This course is absolutely unreasonable in its expectation of students. The workload is absolutely ridiculous and structure of the class is intimidating. There are only four homework assignments, but each one will take around 20-25 hours to complete. Although he claims that the amount of work is reasonable given four weeks to complete each assignment, this is not always true or possible.
The material, for me at least, was decently interesting. I thought the book was a better resource than the lecture, but you must attend lecture to get some notes he leaves out of the book.
The test are pure, brute force, memorization. If you want to know what will be asked on a test, just flip to a random page of the book, pretend like it is blank and try to write that page from memory. The amount of memorization is ridiculous as well, requiring you to know everything.
To do well in this class, you must work hard. Read and re-read the book until you can write it. Start the homework as soon as possible and visit the TA often.
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50 Reviews
Most difficult and unrewarding class I have ever taken. The exams do not test anything but memorization, with no partial credit. Homework assignments take 15 to 25 hours, all of which is poorly explained in the "text book." By that, I mean it is a pdf he wrote that has no examples, just dense notation of a subject that really doesn't matter unless you like to predict weather.
Very tough class. Make sure you start your homeworks early and memorize lecture notes.
Ridiculously tough class, requires a lot of work for the homework assignments. It's interesting to learn but a lot of material.
Very tough class, there were 4 homework assignments during the semester, each one took upwards of twenty hours a piece to complete, start very early!! 2 tests and a final, basically memorize any and everything from lecture and the book to do well. Do not take for fun!
IF YOU ARE A MINOR: DON'T TAKE THIS CLASS. Only four homeworks, but they are long. Start early, work often, and they aren't too bad. The tests are pure memorization, so they are just a matter of studying a lot. Class is painfully boring, you just copy what K-wich writes on the board. But not all the notes are in his book, so don't blindly skip class.
Prof. K is demanding, but a good guy. He wants you to succeed, so he tells you how to prepare for hw's and tests. HW are ridiculously long. Tests are pure memorization of class notes. The structure of the class allows you to do better than you would think.
Tough class. Start the homeworks early so you do not have to pull an all nighter. Go to the TA for help, usually very helpful.
Homeworks take FOREVER, but if you meet with him in person he's the nicest guy ever.
This was one of the most involved systems classes I have ever taken - the homeworks take upwards of 20 hours (there are only 4), and the amount of memorization for tests is immense.