Professor Cho is great, he's very funny and very knowledgeable about databases. Each lecture covered some important topic, and the slides were pretty useful to refer back to. Initially, he didn't release his annotated slides, but ended up releasing them starting mid-way through the quarter.

The midterm was quite easy, but the final was quite a bit harder as a result. The main annoying thing about these exams is that they were given on Saturdays, which I didn't like.

However, I learned a ton about database systems: how they work, performance metrics, various modern database technologies, etc. You will definitely learn quite a bit if you don't have any previous experience with databases. Additionally, the assignments in this class are quite good. The homework is graded based on participation, so if you put a reasonable effort into answering each question you should get full credit.

However, my favorite part of the class was the projects, since doing the projects is what made me actually learn how to set up and use SQL or MongoDB in an actual project. (Note: I think the projects were reworked and created from scratch for my quarter to make them more industry-relevant, since past quarters had projects that were more low-level and about implementing database algorithms rather than using modern technologies.)

The only annoying thing about the projects is you have to use PHP, which was fine for me even though I didn't have any prior experience with it. Though, if you don't know basic web development, that will be somewhat of a learning curve for you. In general, the projects each took me anywhere between 1-5 hours, but other people took 20+ hours on some of the lengthier projects, so your mileage may vary based on how well you grasp the DB concepts and how easy web development is for you.

Overall, I learned a ton from this class and highly recommend taking it with Professor Cho!