This is my first class at UCLA as a graduate student. The course content is not upto the standard. Slides cover almost everything which will be asked in the finals. Last few weeks were ok, other than that the course content was rubbish. I would like to emphasis that TA sessions were the only place where I actually learnt something out of this course. Otherwise, the lecture slides were old, and had many discrepancies.

There were 8 HW assignments (pretty straightforward), mid-term (easy), and a final exam (easy). I'm not sure how they graded this quarter, so can't comment on that!

Edit: Professor Mal is a good person. But this class was online-recorded. We met him twice (or maybe thrice) to discuss the syllabus for mid-term and end-term. Overall, its an easy class. Pretty much everything can be understood by just attending the office-hours.

Prof. Mal is a lenient grader. Although his TA may tell you this course does not have any curve, but Prof. Mal will make most students get at least B-. If according to our real grade in mid and final, more than 50% of students will get less than B. The mean grades of midterm are around 76% (for MS/PhD) and 62% (for MSOL).

The course slides were produced in 2008 and contain many errors. The lectures were recorded in 2014. Maybe due to the COVID, the class experience is not good. We only meet Prof. Mal two times in mid review and final review. Office hours are conducted by TA. The regular lectures have been recorded and no live meeting...Frankly speaking, even if you go over the lecture recordings, you still can't solve the hw. The TA office hour is the place where I learned most things. Prof. Mal is a good man. Maybe his in-prison class will be better.