CS 131 with Carey! I personally didn't take CS 32 with Carey, so I was pretty hyped about this. And honestly, I think it lived up to the hype. The class did remind me CS 32, in terms of the type of content covered and the programming in the class.

As a disclaimer, a lot of these criticisms are probably because this was the pilot quarter for the course. Carey will probably improve most of these criticisms in future offerings.

The class material isn't difficult, there's just a lot of it. I thought most of it was interesting and cool, you really get a pretty good grasp about how different languages do things differently. His slides are very in-depth and good for self studying. But by the week 6 midterm, there was honestly so much content to review it was a bit of a struggle. If you study early and come prepared with notes (open note/book exams), you will be fine.

We have 3 projects in the class, each building off the one before it. The projects were basically implementing an interpreter for a made up language using Python. They did take quite a long time (15-20 hrs), but definitely doable and good just for practicing your programming/code design skills. In future courses, I think he might shorten them a bit or provide more starter code, since a lot of students seemed to take a while on them.

Overall very satisfied with the class, glad this course got reworked with Carey!

Carey Nachenberg is very entertaining professor. His PPTs are the best, I plan on using them to revise for interviews. CS 32 provides the fundamentals of programming, so learn them well.

I will admit, that I have zoned out many times during class (haven't been blasted by an air horn yet), and that his memes have died a long time ago, but I still encourage to take CS 32 with him. Smallberg is an amazing professor, but Carey's one of the rare ones that actually give out candy and prize tickets in class.

Midterms are fine. Largely based on concepts you implement in projects (especially the first one). The grading is better than CS 31, but still irritating. The final is a bit tougher, since Project 4 is due right before it, you may not get much time to study.
One of the TA has a great book of practice problems:
https://www.amazon.com/Data-Structures-Practice-Problems-Beginners/dp/**********

Work load increases drastically after project 2. The first 2 projects, and all of the homework is pretty okay and don't take that much time. Project 3 isn't too hard, since the spec walks you through coding it step by step. It is very time consuming and tedious though. Make sure you test it as you go! I cannot emphasize the importance of testing each feature as you code it enough. Debugging is a pain for Project 3 and 4. Project 4 is short, but much harder. I had no idea where to start when I first looked at the spec. Mull over the spec for a while, try to really understand what you have to do before coding the difficult parts. Ask UPE/friends for help figuring out what you need to do.

Many, many people in this class have prior programming experience, so the averages/medians are pretty high. I would advise you to try getting a head start over winter break, especially if your only experience is CS 31. I am not going to lie, CS 32 covers a lot of material. Carey is a great lecturer, but it doesn't stop you from forgetting stuff you learned 2 weeks ago that wasn't on the homework. On the bright side, they don't curve down (thank goodness)!

Get lunch with Carey! He's pretty entertaining and it's funny watching everyone suck up to him so they can get an interview with Symantec. (For real though, you want to get an interview with Symantec, try sitting with them during EWI, or get an A in the class and ask Carey to send them your resumé).

Good luck!

Best class I've taken. Carey is an amazing lecturer; his classes are very engaging and effective. I learned so much in 10 short weeks. The projects were fun and Carey was always so welcoming of students' questions.

Selling textbook, Data Abstraction & Problem Solving with C++: Walls and Mirrors (6th Edition) for $50. Text if interested, **********

CS131 is a HARD class but Carey is probably the best one out there to teach it. We had 10% homeworks graded on effort, 30% projects (3 projects 10% each), 25% midterm, 35% final. The projects were extremely brutal, by brutal I mean spending more than 30 hours on each project, pulling your hair out and trying to find test cases that would break your code (getting edge cases). The projects build on each other and we basically build our own Interpreter (Brewin) using Python. The first project was the hardest because we had barely any skeleton code but the projects got progressively easier as he released his solutions for project 1 and project 2 for you to build on after the due date. The exams were difficult but not too crazy, the average of the midterm was about 65% ish and the final was about 70% ish. I would say just prepare yourself to spend a lot of time on this class, probably the most you would ever spend on a class. Take this class with easier classes so that you can dedicate the time to the enormous amount of content that this class has. It is very content heavy and extremely time consuming. On the bright side, this is only the second edition of Careys version of the class and it can only get better from here. All the best!

Best lecturer ever! Learned a ton! Definitely the best choice ever to take CS32 with Carey!

If you have to take CS131, definitely take it with Carey. This was the first quarter he taught it, so some imperfections were expected. Overall, Carey and the TAs (pre-strike) were all very passionate and helpful. They actively listened to our feedback and put in a lot of effort to improve the class.

Class website: https://ucla-cs-131.github.io/fall-22/

The homework (graded on completion) was initially very long, but they listened to feedback and made some questions optional. The projects were a bit more time-consuming than initially expected (maybe 20+ hours), but the autograder was insanely helpful to instantly see your score on Gradescope, and there was a subset of the test cases publically available. The exams (open book) were fair but challenging, and really tested your deep understanding of the concepts. The course material wasn't particularly difficult, but there was a significant amount.

Advice: (seriously) don't procrastinate on the projects! Try to keep up with the course content because it's really easy to fall behind. Attend lectures (he's entertaining and gives out snacks) - it may feel easy to ditch because he posts his slides, but he will explain things more clearly than if you skimmed through the slides yourself.

Had a great time with him. Lectures are very clear but move quickly as there is a lot of material to cover. The exams are close to what we cover in lectures but more difficult. But it's still good, at least the professor covers a lot and won't let you see the questions and have no idea what to do like Eggert's exam.

Very well organized class. F22 had three projects (which build on each-other) where you had to build an interpreter for a new language. Pretty heavy workload for these, but grading was transparent (through a Gradescope autograder). Carey's a good lecturer, as usual. Exams were pretty tough IMO, and the class ended with about 30% A's, 30% B's, and 30% C-F's. Best strategies would be to have the concepts down perfectly and get a lot of practice programming in the languages that you study that quarter (for us it was Haskell, Python, and Lisp.)

CS 32 is hard, but Carey makes the class worth it. He is such an engaging and active lecturer. He is excellent in explaining the material and make the class very fun. I would always choose Carey over Smallberg. He often had encouraging and motivational talks with us which made life worth living again.

I often was stuck on projects to the point that no TA was able to help me. During those times, I emailed Carey my problem and he was always more than happy to help me.

One downside is that he does not take extensive questions about past materials or current projects during lecture time. He directs you to ask him during his office hours.

Overall, CS32 is a CS weeder class and has a very heavy workload. I recommend to take it with easier classes. Carey is one of the best professors out there, and he will help you through this difficult time in your life.

I took this class in Winter 2022. Because of the Omicron variant, the class started off online and later went in person. I never really attended lectures because Nachenberg's slides were really clear and were all I needed to learn the material. The projects did take a significant portion of time but if you understand the subject the projects are not hard. I would recommend this class regardless of the professor, but Nachenberg definitely has more engaging lectures.