so this is a class where you're not really going to learn anything. villanueva is a nice guy but his lectures are so disorganized and tbh I didn't even go to lectures 6/10 weeks. discussion sections are mandatory attendance and it's just 2 groups presenting a research paper each week but tbh nobody even paid attention. you have a quiz every week but it's really easy since it's open note and it's 4 questions in like an hour (at least that's how our TA in F25 did it). no other hw or assignments except for the group presentation you have to do one time during the quarter.
the lectures are not great and honestly I didn't even know what was happening 95% of the time. the class is stressful for like the few days before the midterm and final because you have to basically learn everything and there's no recordings, so you're really just relying on the slides which are also not great. but villanueva lets you use a cheat sheet so everyone would just write down all the info on there and the exams we had were not that hard and they were like 20 questions (the exams were only like 24 points total each for midterm and final). the main way I knew what to study was because of my TA Aneesh whose final review sessions were literally the GOAT. TLDR I'd take this class again but idk how much the structure of the class changes from year to year so ymmv. just be warned though if you're like most people you're just gonna feel like you have no idea what's going on for most of the quarter