CS 3330

GOOD MORNING. SO UHHHHH LAST TIME.....

Is how you will start your every lecture in this class. Charles Reiss is incredibly intelligent and cares for his students so much. If you ever go to his office hours and speak with him, he can hold a conversation and seems to know almost everything about computer science, basic and advanced.

HOWEVER, I am so glad this course is going away with the new curriculum. Aside from the bomb lab, rotate, and smooth, every assignment in this class felt like a chore. All the content in this class is super dry and really only for low level fanatics. Though Reiss is informative, he is not much of an entertainer and its really difficult to even go to lecture, unless you're extremely motivated by grades. The final was also horrendously hard. Average was a 56, with the smallest grade curve ever (to put it into perspective, an 86.1% was a B+, which is 0.9% less than what it normally is). Overall, I didn't really like how the final shot down most of our grades and how boring this course is, but that doesn't take away from the fact that Reiss is a total G.

Unless you realllllly love low level CS classes, do NOT take this class unless you have to. Its hard and a lot of work. The other reviews sum it up well, and the syllabus/class schedule is available online. Prof. Reiss seems super smart and teaches well, but I still found the class really hard and not a good use of my time. Don't recommend! #tCFfall22

This class blowwwwwws. I really would not recommend it unless you must take it for your major/minor. Reiss is pretty generous with grading (drops lowest two weekly quiz grades and curves at the end if he thinks he has to), but the material is super hard to grasp and apply to the weekly hws and labs. Labs are optionally collaborative which is nice so you definitely need to find a buddy in this class. Final was one of the hardest I've ever taken. Overall, Reiss is a good choice for this class but it's still extremely difficult imo.

Prof. Reiss is articulating everything properly as well as answering every question, but that's all. I do not feel Prof. Reiss' effort in stimulating students' understanding, nor does he respond positively to suggestions. I have no problem understanding the content but a lot of people are complaining. Therefore, I recommended Prof. Reiss to give a brief preview before each lecture to give people an expectation so they can better understand. However, I never heard back from him. Maybe he thought it was a bad idea.
The content is straightforward, though the quiz questions can be tricky.

If you're already not into low-level computer classes, this course probably won't change how you feel about it. With that being said, Reiss is generally an effective instructor. He begins every lecture with a review of the previous lecture and usually includes multiple exercises throughout each lecture to ensure students are understanding the material. There are a few super time consuming homeworks (namely bomb and pipe), but given the dryness of the content, the homeworks can be somewhat enjoyable to do. From what I can tell, the other arch professors are not all that great and Reiss seems to be the best and most reliable option for this course. I'm not sure if this is good advice, but Reiss tells all his students to read the textbook for every lecture, but I ended up never reading the textbook and finished with an A+ in the course. If you follow the lectures and assignments properly and go to office hours when you need to, you should be fine without the textbook.

If I had one bit of advice for anyone... DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS WITHOUT REISS I REPEAT DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS WITHOUT REISS. Now that we have that out of the way, I have to say I found the material very dry and boring. It is essentially all the architecture and assembly stuff you learned from cs 2150 and wished you could just gloss over but in even more excruciating detail. With all that being said, the highlight for me was most definitely the homework assignments that actually served to apply the dry material to something that may be useful later on in your career. The quizzes, however, were nightmarishly tedious and long-winded and the averages were in the high 70's or low 80's despite being open not and being given days to take it. You will get through this class as long as you pay attention to Reiss and go to office hours when necessary. I found that although Reiss sometimes rushes through the material he is very approachable during office hours and takes time for questions. Not to mention he is by far the best cs 3330 professor and his slides are quite helpful. Be wary of the final though...

#tCF2020 Computer Architecture is a notorious class, but I felt that taking it online was a lot easier than it would be in-person. To start off, Professor Reiss is very intelligent and he knows a lot about the topic he is teaching, but it is SO HARD to understand what he is talking about if you get lost at any point of lectures. The worst part is, if you get lost during one lecture, you will not understand the next lecture, or the next lecture, or the next. He goes through exercises pretty quickly and tends to skip steps, so it is hard to follow along if you are watching a recorded lecture. The course revolves around weekly labs (wed), quizzes (due tues), and homeworks (due wed), so prepare for this class to take over your schedule for the entire semester. I tried to do quizzes on Fridays, start on homeworks on Sundays, and start labs on Tuesdays. It really pays off to start ahead of time! Since the final exam this semester was completely online (24 hr open period), there was less pressure to memorize material and remember everything. However, it was still really tricky. Overall, I'd say to just stay on top of it and not leave anything to the last minute!

I'm a software guy through and through, so I didn't expect to enjoy an architecture based class coming in. Imagine my surprise when this actually ended up being one of my favorite classes this semester. It's tough, absolutely, and you might hate yourself for a good portion of the semester, but you definitely learn a lot.

Some good tips for future students taking the class
- You'll have to work off of a Linux based machine for the homeworks. Do yourself a favor and look into SSHing into the department machines using VS Code. You'll be able to code from your native text editor without having to use a terminal and take advantage of syntax highlighting. Makes the assignments 10x more enjoyable.
- Finish the homework assignments before doing the quizzes
- Start the homeworks early. This isn't a class you can half ass last minute
- You can either watch the lectures live or watch the recordings. Just make sure you don't fall behind.

I would say he is one of the most effective instructor teaching this course. He always opens up the ground for the questions and he teaches very well, though, the quizzes are absurdly hard and the final was ridiculous. Some homework and labs were crazy too. Be prepared to be stressed every week. Think of 2150- it's very similar. He did not curve the class and there was no rounding. Very tough class. #tCF2020

Reiss is an effective lecturer and holds great OH. He's the type to be able to answer any and every question that students have in class. Graham is still getting into the groove of teaching, but he got much better as the semester went on. (I took this class when Reiss was co-teaching it with Graham, and I think it went smoothly overall.) The course itself was difficult to grasp, but well spread-out. The concepts were hard and assignments took a long time, but the course-load was definitely not as bad as 2150. The tests were fair with averages on low side like any other CS course at UVA, so don't worry too much about your grades. Personally, I didn't find this class useful for industry, but it was nice to know.

Kinda tough class, but Reiss is helpful during office hours and pretty good at explaining concepts in lectures.

Good teacher, highly competent (knows his stuff and knows how to explain it well) etc. I strongly recommend reading the textbook (at least skimming it to get the gist) before coming to class, otherwise, you'll be lost because Reiss moves fast - he expects you to have done the readings. Some of the labs and homeworks can be tricky, but they're usually pretty short. Midway through the semester a new teacher Venkat came - oy vey he was atrocious. Fortunately, Venkat will probably not be at the university for much longer, while Reiss is here to stay.

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

By far the best professor to take CS 3330 with.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.