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.

This course was quite challenging, but the professor did a very good job in explaining concepts and making sure students understood. She was very funny and students felt very welcome asking questions in class/office hours.

There were 7 homeworks, with the lowest score dropped, worth 30%. Its not hard to get full mark on the assignment because you are able to collaborate with peers, and go to professor and TA's for help on the homework.

Midterm was 30%, and final was 40% but if your final grade is higher than midterm, the midterm gets dropped and the final is worth 70%. Final is representative of the course and is not weighted heavier on the later content, so students tend to do better on the final. This was very helpful for me as I barely got a C on the midterm but got an A- on the final, and ended up with an A in the class.

Overall would recommend taking this course with her.

Professor Falcon is a really nice professor. Pic 10B is definitely harder than 10A, and she did a good job explaining the concepts. The homework assignments are fair. Though she has a lot of requirements for the "good coding practice", it is not that hard to follow the rules. I took both 10A (with prof. Miroshnikov) and 10B mostly by relying on the textbook and the TAs, and our TA Peter was soooo nice and helpful. Professor Falcon does not have a curve for this class but both the midterm and the final are fair as long as you understand the general coding rules.

I highly recommend taking PiC with Professor Falcon. She is friendly and approachable. She is very clear about her expectations and is also a clear lecturer, and I feel that the type of assignments she gave us helped me gain a more in-depth understanding of the topics she went over. Also, her lectures and assignments are true to the test, so her exams are very fair if you put in the work.
Though some might say her assignments are graded "tough", it is based on criteria that isn't too hard to follow, and the professor and TA are both a great resource to make sure you get full credit on the homework assignments.
She also lets you drop the lowest homework assignment, which helped me a lot due to unfoseen issues with my first three homeworks. You also get a chance to redeem yourself with the final if you didn't do amazing on the midterm (there are 2 grading systems, one where midterm is replaced by the final, and one where both are accounted, depending on which helps your grade more).
I guess what I'm saying is the professor gives you a lot of opportunities to succeed in this class, and I felt that I learned the concepts well rather than "just to get the grade".

Claudia is very clear about her expectations for the class and what she expects from students; her advice during lecture is great in that she is very upfront about common mistakes people make while coding, as well as how the inner workings of the compiler are when reading the code. Would take again for Pic 10B.

Having Professor Falcon for PiC10A is a good choice. She's a good lecturer and will occasionally drop a joke in class. Don't hesitate to go to her office hours to ask for coding help, and don't hesitate to ask questions in class (b/c discussions don't help at all). Her lectures are at first easy to understand, but when the class starts to learn about vectors and classes it gets harder to catch up on what she's saying if you're writing down everything from the slides. She will occasionally pause during lecture to see if people have questions, so jump on that opportunity to ask her for concept clarification. She will definitely try to answer all questions in a clear way. Some homework assignments are easy, some are hard. She will often drop hints/answer questions about the homework in the beginning of class. However, the midterm is super hard if you aren't prepared for it. Only way to study for tests is through the weekly quizzes and probably reading the textbook.

Very nice introduction to C++, if you’ve got any prior programming skills (for example knowing another language) you’re pretty much guaranteed an A. Professor Falcon is engaging, clear and occasionally very funny!

If you did decently in PIC 10B, you will have sufficient knowledge/skill to pass this class. Falcon's lectures were based on the textbook (Chapters 15 - 20 of Big C++) and were very easy to follow. There were 5 simple homework assignments to make sure you understood the lectures. This class requires a group project using Qt. The project is around 30% of your grade and you will be working on it throughout the quarter. The complexity of your project depends entirely up to you and your group. There are two tests, no final, which will be easy even if you have a basic understanding of the lectures.
I highly recommend taking this class with Falcon whenever offered.

No curve at all and the awful "good coding practice". She is too picky with the so-called good coding practice but some of her rules does not make sense for CS guys cuz that just adds a lot of unnecessary work. I am pretty sure I understand the materials but I always lose points on good coding practice, like "comment for a loop" and she takes 5 pt off for that, which is so unnecessary. Also, pay attention to good coding practice cuz she did not say that we should follow that and she test some good coding practice in the midterm which makes everyone's score lower but she does not curve at all..........If you have Hanqing Cai, just take Cai's class and grading, but go to Falcon's lecture(clearer)

This class wasn't easy, but Falcon is a pretty good professor. She's young and definitely knows her stuff when it comes to C++. Lectures very clearly, workload isn't too crazy; overall she teaches well. I definitely learned the material thoroughly. I would take the class with her again.

Beware though, she grades on a STRAIGHT SCALE. There was NO CURVE for our class and I believe she did not round either. There was only one midterm, and it was pretty tricky/tough. If you did poorly on the midterm, she dropped it and instead added the weight to your final exam. Also, she didn't give out any practice exams.

Lastly: make sure you actually learn and use her good coding practices. She'll take points off if you don't