CS 3330

Sad the lowest rating we could give is a 1.

It’s the night after the second midterm, and I’ve been sitting here writing and rewriting this review for hours because nothing is accurately encapsulating and conveying how absolutely frustrating this class is. The further the semester progresses, the more I’m convinced that this class has to be someone’s twisted idea of a joke. Nowhere else have I seen a professor accuse their students of cheating off the TAs on a problem set—solely because the answers that a lot of students turned in reflected the same exact mistakes that were in the answer key provided to the TAs. And I’m beside myself that his *very logical* solution to solving this nonexistent cheating scandal was to not provide TAs with the answers to the next problem set. I’ve also never met a professor who assigns another problem set right before a midterm, decides to put material from that problem set onto said midterm, but then doesn’t provide any resources for students to verify that they’re doing the problems correctly before taking the exam. Honestly, I’m just waiting for the day where the cameramen pop out of nowhere during lecture and someone announces that this whole semester has just been one giant prank.

EDIT: Now that it's the end of the semester, I feel strongly compelled to give this an update. A single class has never made me feel so unbelievably stupid like this one has--and it's not from a lack of trying on my end. I've spent more time on this class than all my other classes combined this semester, and I still understand absolutely none of the material. He doesn't listen to suggestions from anyone (students, TAs, other professors), and he says to go to office hours if we need help, but his office hours are some of the most unhelpful things I've ever been to. Venkat's singlehandedly been responsible for many mental breakdowns and a serious deterioration of my mental health so for that I'm so very grateful :)))))))

I don't know who the heck gave him high ratings, but I found it more accurate when it was at a 1.15. You have to be extraordinarily shitty at your job to make Reiss look like this much of a godsend.

I miss Reiss </3.

Save yourself and DO NOT take ANY class with Venkat. I don't know how this dude got hired to teach this class in the first place. Ever since he came in in the second half of the course, everyone's lives have been going downhill and it's just miserable. He assigns problem sets that are literally impossible - TA's won't be able to help you with them because 1) According to Venkat, going to TA's for help is cheating 2) They don't know how to solve the problem sets, either 3) Venkat previously gave them the wrong answer key and now won't provide them any answer keys at all in the first place. He refused to give us enough information about the format of the exam and kept repeating "it's the same as the problem sets and the in-class examples." Well, I took the second exam today and can tell you for sure that problem sets and in-class examples did not help at all for the exam and the difficulty was outrageous. He assigned a problem set 2 days before the exam informing us that the content in the new problem set (when there is absolutely no access to any kind of help guiding us how to solve the problems) will be on the second exam. However, no one knew how to solve those problems because we are now not allowed to ask any of the TA's for help or talk about the problems even conceptually with other students because that is "cheating." Venkat teaching this course has been the worst thing that has happened to me since getting into UVA and I am sure other students feel the exact same. If his goal is to guide his students to failure, he's doing a great job.

Highly not recommended w/ Venkat. Reiss taught the first part of the course and Venkat took over afterwards. Reiss's portion was very well organized and well thought out. Venkat's portion has been a mess so far. Mistakes everywhere in the slides, teaching, and problem set solutions. TAs do NOT know the material (Venkat introduced a ton of new topics this semester) and can't help. Venkat repeatedly said that the exam would be like problem sets and in class activities. However, we never went over the problem sets in class and a 3rd problem set was released 2 days before the exam with exam material on it (and no solutions to check your understanding were provided). Terrible.

F

Venkat probably isn't meant to be a professor. He knows his material, but it doesn't sound like it in lecture. He is attempting to single-handedly change the course to include information he deems more relevant. Spoiler alert, it's not. Most of us aren't trying to go into computer architecture, and the things he's trying to teach us would better fit into an advanced computer architecture class.
My biggest complaint with him is that he asks his students to know material that he barely teaches in class. We teach ourselves in Piazza and in office hours and lab. Unfortunately for us, the TAs are learning the material right along with us (as well as being loaded with more work than they should be doing, particularly the graduate TAs). This means everyone is trying to learn the material and the professor doesn't have the temperament or the ability to explain material to us in an understandable way. His problem sets are deathly as they far exceed the weekly suggested time you are supposed to spend on homework. I don't know a single student in the class who has completed a problem set in under 5 hours, much less the 2.5 they suggest. He's also trying to write an entirely new midterm exam, and simply tells us that the problem sets (which take much, much longer than an exam block) and the in-class exercises (which are just like the problem sets) are representative of the problems we'll face on the exam. I don't know if he realizes that he is setting his students up for failure, but everything he does is detrimental.

Everything was fine when they had Reiss teach the first half of the semester—who decides it's a good idea to switch the professor (and also the teaching style) in the middle of the semester? I've considered dropping my CS major because of this guy, and I have wanted to study CS since I was in middle school. Ultimately decided to keep it, but man, if you can avoid this guy, avoid taking his classes. Take it a different semester, beg your advisor to teach it instead, anything.

You can't win in this class because only Venkat knows the answer key and it's sometimes wrong too. Not even Reiss or TAs can help you or the textbook or any other resources. So you gotta just speak with him, but he won't help you that much with the problem sets. You just on your own with some stuff you haven't learned.

Two CS students walk into a bar. They're not quite sure what's available, so they ask for a menu. The bartender hands them menu, and they ask what's in one of the drinks from the menu. The bartender is unsure how to make the drinks, so he goes to the kitchen. He returns with a drink recipe, and as he's showing the students the ingredients, Venkat bursts out of the kitchen, accusing the CS students for cheating as they asked for a menu that they were supposed to memorize for a bar they have never visited, and for not making the drinks themselves because its supposed to be a "learning experience".

So yeah, this class sucks. We don't know anything and we're not taught anything. It's as infuriating as visiting a bar where you're expected to mix your own drinks.

Professor Venkat is very knowledgeable about computer architecture, however he fails when trying to relay this knowledge to students. He does not understand what students need to learn and does not communicate with Reiss or the TAs about his plans for the course. He gave the TAs answer keys to a weekly problem set that were slightly wrong to see if students recreated these errors, and when they did (since the TAs thought this is how the problems were done) he decided to not give answer keys to any TAs for the future problem sets. The second test includes material that we have had no practice on whatsoever, and he provided no practice problems to learn the material. When asked about all of this in class, he refused to change anything. If you have to take this class with this professor, don't take it.