Like others have mentioned, Sherstov is a masterful teacher who knows his stuff and keeps students' attention from the very first day of class to the very last. His philosophy, which I greatly admire, is that "class attendance is earned", meaning that the professor should be the one to motivate students to come to class and learn instead of making attendance mandatory. And boy, does he earn it. He makes the boring stuff come to life. He really explains concepts well. But you'd be fooling yourself if you thought the course was therefore a walk in the park. On the contrary, this was not one of my best courses at UCLA by a longshot, and the fact that the professor is this great of a help instead of a hindrance makes all the difference in the world. The material is hard, and I did find myself struggling on exams sometimes. Practicing with the practice exams he posts online is ESSENTIAL. But the office hours the TA's and Sherstov held were always extremely helpful. The course will start out easy, but you can easily fall behind if you don't keep up with his lecture material. There's so much material, the exams are scheduled on the discussion sections instead of the lectures. For that reason, having exams every 2 weeks did get a bit overwhelming after a while. But I'm incredibly thankful for Sherstov; he's a really great inspiration and I wish all professors in academia (not just from UCLA) were more like him.

Professor Sherstov is an amazing professor. He is energetic, lively, and great at explaining material. He makes the concepts seem easy and does many examples. His breakdown of material is logical and he also is quick to understand where a student's misunderstandings come from. Professor Sherstov's anecdotes also add a very personable touch to the course and are super inspiring! I wish I could have had more professors like him at UCLA. He also hosts office hours all throughout the week the entire quarter for his students and takes so much time out of his schedule to provide such a good class experience. Perhaps the only weakness of the course is that I wish we could have had the lectures placed on bruincast to watch later, and also for classes that I could not make it. They are definitely lectures worth watching again.

My favorite professor at UCLA so far. He does a great job of explaining the material. Although the subject is rather dry, he makes it engaging. The class is organized very well.

I wish all CS classes were taught this well!

Most organized class ever! Every lecture was so well-thought out, and Sherstov is a fantastic lecturer. There's an exam pretty much every other Friday starting 4th week, which kind of sucked, but there's no cumulative final and it actually reduced the amount of stress, because you would only ever be tested on a few week's worth of material at a time. I really enjoyed this class.

You are really missing out if you don't take 181 with Sherstov!

Sherstov has been one of my favorite professors at UCLA. He's super passionate about the topics that he covers and sincerely cares about his students being able to understand and learn the concepts. His exams are difficult but fair. His class is divided up into 4 sections, with each section covering a different topic (DFA's, NFA's, CFG's/ PDA's, and TM's). Each exam has 25 possible points you can earn, but it's graded out of 20. The highest score you can earn on each is 20, so you basically get 5 free points.

He is fantastic. Plan your schedule accordingly because you need to take this guy. Fantastic professor and human being.

Hands down the best professor I have ever had and likely ever will have. Sherstov is not only incredibly smart and knowledgeable about finite automat theory, he is also super nice and very concerned about the students' success. I made a bruinwalk account just to review this amazing man. Take him if you can.

A little about the course: There are weekly homework assignments which are given 100% if you have a "good faith attempt on at least half of the problems". You really want to try on the homework though because it really is the best way to learn the material. For exams, there are 3 during the quarter, all during discussion (discussion is not mandatory except for exam days) and a final. Each exam is worth 20% of your grade and is out of 20 points. You can earn up to 25 points on each exam though (but you do not get extra credit) meaning that to get 100% in the class you just have to do the hw and get 80% correct on each exam.

I literally signed up for bruinwalk to post this review. take sherstov. he's probably the best cs teacher i've had.

Professor Sherstov is the best professor I have ever had at UCLA. He is very aware of his pedagogical style, which allows him to be a very effective lecturer. He demonstrates genuine enthusiasm in the course material at every turn, and does a wonderful job of linking each topic to the previous topics. He makes students feel very welcome asking questions, and when students answer the questions he asks, he is congratulatory when they are correct and encouraging when they are not. His homework is very reasonable, and in combination for the practice exams prepares you very well for the exams, of which there are four at regular intervals so as to smooth out the amount of anxiety associated with having one or two exams account for the entirety of one's grade.