COMPTNG 10B
Intermediate Programming
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour; laboratory, eight hours. Requisites: course 10A, Computer Science 31. Object oriented programming in C++; operator overloading; memory management, copy and move constructors, copy and move assignment operators, destructors; iterators; data structures and their implementation, linked lists, binary search trees; inheritance and polymorphism; recursion, algorithms for sorting and searching. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
1 of 3
AD
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2020 - [spring 2020 covid online quarter] For me, I didn't take PIC 10A so I had to find my footing at first. One of the first topics is pointers, which are really confusing but push through it! Don't give up because it gets better and way easier after that. Quizzes: started out too hard but Prof Chu listened to feedback from us and made them more reasonable. She emphasizes theoretical questions on these. Homework: One assignment per week, I thought it was really reasonable and tbh I found them too easy compared to the rest of the level of the class. Tends to be a lot of code already written for us. Midterm/Final: Did on Gradescope, was overall a very fair and good experience. Thumbs up for adapting to online format, thumbs up for listening to students and adjusting the class, thumbs up for organized/punctual lectures and always answering our questions when something's unclear. While to some extent the class was just business, let's learn the content and do the class, the prof and TA reminded us they still saw us as humans with lives during this time and were very sensitive to that. The real sice was the TA, Jennifer, who, besides having the most balanced mindset towards school (which I loved), just straight siced us the entire quarter. The time and effort that she and the prof put into this class for us was evident and just big thanks. Pay attention and I don't think it would be hard to get an A.
Spring 2020 - [spring 2020 covid online quarter] For me, I didn't take PIC 10A so I had to find my footing at first. One of the first topics is pointers, which are really confusing but push through it! Don't give up because it gets better and way easier after that. Quizzes: started out too hard but Prof Chu listened to feedback from us and made them more reasonable. She emphasizes theoretical questions on these. Homework: One assignment per week, I thought it was really reasonable and tbh I found them too easy compared to the rest of the level of the class. Tends to be a lot of code already written for us. Midterm/Final: Did on Gradescope, was overall a very fair and good experience. Thumbs up for adapting to online format, thumbs up for listening to students and adjusting the class, thumbs up for organized/punctual lectures and always answering our questions when something's unclear. While to some extent the class was just business, let's learn the content and do the class, the prof and TA reminded us they still saw us as humans with lives during this time and were very sensitive to that. The real sice was the TA, Jennifer, who, besides having the most balanced mindset towards school (which I loved), just straight siced us the entire quarter. The time and effort that she and the prof put into this class for us was evident and just big thanks. Pay attention and I don't think it would be hard to get an A.
AD
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2016 - He sorta teaches the theory by teaching how to re-create the types of concepts in question. For example one assignment is something to do with creating your own custom linked list class. All the assignments are basically that, creating your own custom version of a built-in type. However we never get to really actually implement these classes, which is much more important from a practical standpoint than being able to re-code them and understand what's happening beneath the hood. If you can't drive a car it doesn't really matter whether or not you understand what's going on beneath the hood. Also, this professor is sort of a bitter man. He constantly complains about unfairness in the professional industry and occasionally in the academic. Which on it's own I wouldn't mind, but he sort of takes it out on the students. I had a few incidents where I was graded unfairly, and he even admitted to it, but refused to change my grade because ...some story about how he once got short-changed in an academic journal. As if him getting short-changed justifies him being unfair towards me. Furthermore, his tests are unfair and poorly written. If you interpret the question to be asking for a certain thing but he had in mind a different thing- even though the question is objectively ambiguous- say goodbye to a ton of freebee points. Finally, he is constantly talking about interview preparation and industry applications, but I think he fails severely in these goals. No interviewer asks you to create a custom map class, or to define a class that uses bitwise operators (we spent like a month on binary and bitwise operations). They ask you to do something where the map class might just be the optimal thing to implement. Like I said before, you don't get enough of the actual implementation in this course. In sum, I could see how people would like him, as he is quite enthusiastic and exposes us a lot of new things and concepts. It is difficult though, which would be worth it definitely, however I feel the subject matter is misguided and contradicts the goals he preaches. It is often non-applicable to interview and industry settings. Again, you might be able to tell the driving test person all about how a car works, but if you can't drive the car, you fail. I also feel that this professor has a large chip on his shoulder and replicates that unfair environment for his students, which is not right.. at all. Also, his lecture slides are terrible.
Fall 2016 - He sorta teaches the theory by teaching how to re-create the types of concepts in question. For example one assignment is something to do with creating your own custom linked list class. All the assignments are basically that, creating your own custom version of a built-in type. However we never get to really actually implement these classes, which is much more important from a practical standpoint than being able to re-code them and understand what's happening beneath the hood. If you can't drive a car it doesn't really matter whether or not you understand what's going on beneath the hood. Also, this professor is sort of a bitter man. He constantly complains about unfairness in the professional industry and occasionally in the academic. Which on it's own I wouldn't mind, but he sort of takes it out on the students. I had a few incidents where I was graded unfairly, and he even admitted to it, but refused to change my grade because ...some story about how he once got short-changed in an academic journal. As if him getting short-changed justifies him being unfair towards me. Furthermore, his tests are unfair and poorly written. If you interpret the question to be asking for a certain thing but he had in mind a different thing- even though the question is objectively ambiguous- say goodbye to a ton of freebee points. Finally, he is constantly talking about interview preparation and industry applications, but I think he fails severely in these goals. No interviewer asks you to create a custom map class, or to define a class that uses bitwise operators (we spent like a month on binary and bitwise operations). They ask you to do something where the map class might just be the optimal thing to implement. Like I said before, you don't get enough of the actual implementation in this course. In sum, I could see how people would like him, as he is quite enthusiastic and exposes us a lot of new things and concepts. It is difficult though, which would be worth it definitely, however I feel the subject matter is misguided and contradicts the goals he preaches. It is often non-applicable to interview and industry settings. Again, you might be able to tell the driving test person all about how a car works, but if you can't drive the car, you fail. I also feel that this professor has a large chip on his shoulder and replicates that unfair environment for his students, which is not right.. at all. Also, his lecture slides are terrible.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2023 - Just like 10A, Professor Ding provided very helpful study guides for his tests, so you are able to get a good score if you understand how those codes work. That being said, while I understood the code, I could never write it myself. But honestly, that didn't really matter because the class is very conceptual. The second half of the class has some homework assignments that don't require coding at all, and ask you purely about the concepts. I loved this, because thats the part I understood, but I don't know how well it actually taught me how to code. So take that as you will.
Winter 2023 - Just like 10A, Professor Ding provided very helpful study guides for his tests, so you are able to get a good score if you understand how those codes work. That being said, while I understood the code, I could never write it myself. But honestly, that didn't really matter because the class is very conceptual. The second half of the class has some homework assignments that don't require coding at all, and ask you purely about the concepts. I loved this, because thats the part I understood, but I don't know how well it actually taught me how to code. So take that as you will.
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2018 - The homework is strictly graded on criteria based to knock points off. Same with the midterm and final; just small things to knock your grade down. She doesn't care about learning, but rather her point rubric and her little "good coding practice" rules. The teacher is cold, unengaged and uninteresting. Take this class with any other teacher. I got an A- in pic 10A, and I put in a good amount of work for this class.
Spring 2018 - The homework is strictly graded on criteria based to knock points off. Same with the midterm and final; just small things to knock your grade down. She doesn't care about learning, but rather her point rubric and her little "good coding practice" rules. The teacher is cold, unengaged and uninteresting. Take this class with any other teacher. I got an A- in pic 10A, and I put in a good amount of work for this class.
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2025 - COMPTNG 10B is understandably a challenging course and there's no doubt that it takes immense time and effort to grasp the concepts. However, this class was extremely stressful and difficult given the instructor and conditions. First off, it was incredibly hard to understand what the instructor was saying 90% of the time because she had a thick accent and was so softspoken. Her lectures were severely disorganized and hard to follow and to make things worse, they were unrecorded. I had to spend 2-4 hours after each lecture to teach myself the material - at this point, I might be more qualified than her to teach the class. Homework and exams were also challenging and time-consuming. I would've been more hopeful and successful in building a time machine to take me back in time to NOT enroll in this class. And to note, my final grade was LOWER than what I earned in the class. I calculated my grade according to the grading schemes listed in the syllabus and I should've received a higher letter grade than what I got. Even after bringing it to her attention, I was told that grades were not assigned by raw percentage but by class rank. So imagine working your ass off for a good grade, but you get a lower grade than you deserve because the quota for the amount of students who can get that particular letter grade was already reached... I know these reviews should be taken with a grain of salt and you might think your experience in her class will be better than the bad reviews - I was one of those people, taking this class thinking I'd cruise through the quarter. I was wrong. I drowned. But if you are already enrolled and don't follow any particular religion, now is the time to pick one and start praying because that's about the only thing you can do. All that to say this: I don't fully blame instructor Feng. She made it apparent early on that she is not even a real professor - she is a postdoc student. So I know she is also busy with pursuing her own passions and education which, I'm sure, are more demanding than mine. I attribute this absolute FAILURE of a class to the university and department who very clearly are unwilling to bring on qualified professors.
Fall 2025 - COMPTNG 10B is understandably a challenging course and there's no doubt that it takes immense time and effort to grasp the concepts. However, this class was extremely stressful and difficult given the instructor and conditions. First off, it was incredibly hard to understand what the instructor was saying 90% of the time because she had a thick accent and was so softspoken. Her lectures were severely disorganized and hard to follow and to make things worse, they were unrecorded. I had to spend 2-4 hours after each lecture to teach myself the material - at this point, I might be more qualified than her to teach the class. Homework and exams were also challenging and time-consuming. I would've been more hopeful and successful in building a time machine to take me back in time to NOT enroll in this class. And to note, my final grade was LOWER than what I earned in the class. I calculated my grade according to the grading schemes listed in the syllabus and I should've received a higher letter grade than what I got. Even after bringing it to her attention, I was told that grades were not assigned by raw percentage but by class rank. So imagine working your ass off for a good grade, but you get a lower grade than you deserve because the quota for the amount of students who can get that particular letter grade was already reached... I know these reviews should be taken with a grain of salt and you might think your experience in her class will be better than the bad reviews - I was one of those people, taking this class thinking I'd cruise through the quarter. I was wrong. I drowned. But if you are already enrolled and don't follow any particular religion, now is the time to pick one and start praying because that's about the only thing you can do. All that to say this: I don't fully blame instructor Feng. She made it apparent early on that she is not even a real professor - she is a postdoc student. So I know she is also busy with pursuing her own passions and education which, I'm sure, are more demanding than mine. I attribute this absolute FAILURE of a class to the university and department who very clearly are unwilling to bring on qualified professors.
AD
1 of 3
