantastic guys. There is an individual final (that I failed miserably) but they offer a lot of practice and previews for it. Lastly, lecturers were an absolute waste of time imo, which is sad because I'd rather go to a lecture than watch a yt video. The class was no fun at all, but kind of informative so do with that what you will.

I'm reading through other student reviews from this semester and to be honest they are all valid in their own right. I was someone who had a nice TA and mediocre group. I tended to have to pick up the slack from one student who didn't really contribute much and it was pretty annoying, but it didn't necessarily change how much time I would have spent on the week because you need to learn all of the problems before the assessed meeting anyway. And although the week can be stressful at times, you always end up with a good grade if you understand the main concepts for the week. I surprisingly ended with an A after the final exam so I wouldn't be stressed b/c they let you have a cheat sheet which is super helpful and they also gave a lot of partial credit.

Don't be afraid of this course. While the material is honestly very difficult and boring, the course is structured so that there is a lot of group work and the grading is generous. It seems as though the structure has changed since previous semesters. There is now a weekly problem sets (group work) and open-book, open-note quizzes (individual) throughout the semester. Studying the problem set is a good preparation for the problems on the quiz. Professor Brunelle is an excellent, very fair professor.

Brunelle is a fantastic guy I just wish he would teach a more interesting class (not his fault that theoretical CS is not the most interesting thing). As for the class structure, get ready to do heavy group work. Every week you get a problem set to do with your group and then an individual quiz every other week-ish. If you watch/attend lecture and contribute to your group work its the easiest A in the CS department. If you don't do those things, expect to have to retake the class. Last thing, make sure you go to office hours for the problems sets, some of the TAs are fantastic.