CS 3240

Let me tell you about 3240.
My my ... there are a lot fo great thing about this class. Sheriff has been teaching for a while and knows what he's doing. The structure of the class is very organized and you never feel like you don't know what's going on. The grading system is pretty unique (using positive reinforcement), and the class is less about grades and more about just learning about developing software in a team environment. Additional bonus is that the semester long project is a great resume booster.
With that said, the semester starts off with a bang. Literally. You just get banged by the Django tutorial. Not just banged. Literally ... it takes you by the nape and slaps you against the cold dark walls of anxiety and frustration. This is no quicky. This is long and hard torture. You might as well set aside 2-3 days to just be sad. It's honestly a great time to wonder if making bone hard cash straight out of college is even worth it if you have to put up with something as ridiculous as this Django tutorial. My oh my ... words cannot describe ... My brain is limp, and my eyes are swollen . . . I'm buggin, I'm buggin, I'm buggin, I'm buggin

I am still taking the class currently, but I just wanted to write how much I have been enjoying this class. Sherriff is super engaging and I actually really enjoy watching his lecture videos (it's like watching TV for me). Also, yes the Django stuff in the beginning sucks (pro tip: Start early and go to TA's early).

Definitely recommend this course for those interested in software development, and particularly for those who have yet to have any industry experience coming into the course. I was a second year while taking the course and had little to no experience using industry tools or making a more large-scale project, but this class gives a great first exposure to such things and will make your transition into an internship much easier. Sherriff is a super cool, laidback guy and has been one of my favorite professors thus far at UVA. Despite the material for lecture being somewhat dry, Sherriff managed to make it really engaging and I looked forward to watching his lectures. Your experience in the semester-long project will depend greatly on your team though, which is the main component of the class. Aside from the project, the other work in the class (quizzes, weekly assignments) are pretty easy. I wasn't super fortunate with my group which means I had to pick up a lot of others' slack, but you still get a lot from the class and I would highly recommend it if it is at all relevant to what you want to do. #tCF2020

Co-taught by Mark Sherriff and Paul/Will McBurney. Honestly one of my favorite classes at UVA, but more because of the semester project rather than course content. The groupmates are random, which... was interesting. It's a 50/50. We had weekly-ish open-note quizzes and "guided practices." They're doable even without going to lecture, but slides are posted and lectures are recorded if needed.

Was overall, somewhat an enjoyable class. Difficulty really depends on how well your team works together and how skilled your group is. You learn a ton of great information helpful for job search so I would definitely recommend you to take the class as early as you can.

Sherriff's amazing!! He makes everything so interesting and his lectures are never a bore. He even broke his videos into 20 min chunks for covid. Covid didn't make the class much different. It got easier in terms of grading, in fact, as the quizzes became open-note. You learn some very useful stuff, like modularization, agile (if you've never been exposed to it), licensing, etc.

That being said, your experience heavily depends on the group you get. If you're paired with at least 3/4 solid group members, like I did, you'll have an amazing time. You won't feel overwhelmed. You'll see everyone's contributions blossom into an impressive site that you're all incredibly proud of by the end. If you end up with a bad group on the other hand, you'll hate the class with a passion. My RA once ranted to me and made me almost not take the class lol

Again, it all depends on your team dynamic, which is entirely randomized.

This is one of the more group heavy CS classes offered but I enjoyed taking the class and was lucky enough to have a good group. I know those who had bad groups where members didn’t try as much so their experience wasn’t as great. Most of the semester long project is you looking up how to work with the Django framework but I felt like because I was looking stuff up on my own, I actually felt like I learned a good amount. There were almost weekly scrum meetings with a TA to check in the progress of your group project. Each member in the group was assigned a role such as Scrum Master or Requirements Manager etc. and each role had a document that needed to be completed by the student which counted as a grade. Besides the semester group project, there are guided practices (often done in groups of pairs) and quizzes but I didn’t find these too difficult since they were often based on concepts taught about in lecture. Professor McBurney and Sheriff co-taught the class this semester and I really enjoyed their live lectures. Both professors made an effort to make the live lectures entertaining by playing video game music in the background and by talking about games. The class discord was enjoyable and helpful and students were able to chat in some channels about cute pets and music. Overall I enjoyed this class and would recommend! #tCFspring2021

This class is a great class to learn about the software development process. The lectures can be a bit dry simply due to the nature of what is being taught, but Sherriff and McBurney do a great job at engaging the students & helping them understand what is being taught. The bulk of the work for this class is a group project, which is very much applicable to the workplace as you are creating an application from scratch. You have weekly meetings with a TA to ensure you and your group are on track to completing the project. There are also quizzes throughout the semester which are pretty straightforward but tedious. This was a great class! #tCFSpring2021

Mark Sherriff is one of the nicest professors at UVA as he is charismatic and wants to teach everyone about the material. He has a good personality and generally was a very reasonable person during the online semester. This class is extremely dependent on who you get for your group as the grades mainly consist of sprint checks. If you have a solid group then you should be completely fine workload time-wise. However, if there are a couple of ghosts or bad teammates be prepared to carry. Django itself has a high learning curve but once you finish the tutorial it gets easier towards the end of the semester. The quizzes and written assessments can be a bit unevenly graded sometimes as I'm pretty sure it's graded by a teaching assistant so grades are going to differ. I will say this class is the most useful when it comes to getting hands-on experience for what it's like to work in software development.

Terrible quiz questions. Not intellectually hard, but extremely boring, driving me mad. Topics covered in class are boring too.