CS 4750

Nada is awesome, and this class is a good one. I'm probably biased on how easy it was, because I came in with SQL and database knowledge before-hand, and a lot of time in my schedule, but I still think its a doable, usable, and enjoyable class. There is a homework due every week and a half that's graded on accuracy, and a "practice of the day" due about every week that's graded on completion. YOU CAN DO THESE WITH A GROUP, so absolutely do. They're nothing to sweat over if you're not doing it by yourself at the last minute. As for the semester project, it's less of a semester project and more something you can't even start until the last month, because you don't have the knowledge for it until then. But once you do, start early, make sure your group is talking about it ASAP, and then you can go to office hours to check things over. On office hours- always go to Nada's if you can. Some of the TA's will have conflicting answers, but the professor is great at explaining things, and very patient.

HW's are actually graded pretty hard. class overall isn't bad. tests's are fair and make sure your group for the project is solid, had one dude that literally didnt do anything.

I really enjoyed this class because all of the material is applicable to real projects. Basit is sweet as can be and really cares about her students. She just wants everyone to learn and to understand. The project is honestly pretty difficult if you haven't had much dev experience (it's creating a website). My group put a lot of work into the project before it was due and we ended up with a 95 on it. Make sure you hit all the points on the rubric and you add extra touches to show you care. The homeworks are kinda hard so definitely go to office hours. Overall, Basit makes it easy to succeed and easy to care!

Dang this is basically a higher level of CS 2110 but easier. Literally all memorization of out-of-date concepts in databases. I started studying for the second exam the night before the exam having not gone to class for two months and got a 93 on it. It's literally that easy, just memorize some terms and be able to explain them at a high level. Basit is really easy but she seems to care about her students. Honestly I wouldn't recommend this class if you actually want to learn about databases - the only thing I got out of this class was a high-level understanding of SQL and some basic SQL commands. I already knew PHP so the final project which used it didn't benefit that much. However, if you're new to PHP the final project might help a bit with AJAX/PHP/SQL/full-stack web development.

Either way, very easy class and very little time commitment. Try to figure out which TA is the nicest grader as my group just kept submitting our homeworks to that TA and getting 100s on them lol.

Professor Basit is extremely kind and the course is pretty useful. It is definitely a lax course but you still need to study for the exams. Most of the stuff is conceptual and you will learn a lot about data. This course is great if you want an easy course and learn useful material. There is a project that involves quite a bit of programming knowledge in web development (PHP, HTML, CSS) and we learn SQL in the class. The project can be put on your resume! The material is relevant if you want to work with data in your job/internship, i.e. data scientist, data mining, machine learning, database stuff, etc... Overall, it is a worthwhile course with Professor Basit!

This course is pretty straightforward. It is taught by Professor Basit, who is sooper dooper nice and a rather decent lecturer. She is very lax about classroom policies and grades, and she cares for her students. The course content just basically covers SQL giggles, relational algebra giggles, and AJAX/PHP giggles. I'd highly recommend it if you want a chill and simple class!

Databases is considered easy because for the most part students are familiar with some SQL stuff as well as OO programming, which helps understand database design. This is more for getting down to the optimization of databases and isn't necessarily for everyone.

Pros: homeworks help with exams. Basit, if a little boring to watch in class, is incredibly helpful and wants to help students learn. Homework can be done in groups. Slides in lecture help with studying, though homework is the main one. Project rubric is incredibly broken down so as to help with grading transparency.

Cons: Like I said, everyone is already pretty familiar with database stuff coming in so it can be boring. Basit, while nice, isn't the most captivating lecturer. The group work does sort of depend on students being familiar with web design.

I completely disagree with some of the comments below. Professor Basit is a very nice and kind lady who's always trying to help students and listen to concerns, an ideal Professor The materials were useful, she was good at explaining difficult materials as the latter half of the book was confusing and not very useful. She always responded to my emails with very detailed and careful answers.

She was very generous about grading, and it sometimes caused me to raise my eyebrows when some spoiled kids frequently went off during her office hours and asking her to raise the homework grades. Also, the comment about picking the partner is very correct. If you pick a partner who basically does nothing but taking what you do, the course will be more difficult, which is what happened to me

Overall, she is a fantastic Professor who really cares about students, and I really recommend taking this class with her.

This course had five assignments throughout the semester. They were relatively short but the TAs were never able to help. At one point, I was actually 'corrected' from the right answer to a wrong answer.

Nada Basit as a professor was boring and her lectures were not worth attending most days. The lectures were either pretty basic knowledge or just confusing...

Both midterms were relatively easy as long as you reviewed the night before. She provided a study guide that pretty much listed every topic in the course.

Material is actually pretty useful though so this class is worth taking - she can only improve the course at this point.

Nada has some serious issues as a lecturer. Sadly, she took Sherriff's syllabus and made almost no changes to it, including the homework.Lecturers are rarely worth going to, maybe only in the beginning just because Relational Algebra is strange but after the first test, everything you use on the project is better and more easily learned online.

That being said, she's a very nice lady, just it seems like she's in over her head a bit. That may get better with time, but this semester was certainly a struggle.

A solid 60% of your grade is based on the group you pick in the first week, so pick well. Grading policy isn't hard to deal with, however she keeps an eye on attendance and says in the syllabus she'll dock up to 10% of your grade on poor attendance, so attend lectures even though they're horrible.

Nada is a nervous lecturer if I have ever seen one. At times she is solid and lecture will be remotely interesting. Other times, she will flip back and forth between slides too fast, speed up the pace of the class, slow it down. Brace yourself, because as soon as you go on reddit, you might be on the same topic for 20 minutes or get so lost you'll need to go to r/maps to find you way out. Regardless, this is a worthwhile class, and I'm sure Nada will eventually become a better lecturer.

Did I attend class? No.
Did I do well regardless? Yes.

Hope that answers your questions