CS 4102

WRITING THE REVIEW FOR ABHI BUT TOOK IT WITH BRUNELLE. course material takes a lot of time to understand. i spend roughly 6 days per day for the homework, once it's assigned. However, this class is one of my favorite class as in i don't feel like i'm just learning theoretical ideas that i cannot apply -- things learned can def be applied for even interviews and even real life just logical thinking. a lot of work but professor very flexible, material interesting, examples given in class easy to remember and fun, feels worthwile

This class legit made me feel like committing suicide. I had no clue what the hell he was talking about. I mean sure he danced to Pharrell's Happy and walked on ppls desk but man. Algo is a hard but a pretty useful class for job interviews but honestly I came out of that class more confused than before. It gets better though. The TAs are your best friend. You can work together on all the homework which you have a week to complete. Midterm was like the homework except you got no TA / classmates. Final was optional - if you did it, it could either raise or hurt your grade so I feel like most people didn't do it. There's no coding involved, just be able to explain your solution theory + time complexity.

Hard professor, but very good class as he really makes you learn the material. Take home midterm and final, and homeworks took a very long time but very rewarding. But, I think he left for a different University for the time being so I'm not sure when he'll be back :(

If you define a smart person as someone that goes through material really fast and leaves out many small details in explaining complex subjects than this guys is really smart, what else can you say about someone that has degrees from Harvard and MIT, you can't take that away from him. I would only recommend taking his classes for students that have strong fundamentals in whatever subject matter he is teaching. On the none academic side of things he did make a point to let people know he spells his name in all lower case letters also he explicitly stated that it would be considered cheating if a student opened an email containing answers, perhaps this implies that faculty and staff have access to students' email accounts so I would watch out and not assume any privacy what so ever when it comes to electronic communication at the University of Virginia, since whoever may be snooping through your school or private email could always use the excuse "the air is free" in their own defense.

Really hard class, but it's rewarding because if you go through the homework, it really takes you through the process of solving problems. Going to office hours were really helpful, especially if you need clarification on things you didn't understand.

I really, really loved this class. It represents everything a college course should be. Genius, over-qualified professor (really though, take this class before Shelat realizes that UVA is below him) who cares about the students learning and knows the material inside and out. Challenging but fair homework assignments that will require you to form a study group with very smart people if you want to finish them in under 10 hours. And at the end you received a grade indicative of the work you put in. This class has no wasted work (give a few in class participation assignments that make up 10% of your grade).

The workload is a weekly homework set that will take forever, a take home midterm, an extra credit assignment, and an optional final. This class is no doubt the most time consuming class I have taken, so try to plan it in an easier semester.

Shelat is the man.

Do yourself a favor, and get a good smart group of friends and take this class.

This has been one of my favorite classes at UVA. I was worried about taking it with Shelat since I heard he was a difficult professor, but he's also such an amazing lecturer that it makes it worth it. You will definitely need a study group to get by in the course since the weekly homeworks are 60% of your grade and really challenging, but they make you understand the material really well. Since this course is so important for interviews and such, I definitely recommend taking it with a more thorough professor like Shelat.

Ahbi Shelat is one of the best lecturers at UVa. He is able to really make sure that you understand the material, as well as being very engaging in class. Very often he'll ask that you "take two minutes with your neighbor" to solve a particular problem in class. These short in class exercises along with Ahbi enthusiasm make for a fun, worthwhile course.

The catch to this class is that it can be very difficult. The weekly/biweekly homeworks have problems that you have never seen before, but are somewhat similar to in class problems and examples. The hard part is figuring out which algorithm to apply to the problem, and how to execute it correctly in the context of the specific homework problem. You're allowed to work in groups, as long as each individual submits their own work.

There is a take-home midterm and a final that must be done on your own. These problems aren't as difficult as the homework problems since you can't work together, but that's not to say that they aren't challenging.

Overall, this class is one of the best I've taken at UVa, and Ahbi definitely contributes to that experience. If you work hard, and really put your mind to it, you can definitely do well. If you want to learn a lot about algorithms, I wouldn't recommend taking it with any other professor.

He graduated from Harvard and MIT...So you know it will presumably be a course like that. Please treat every hw as your final exam and put 120% effort to FINISH them if you want a good grade. Also please make groups to cooperate on every problem and make sure you thoroughly understand what he delivers in class.

The class is great and abhi is a fantastic lecturer. I learned a ton especially in the first 2/3 of the semester, and I can't recommend it highly enough. You have to do a lot of work so find a good group to work with.

The only problem is that in the last 1/3 of the class, it completely fell apart logistically. Grading stopped happening, abhi missed a bunch of lectures, and the class got drastically easier. I'm sure some students appreciated it but it made it worse in my opinion. I think this is partially due to a lot of students complaining about the difficulty (basically just whining) and abhi giving into them and getting demoralized about the class. Ultimately nothing has been graded in about a month, and posts on Piazza are answered slowly if at all. I wish it hadn't ended like this, but it did.

Overall though a fantastic class. Definitely recommend taking this with abhi if you're seriously interested in learning the material; you will work very hard in the process but it's worth it.

Tough class, of course. If you've had Theory of Computation with Abhi it will help you here, at least three of the lectures in Algorithms are identical with material from Theory.

Textbook is rarely helpful, wouldn't recommend.

Best professor @ UVA, pushes you to learn!! He kinda reminds me of Russell Peters.

Abhi is a great teacher that is really passionate about the course topic. However, the problem sets are quite difficult and take several hours to complete (sometimes as much as 10 hours). Working with a partner helps a lot as well as attending the TA's office hours for problem set reviews. While this is a tough class, Abhi's grading is quite fair and most people do well.

This class must be the most interesting I have ever taken. Abhi pushes you hard intellectually so that you can feel the true joy of accomplishment.

The worst professor I have ever dealt with at UVA. Homeworks are insanely hard, plus he gave us a tough midterm that he knew he was too hard, and nobody finished. [Yes, he admitted this publicly, too.] Stay away from at all costs.

Abhi is a fantastic professor, and despite being new to this, he puts forth a great effort to be interactive and engaging. He also works really hard to adjust due dates to help students out. He's definitely an expert on all of the material, but sometimes the concepts can be difficult to understand for students. The problem sets are usually very difficult, requiring several hours to formulate solutions. Insanely difficult midterm.

Ahbi Shelat is a good professor who really knows his stuff and is willing to try and help on problem sets but the TA office hours/discussion of the problem sets are the most helpful and pretty much are the only way I got through the problem sets