CS 3330

I would recommend taking this class with Reiss. I took it the second semester Reiss has taught it, but I was pretty impressed by the course quality and content.

First, Reiss is an incredibly smart dude. The guy has worked at Google and has a PhD and seems to know everything. He was able to answer basically every question asked in class and seems to care about his students. He actively answers questions on Piazza which was really helpful. He was very clear about grading and specifics about tests, quizzes, and anonymous feedback. I think he was a great lecturer and explained the concepts well.

On to the actual class itself - it was co-taught by Reiss and Samira Khan when I took it. Reiss was miles ahead of Khan in terms of how much you learned. He was more clear in his lectures, his slides are constructed better, and with his participation on Piazza he really stood out as a model professor. Samira often times didn't really seem to know what she was talking about, failed to answer quite a few questions during the semester, and rarely ever would help out on Piazza. Luckily Samira won't be around anymore in the future and it should just be Reiss.

Class material was fairly good - lectures and slides are posted online so you can watch them if you skip class. You can employ the 2150 strategy by studying previous exams to prepare for exams but I think this class in terms of difficulty was a little more difficult than 2150. You really have to understand the material and not just regurgitate things like "tell me three reasons why a pointer should be used instead of a reference" and dumb stuff like that. There are weekly quizzes which keep you engaged in the class - these range in difficulty from very easy to very hard. Make sure you read the textbook/watch the lectures before taking them as it helps a lot.

Tests are curved usually on a square root curve so the averages come out to be in the low to mid 80s.

Overall good class, I feel like I learned a lot. Reiss is good. take it with him. I feel he will only get better as the semesters go on.

Tychonievich's Computer Architecture curriculum is very well written. The class revolves around pipelining in great detail and the key attributes of modern processors. The CMU book is very good and I would recommend getting a hard copy. You could survive without it, but it makes your life a lot easier. When Reiss took over the course, he had a bad rep... but he's definitely underrated. Reiss is extremely knowledgeable (duhh. came out of Berkeley) and tries his best to answer any and all questions. (pretty sure he lives on Piazza) Exams are as usual, very difficult (especially the final). The averages ranged from mid 60s to low 70s... but the grading is very generous - or as most people call it, the 'curve'. It takes a lot of stress out of the class. Just focus on the homework and pay attention in lecture and you'll be golden. The class is basically 2150 but in a much deeper level with much less work. So if you enjoyed the low-level aspects of 2150, you'll enjoy CompArch. More specially on the instructors: Reiss is a very socially awkward guy, but definitely wants to help out. Samira co-taught this semester. She wasn't the best lecturer, but definitely got better towards the end of the semester. Just feel bad because she's a very sweet person and everyone kept trashing her.

Sometimes this course is conceptually difficult, but the workload is very manageable. You get at the least a week from when a lab or homework is posted to when it is due. Reiss is obviously very smart, but doesn't always teach things in clearest way at first. He'll use a lot of diagrams with a lot of components that nobody understands until like a month into the course, but you can take comfort in the fact that nobody understands them and it'll all make more sense by the first exam. The lectures are posted online. I found that he explained things better/more concisely in the later lecture, probably because he got a feel for where the main confusions are during the first lecture of the day. The quizzes are difficult even though they're open note and lecture recording, they require actual application and thought. There's no secret to doing well on them except it helps to watch lectures over before taking.

I hated this class. I am definitely a CS major and have never enjoyed CPE topics, so this class was my own personal hell. Reiss clearly knows his stuff, but he’s too smart to break the concepts down understandably. Do all of the homeworks and labs, and try your best on the quizzes, and you’ll be fine. Luckily all of his tests are curved so it’s extremely hard to fail the class if you put in effort. Go to office hours early. Ben, Brittany, and DJ were the best TAs. BombHW, PIPE1, PIPE2, and smooth are all pretty hard, so go to office hours really early for those. I went to PIPE1 office hours the night before it was due and had to wait in the queue for 3 hours. Go EARLY and you will be fine. Good luck!

Reiss is definitely one of the worst professors I've had during my time here. Besides not being particularly great at explaining the material, he was also very unapproachable during office hours, having no patience and clearly showing frustration when you try to ask questions. While I don't doubt he knows his stuff, he has no passion for teaching/helping students learn and is incredibly devoid of empathy. On top of this, his refusal to round my grade (it was less than 0.03 difference) basically cost me my scholarship and any chance at a decent grad school, even after I explained it to him. The quizzes are ridiculously convoluted and you're better off just randomly guessing instead of trying to make an informed opinion from the text because they're phrased in a way that's meant to mess you up. If you're BS, you'll probably be fine because of your prereqs, and if you're a BA, you'll most likely be spending more time on this class. Just get through it.

Reiss is a genius, but he's too smart for us. He would ask questions in class no one could answer and move on like it wasn't really a problem. This class itself is the worst CS class I've taken in terms of combined workload and difficulty, but if you put the work into HWs and Labs, that makes up a big portion of your grade and your awful quiz grades will be balanced out hopefully. The quizzes suck because it's hard to understand everything from the textbook and reading Stack Overflow answers, but after going to lecture in the class following the quiz, you can usually understand the quiz. It's just hard to understand it the first time around. Exams suck, but unlike 2150 the practice exams have answer keys so they are pretty helpful. Don't try to go through this class without understanding the material and really spend time trying to learn it. It's the best way to do well on exams. You can fudge the HWs and still do alright, but you might get destroyed by the exams if you don't understand the stuff. Good luck with this class and Godspeed.

I think Reiss really cares about his students and he really wants them to do well. He's good at explaining most of the times.

Best online course I’ve taken. I’ll explain. Reiss is an incredibly smart dude and the material is fairly interesting and cohesive. But the best part of this class is easily his video recorded lectures. I’m the type of student that learns best at their own pace, and it’s super great to basically never have to come to class outside of exams and still feel like you’re keeping up. The videos even have speed controls so you can zoom through the slow bits if you like. And procrastinators worry not, weekly online quizzes ensure you’re always relatively on track. Serious shoutout to Reiss for this - it’s not something he has to do, but it’s super helpful that he does.

By far the best professor to take CS 3330 with.

Class is difficult but Reiss is a God. If you don't believe it, look at Ashish Venkat...