CS 4710

First of all, Lou's list was the biggest scam about this class. CS2150 should not be the only pre-requisite. To fully understand what is happening, Probability, Statistics, and some Calculus should definitely be taken to fully understand what Freenor is teaching. Also, I highly recommend taking this course with 2 friends you can trust as the homework can be difficult to manage by oneself. However, Frenor is nice and does send lots of useful emails. I would highly recommend taking the course as the topic is interesting and prof is nice, even if everyone except Freenor gets confused at around halfway of most lectures. The homeworks were also quite unique as he pits everyone's AI against one another and your grade is depended on the score. Since there is some randomness involved in the testings, so long as your AI works to some degree, you will be give at minimum a 90 for an assignment, thought those who get around the top percentile do get extra credit. If there was ever a class I was forced to retake, I would make it this class. Freenor does bring up many interesting topics in class , but you do have to pay attention or you get lost VERY fast.

I was excited for a course on AI, but this was perhaps the most disappointing intro to AI I could've been given. The prereqs were not sufficient for the material (very prob/stat heavy) so you'll probably do a lot of outside reading. The material taught is very theory-heavy as AI requires, but most students come into the class not expecting that at all. Assignments are interesting but difficult because the lectures aren't enough to get by. You go from very abstract concepts to assignments like implementing a connect four game with infinite rows.

Freenor is nice and knowledgeable, but he is new to teaching and very clearly lacks the ability to clearly explain lecture content. Lectures basically involved Freenor copying his prepared notes onto the chalkboard (which was usually illegible), and failing to answer most questions. Attendance was close to 30% towards the end of the semester. Everyone in office hours was confused and the graduate TAs were not always the most helpful and didn't always know what the assignment was for that week.

The midterm was straight up a joke (and he cancelled the final, btw). It was worth three points and although I didn't think I did particularly well, I got a 100. So did a lot of people apparently -- the grading is very lenient. Basically, you'll likely come out of this class with an A but you'll have no idea what you're doing the entire time and will fudge your way through the assignments. The final grades seemed to be randomly assigned, especially since ALL the assignments were groupwork and my partner and I had identical scores for the midterm... but she got an A+ and I only got an A even though I pulled most of the grunt work.

Biggest waste of a class. Yes, you'll get an "easy" A if that's what you're looking for, but you'll actually have to put a lot of effort getting your assignments done for this class, and you'll come out with next to no knowledge about AI. Would not recommend.

Let me be brief. Take with Freenor if all you are looking for is an easy A (it's really easy, trust me). Otherwise, don't.