As others said, the projects can be time consuming. Being a complete beginner, it took me several hours every day to complete the projects. Tests were hard for me and I completely tanked the first midterm, but pulled through for the second which saved me.

Smallberg is a good professor who clearly knows a lot about what he teaches. Discussion sections were not helpful for me unless I had a specific question. Textbook was beneficial to me.

Overall, despite the incredibly slow grading and lack of clarity behind the grading scheme which we were not given until the week 10, Smallberg is incredibly knowledgable in C++. Granted I hope the world never goes into chaos mode as it did during not only the beginning but the latter half of spring quarter, Smallberg continued to be fairly understanding. I won't lie I thought this class was incredibly difficult, even as I attended every lecture I felt as though I had no basis to start some homeworks and most projects (project 3 ..). However Proj3 is actually graded really generously with lots of room to earn points without completing every bit of the project. His lectures can feel dry and not the most engaging, but I have without a doubt learned so much in this course that I am incredibly glad I took it.
*for reference I am not a CS major so this class was out of my general interest

Smallberg is a clear and helpful professor. He is open to questions, and is basically a walking CS dictionary. His lectures explain stuff very well.

You will learn a lot in CS 31, especially if you have no previous experience. It is rewarding, but if you have no prior experience, it will be very hard. His tests have a strange format that takes getting used to, and I got absolutely hammered on the first midterm, scoring below the 25th percentile.

I also spent more time in CS than the rest of my classes combined, which were Math 32B, Physics 1B, and Chem 30A. CS 31 is no joke if you're not a CS major.

He curves generously, but people still get hammered in terms of GPA. CS isn't an easy tech breadth, and you should think before choosing a CS tech breadth.

Finally, the book was kind-of useful.

I actually thought I did okay until the final grade was posted, but my only real issue with this class was that the exams were just nothing like we were prepared for. Maybe that was my mistake, but the entire final was on big O and sorting algorithms, which I see why is important, but I was wholly not expecting the entire exam to be on it. Still, I think that the class does its job, which is to weed out the students not capable of doing CS, while it could be me, I will keep on going and hopefully not fail out of this major.

Smallberg is literally amazing. He just exudes niceness. And he seems to know everything. And he's absolutely outstanding at explaining things. And he's super helpful with difficult projects. And he's willing to talk about anything else in computer science you might want to talk about. And he literally explained data structures and algorithms so well I feel like its become ingrained in my brain. And the course material is so well organized. And.. need I go on. Even though I got caught up in the Nachenberg hype as first (he is pretty good though to be fair), Smallberg is way better. Smallberg rocks!!!
(Seriously this is not meant to be a joke in anyway Smallberg is actually amazing. I highly highly highly recommend this class with him. Or any class with him. Just take all the classes you can get with him.)

Just here to boost lil berg's stats.

Flatulants on the road
Ghostracers chasing lost souls
Got myself a coffee
Spilled some on my shirt

USC grads make no dollars
I and Carey are bad spellerz
Memory leak is wrong wrong wrong
For this project, you do not need to submit a report. You're welcome.

Smallberg is love, Smallberg is life

The workload is INSANE. The weekly projects would take me all week to complete, spending every moment outside of my other classes on them. Great class if you love computer science

Definitely a great introduction to computer science. Smallberg is an excellent lecture who clearly knows about programming topics and how to explain them well. Most of the projects should not be difficult as long as you follow the lectures. The exams were digital when I took the class so I can't comment much on how they would be during an in-person year.