CS 4414

Oodles and doodles of fun!

He writes really small on the board and talks without a microphone in a giant lecture hall with a thick accent. Someone literally has to shut off the projector fans every class just so people can hear him. 0/10

I just found out that KC Wong will be leaving UVA, which is why the review will not be as harsh as it would have been. It may no longer be relevant to anyone taking this class, but it should be out there. Professor Wong is very nice in person but that does not translate over to classroom. He is essentially impossible to follow in class. His lectures have very little structure, but he roughly follows the textbook. You'll have to read the chapters multiple times to get a visceral knowledge of the material, but I guess that goes without saying. He sometimes covers material not in the textbook, or he simply does not assign the corresponding sections for reading. These will almost certainly end up on the exam, even if he only spent a few minutes talking about them. You will need to take good notes, which is quite the challenge given his particular style of writing and erasing stuff on the board.

My major issue with him has been his exams. He does not give students enough time to approach problems. The average on the second test was on the fifties. Many turned in exams with multiple blank pages. He gives sample problems, which look nothing like the questions on the actual exam. We also only had one homework assignment for the entire semester. It is good that you are not overwhelmed with work as we all were with CS2150, but at the same time you get no practice.

I personally enjoyed the programming projects. They are not trivial, but you'll have fun if you like C and low-level programming. However, you may notice that some of the projects are not designed very well. They are almost certainly projects designed by other institutions and sometimes the requirements carelessly modified, which could lead to confusion.