CS 4102

This semester, it was co-taught with Prof. Hott. If you want to see his grades, check out Hott's grades from Fa20. They're both pretty good professors and very knowledgeable. I heard he gives points back during exam regrades, but it wasn't true in my case. He's super nice though!

Professor Wu in his first semester teaching this class did a very good job. The class was co-taught this semester with both Professor Brunelle and Professor Wu conducting lectures. He explained concepts well and made sure to stop for questions whenever they arose. In terms of the class itself, it was very difficult and time-consuming; I would not recommend this to anyone who doesn't have to take it. Your grade consisted of homeworks, which you could collaborate with others on as long as you formulate your own answers, and quizzes, in which collaboration was not allowed. Since you only had one day to finish quizzes as opposed to around 4-5 days to finish the homeworks, the quizzes were much easier especially given the fact that you could retake every quiz at least once. The homeworks, however, were incredibly time-consuming and I ended up going to office hours every week to get help. #tcf2020

Algo is by no means an easy class, but Wu is a great professor to have and you'll definitely learn a lot. Wu is super knowledgeable and does a great job of walking you through the concepts. His slides are very detailed and clean - definitely a helpful reference when working on the homework.

Most of the assignments are writeups (proofs kinda like discrete/cs theory). There are a few coding assignments as well but it's not a coding heavy class. These can be pretty difficult depending on the week so would recommend at least taking a look at them early. Office hours are very helpful but can get crowded if you wait until last minute. You can also collaborate with other people in the class on all the homework which helps a lot. (Though keep in mind this semester the class was co-taught with Brunelle, so things might be different in future years.) #tcf2020

Professor Wu is a beast. His lectures were incredibly engaging and informative, and the assignments for the class were not only fair, but very instrumental in learning the material. There were maybe one or two assignments that took longer than expected to complete (8~ hours or so), but the problem sets themselves were so cool and interesting that it barely felt like work. Honestly no part of this class felt like tedious busy work and I found myself learning useful information at almost every lecture. Probably my favorite class to date.

When I signed up for this class I was really bummed cuz I wanted to get in the Algo class with Prof Brunelle but Brunelle's class conflicted with my other class. As it turned out, both classes were exactly the same during the Fall 2020 covid semester since the teachers alternated with who taught both classes each day. I'd originally wanted Brunelle cuz I'd had him and knew he was good, but didn't know anything about David Wu. As the semester progressed tho, I was really impressed with Wu's teaching. He was clearly very knowledgeable about what he was teaching and moved at a good pace. He always gave satisfactory answers to students questions. His slides were also very neat and prolly even a little better than Brunelle's. If you're worried about having Wu instead of Brunelle like I was, don't be.
#tCF2020