CS 3330

Cheating on problems sets it stupid!

NOT A TROLL POST
One of the most useful courses I have taken at UVA. I thought this course would just be another blowover requirement like 2150 but Venkat really knows his stuff! He actually makes us learn the material with problem sets instead of having us randomly guess on quizzes with the textbook open. After having done the problem sets, the tests are a breeze! No need to go off previous year's materials. Thank you professor Venkat for teaching me what CS is going to be like in the real world. If only other students would learn to solve their own problems instead of cheating with the TA's...

Really troll

Everything that needs to be said has already been mentioned, but I wanted to come here and respectfully confirm that this is the hardest and most unfair class I have ever taken in my life. I was told before taking the class that it might make me doubt my choice as a CS major, and that couldn't be more true. I feel bad for Venkat, especially if he reads these reviews, but I wish he was given more instruction on how to teach at the undergraduate level. Like others, I dedicate hours per week teaching myself what he fails to teach or glosses over in 5 minutes or less, and reaching the end of the semester now I can't imagine how difficult this final exam will be.

--------It pains me as someone who is usually a good student and can excel in any class given enough effort. This class makes me feel hopeless - no matter how hard I work, it won't be enough. I appreciate that Venkat is extremely knowledgeable about the subject he teaches, but I can't read academic papers outside of class on top of the weekly lab, homework, and problem set he assigns. I just don't have enough time to throw at a class that won't reward me for hard work and doing my best to learn the material. If anything, he may serve the CS department better as a graduate level professor, teaching students at an advanced level who have already taken one or more computer architecture classes.

--------One more thing I want to share because I think it's relevant. After class one day I went to the front and talked to him, on the brink of tears. I believe it was the day he introduced caches to us so quickly that people chuckled when he asked if we had any questions (we didn't even know what to ask because we were so lost!). I told him on behalf of the silent majority, no one understands what he's talking about. I let him know that we are not going to do well if he continues lecturing at this pace. He said he understood and thanked me for coming to him with the issue. For a couple of days after that, I noticed a small difference in the way he taught - he would ask other people to answer the questions instead of the 2 or 3 students who grasped his material in a room of over 50 students. However, he probably set up his lesson plan to get through a certain amount of material by the end of the semester and sped up after a week or so. What upsets me more than anything is that when a student embarrasses themself to go up to the professor and confess that they have no idea what they just listened to for the past 75 minutes, he should take that as a sign that maybe everything isn't okay.

--------You can read the other reviews, and they give more specific details and grievances, but I wanted to share my own personal experience as a generally good student who feels cheated by this class. Bottom line, do not take this class. Best of luck to you and to Venkat, but I have a feeling this is the last undergraduate course he will be teaching at UVA.

I HEREBY DECLARE ASHISH VENKAT AN ENEMY OF THE STATE.

Computer Science dept at UVA: I cannot believe that you take hundreds of thousands of dollars in student tuition and give us in return the joke of a professor that is ASHISH VENKAT. The hiring of such an unworthy individual debases this institution. Ashish should be ashamed of the terrible job that he has done and on the reputational damage he has caused to the CS dept and to the University of Virginia. Get out of our University. The sooner the better.

bruh, just don't :/

A lot of the reviews here were posted right after the second exam and are, understandably, very emotional. Although that's the case, I do believe some of these reviews are just straight up childish and lack any constructive criticism. Let's clear up some misconceptions. 1) The whole cheating debacle did happen, but that's because there were a select few group of students who shared incorrect answers, really easy to pinpoint this when you have some answers in this class that are >7 digits. Venkat essentially followed the university honor policy with this matter and the majority of the class was not affected by this , not even sure of the cheaters were sent to honor. 2) 'TAs were given wrong solutions'. For the second problem set a solution sheet was not created and to add on to the stress the materials Venkat taught were a lot more different than what previous semesters TAs learned when they took the course. This led to a majority of the TAs unable to help students. One TA created a draft solution sheet that Venkat released to other TAs, but he warned them there is a good chance there are some things wrong so don't take it for word. Some TAs , left without a lot of resources, didn't follow this leading some students to wrong answers. 3) Yes the exam was really hard, but it was curved to account for that. A freaking 50% was counted as a B. Good things about Venkat - Very knowledgable guy and has given us a wide range of knowledge within computer architecture. From out of order execution to advanced branch prediction techniques, a lot of the materials Venkat taught us are very applicable to the realm of computer architecture today. On top of this, the problems we are assigned aren't simple copy/paste type problems where you plug in stuff into equations. They force you to think outside of the box and really understand the course to answer them. I really appreciate Venkat for this since I feel like some earlier core classes were missing that aspect. Bad things about Venkat - The main problem is the difficulty of problem sets in my opinion. The jump from the lecture slides to the problem sets is immense and I have felt lost on all of them but the first one. The fact that TAs can't help us is the most frustrating thing ever because you are essentially left for the few professor office hours to get work done on them. I think Venkat needs to assess this jump and possibly decrease the difficulty or add something to lectures that can decrease this difference in difficulty. I'm not sure who this is caused by but this whole professor switch makes me feel like I'm taking 2 different courses. There is a whole lot of disorganization and I really hope this can get cleared up in upcoming semesters. To my classmates, please stop these gross comments and actually give constructive criticism. You're not helping by throwing slurs at the professor. I know it's tough, but let's at least be respectful.

The comments below are slightly beyond ridiculous. Were his problem sets hard? Yes. Were they harder than the homeworks and labs? No. The difference? TAs just give you homeworks and labs, as is the case for most classes at UVa. I blame other classes for making us all so entitled in thinking we deserve to get 100% on everything because we went to Office Hours. It's not like he doesn't curve it fairly - like someone said in the previous post, 50% curves to a B. He put effort into his slides, and thought into his lectures, taught us what most of this stuff that we're learning, which might sound useless is actually worthwhile. Ask anyone before this semester about Comp Arch and they will openly say nothing I learned was worth learning. Do all of us have to be Computer Architects? No, which is why I blame the University for forcing us to take this class. I'm taking ML concurrently and spend roughly twice as much time on it as on comp arch. So does everyone else. Does anyone complain about ML? Not really. It's not Venkat's fault you had to take this class. If you spent half the time you spend complaining about this class on doing the work, you wouldn't be struggling so hard. People who have seen the bright side of things from the start are doing more than well, because they're just not doing the assignments out of sheer anger. Does your grade really matter so much that you have to call a professor some of the worst curse words on course forum? He's making an effort to make this course worthwhile and none of you seem to care about it beyond the cheating debacle, which in fairness was a load of shit for making everyone feel guilty for asking TAs for help. TAs' job is too literally help you get to the answer, without giving it away directly, and if they gave you answers directly then he's right. Are you really paying 30k - 60k$ just for a piece of paper?

To feel so desperately that you're right, yet to fail nonetheless. -Thanos - Ashish Venkat

See the teaching of Venkat,
He thinks his students are quite the pratts.

He finds it hard to teach his class
when he speaks like a yellow sea bass.

This class was quite the scam,
there is no way to pass the exam.

After one look at these problems,
I knew I would join the fallen.

I miss Reiss with all my heart;
I have no respect for this Venkat fart.

The famous quote to be saved for last:
YOU SHALL NOT PASS!