Lecture, four hours; discussion, two hours; outside study, six hours. Enforced requisite: course 111. Designed for juniors/seniors. Introduction to design and performance evaluation of computer networks, including such topics as what protocols are, layered network architecture, Internet protocol architecture, network applications, transport protocols, routing algorithms and protocols, internetworking, congestion control, and link layer protocols including Ethernet and wireless channels. Letter grading.

Review Summary

Clarity
3.3 / 10
Organization
3.3 / 10
Time
15-20 hrs/week
Overall
1.7 / 10

Reviews

    Quarter Taken: Winter 2020 In-Person
    Grade: A

    To be honest, I didn't attend many of the class lectures. However, I did fine by doing all the assigned reading (which was a bit heavy but the textbook is interesting) and checking the slides to review the important topics. The lectures I did attend were interesting, but I had trouble paying attention because her voice is a bit quiet at times. However, you can definitely tell that Lixia knows what she's talking about and is a total expert in her field. Sometimes she tells funny stories, too!

    The homework questions were sometimes a bit vague or hard to understand, but the TAs did a good job of clarifying on Piazza. The homework assignments also took varying amounts of time, but none of them were egregiously long. I also thought the projects were really useful for learning about networking concepts. We got to have a group (1-3) for the second project, which was time consuming to debug but overall fine.

    For the midterm, you should be fine as long as you understand the slides well and figured out how to do the homework. I'm not sure about how difficult the final was because we were allowed to opt-out due to COVID-19.

    Quarter Taken: Winter 2020 In-Person
    Grade: A-

    Professor Zhang is one of the OGs of early networking. She helped found the IETF and coined the term "middlebox", so she definitely knows her stuff! She'll tell you lots of cool early internet stories if you go to office hours. That being said, she's not the best lecturer – she has a tendency to drone on through her slides. She offers some extra credit for participation, but lecture attendance drops pretty quickly and I saw people dozing off in class more than once. Homeworks and projects aren't too difficult, and the second project can be done in a team of 2-3. The material itself is pretty interesting and useful for industry jobs.

    Quarter Taken: Winter 2022 In-Person
    Grade: A

    Projects in this class are awful.

    Quarter Taken: Spring 2023 In-Person
    Grade: B-

    Professor didn't wear a mic and couldn't be heard well or understood well for most of lecture time.

    Quarter Taken: Spring 2023 In-Person
    Grade: B

    unclear lectures, lack of practice materials or past exams to study from, condescending professor

    Quarter Taken: Spring 2023 In-Person
    Grade: A-

    just do textbook problems and u will be ok

    Quarter Taken: Spring 2023 In-Person
    Grade: A

    Contents were hard, lectures were not really organized and slides were a bit messy, but eventually a curve

    Quarter Taken: Spring 2024 In-Person
    Grade: A-

    His lectures are not the most inspiring as its it's just reading from slides and at 8 AM but he's a really smart guy and fairly nice. There are 2 projects in the class, project 1 is decently easy. Project 2 is a lot more in depth but he gives you almost 5 weeks to do it, so it's extremely doable within that time frame. The tests are not too hard and he curves pretty decently in the end. Take him if you have the chance

Course

Instructor
Zhang, L.
Previously taught
24S 23S 22W 20W 19W 16F 15W 14W 13W 12S 11S 10S 09W 08S 07S 06S 05S 03S 02S 00W

Grading Information

  • Has a group project

  • Attendance not required

  • 1 midterm

  • Finals week final

  • 63% recommend the textbook