This was a great experience. Don't let the past reviews from Spring 2019 scare you; Professor Rosario was extremely helpful and accommodating this quarter. He recorded all the in-person lectures and uploaded them to Youtube no more than a day after each class. His slides are well-written, informative and contain (almost) all of what you need to know to succeed in his class. Nothing like the reviews from 2019.

That being said though, don't come into Rosario's CS 143 thinking it'll be easy. Getting a B shouldn't be too difficult, but an A is quite challenging and requires lots of effort and patience. The exams are not at all easy as the average on the midterm was 69 and final 59. I felt like the tests were for the most part fair, though some questions on the final required a deep understanding of the material and some ingenuity. On the flip side, the homework is worth 40% of the final grade and graded very leniently, as some parts were graded for completion rather than accuracy.

Difficulty wise, this iteration of the class definitely seems harder than Spring 2020 or Spring 2021 since we're now back in-person, but definitely easier than Spring 2019. One piece of feedback I'd give for next year's class is to maybe add some harder homework problems that are more in line with the difficulty of the exams. I noticed that Rosario tended to include the easiest problems on his homework assignments, which probably led to a rude awakening for some students on the final.

Rosario gives a lot of insight into the industry, but his class is definitely fast paced and contains too much information so a lot of outside studying is required to do well on his exams

This course was pretty intense but overall I enjoyed it. Don't listen to the old reviews, they're not true anymore. Rosario is an amazing professor! He's the best CS professor I've had so far at UCLA. You can tell that he's truly passionate about his work and loves teaching students and helping them succeed. He's very helpful during office hours and works hard answering all our questions on Piazza. I've never had a professor respond so quickly to my Piazza posts.

Rosario is an amazing lecturer. Although there is a TON of content in this class and it can sometimes be dense, Rosario makes sure it's never boring. He cracks a lot of jokes and teaches in a very engaging way. I liked how lecture recordings were posted on YouTube after each lecture. Since there was so much content and Rosario goes through it at a rather quick pace (definitely doesn't speak sleep-inducingly slowly like Smallberg lol), I preferred to use the recordings rather than attend in-person so that I could take notes at my own pace. The slides were also pretty good. This class also has a textbook, but if you understand the lecture well, you don't have to read it since Rosario doesn't put things on his exams that were covered solely in the textbook and not in lecture. There were 8 homeworks and four of them were graded on completion. The other ones were graded pretty leniently. Out of all the CS classes I've taken so far, this one definitely had the lightest assignment load. Even the most difficult and stressful one, homework/project 5, wasn't as bad as an average CS 32 assignment, and although it was challenging, it was still doable and it made me a better programmer. I also liked how we had 6 late days to use throughout the quarter.

Besides going through the lectures, the biggest time suck for this course for me was by far preparing for the exams. The other reviews are right in that the exams are insanely difficult, particularly the final. If you decide to take this class, you should definitely be prepared to set aside a lot of time to study for the exams; you will definitely not be able to get by with cramming. I did pretty bad on the midterm and the class average was 67, but fortunately Rosario values improvement, so you can improve your grade significantly by doing well on the final. I knew I'd have to do really well on the final to save my grade so I created an in-depth two-week study guide involving reviewing my notes, making flashcards, redoing hw, and doing practice problems from discussion section for each week of content. However, despite following my study plan to the T, I was still feeling terrified to take the final due to the many past reviews with horror stories about how hard it was. My fears certainly weren't unfounded, as the final exam was super difficult. No amount of studying could have prepared me for it. Despite being the final I had studied the most for at UCLA, I only got a C. The class average was 62.

However, here's the catch about the exams: they are curved very generously. Rosario curved my C on the final to an A, which let me end with an A in the class! I was so afraid my hard work would go to waste but thanks to the curve it did not. Many of my friends also said that the curve helped them a lot. Rosario even stated during the last lecture that he knows that we put a lot of effort into this class and that he tries to acknowledge that through his grading scheme.

So seriously, don't let the difficult exams or past reviews deter you from taking this class! You'll learn so much important info that will help you greatly in your CS career taught by a quadruple-Bruin seasoned industry professional who is clearly very passionate about student success. Although you may go through difficulties, they will make you a better student and programmer. This is not a class you want to miss out on and you should take it even if it's not required for your major. I promise, give it a try if you get the chance, you won't regret it ❤️

Edit: In case that wasn't enough convincing for you, I just received an internship offer all thanks to this class!!! After getting my grade back, I sent a follow-up email for a data science position saying I had just finished the course and explaining what I'd learned. That caught the company's interest, as despite ghosting me earlier and ignoring my previous follow-ups, they finally agreed to do a follow-up interview and gave me the offer! Seriously, you need to take this class, it will open doors for you!

I don't feel that rosario is that great of a teacher. At the same time I don't know if the other professors are better, and the class taught me a lot of important skills and I think it is a must.

I enjoyed Professor Rosario's class overall and he was very knowledgable about the material. The midterm was reasonable in terms of difficulty but the final was much harder and longer. I came out of the class much more interested in the material.