Smallberg was great. If you've done any coding before this class will be a breeze, even though there's a solid workload. If you haven't taken coding before, take the class in the fall or spring when you won't be stuck in there with all the compsci majors. He moves faster during fall quarter.

Professor is extremely knowledgeable. He we’ll be able to answer nearly anything you throw at him.

Unfortunately the lectures do tend to be boring and it’s difficult to stay focused for 2 hours.

If you have prior programming experience, this is fine since you can kind of half pay attention to the lectures and soak up what you need for C++, and ask questions if you have any. Personally I had no C++ experience before (mainly prefer Python) but I still got what I needed from showing up to about 60-70% of the lectures and looking at online materials.

If you don’t have prior programming experience, I don’t recommend taking this course. You will either do poorly or have to spend way more time than you’d want to, or both.

CS31 is an easy class if you keep up with the work and the lectures. Lectures are generally quite slow with Smallberg and you'll probably lose attention quite often. Smallberg is very precise and methodical and if you take note of most things you'll be fine.

Reading the textbook is very helpful for picking up certain things that might be used on exams. I generally didn't listen in class but reading the textbook helped me catch up on all that I missed.

Projects are generally quite easy and if you start early, you'll have no problems. Midterms and finals will be fine if you know your stuff

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Petty petty little man. He rants about how we are all so incompetent and can't do simple tasks but his website lead to a 404 error for 3 days before he fixed it after many emails. He responds to simple questions by saying that we shouldn't be confused about basic things (but this is an intro class so that makes no sense). He is so disorganized and unclear. I enjoy CS and I did well in the class because the textbook was great, but Smallberg is an awful teacher and probably skins puppies as a hobby.

Lectures can be a little boring, especially since most people know most topics since fall quarter expects prior experience. He's occasionally funny but doesn't crack jokes often. He covers every scenario and error, but his clarity and detailedness are really helpful.
The projects weren't too bad; first two were pretty easy. Project 3 was a pretty large jump from project 2. Projects 3-7 took anywhere from 2 to 8 hours (you have a week to finish each project). As long as you check your program for around fifteen minutes and use the test-cases he gives out to test your project, you can get A's on most projects.
Midterm (usually 2 midterms but first was cancelled because of a fire) and final are pretty detail-oriented, the final more so. The bubbling scheme is a little weird and might take you a minute or so to understand.

I actually dropped this class halfway through the quarter, but I thought to provide some comments. I received a very very low score on my project 2 that would make it impossible for me to succeed in this class. because I missed three hyphens. That's probably due to my own issue, but I thought there's no need to make people like me who received low scores feel worse --- the following are from the email the professor sent us: it may not be because of a lack of understanding of C++, but something more fundamental: You ignored
repeated admonitions in the spec and in class to avoid specific foolish
mistakes, yet you made them anyway. Whatever your field of study is, you
must fix this characteristic about yourself. No employer would dare hire
someone who ignores repeated spoken and written directives: You'd pose a
risk to the safety of yourself and others if you ignore safety rules, a
risk to the financial health of the company if you ignore legal regulations,
and a drain on productivity if your ignoring specifications causes you or
others to devote more time later on to correct your mistakes.

If your correctness score is 60 or below, it may not be because of a lack
of understanding of C++, but something more fundamental: You chose to
ignore repeated admonitions in the spec and in class to avoid specific
foolish mistakes, yet you made them anyway. Whatever your field of study
is, you should work to fix whatever caused you to do this. No employer
would dare hire someone who ignores repeated spoken and written directives:
You'd pose a risk to the safety of yourself and others if you ignore safety
rules, a risk to the financial health of the company if you ignore legal
regulations, and a drain on productivity if your ignoring specifications
causes you or others to devote more time later on to correct your mistakes.

if you know cs already and you're good at working by urself this is the class for u if not then maybe wait until winter

Smallberg is an interesting guy. There's a lot of reviews on here that either glorify him or completely bash him, but the truth should be that he's somewhere inbetween. There are some things that he is great at -- particularly, he's a good explainer of concepts and he definitely is one of the more well-versed CS professors.

However, he is not nice or particularly accommodating, and he won't feel bad about it, either. When he sends out project grades, he includes a lovely little segment essentially saying that you will never succeed in life if you don't pay attention to the details. True or not, this is pretty devastating to receive if you get a bad grade on a project you've put 30+ hours into.

The class has 7 projects normally, and a handful of homeworks thrown in. The homeworks are simple and are great study-guides. But the projects are generally feared, especially during fall quarter. If you put in the work and start early (as he loves to repeat countless times), you'll be okay. Also, one bad project grade won't hurt you too much, as opposed to CS32 where there are only 4 projects.

My overall advice would be to DEFINITELY NOT take this class DURING FALL if you are not somewhat experienced in coding, and even if you are, to not take it lightly. If you respect Smallberg and his devilish project specs, you'll come out with a grade that you'll at least accept. I went into the class expecting an A, quickly realized I should be expecting a C, and worked my ass off to receive a B+.

I've heard that winter quarter CS31 is a joke compared to fall quarter, so consider that if you have less experience.

I was nervous going into this class with little background in computer science, I hadn't taken any AP CS classes in high school and had only taken a C++ Codeacademy course the summer before. Smallberg is informative and concise in his lectures and having them prerecorded takes away so much stress. The class is tough but manageable as long as you take his advice, always start early, always develop incrementally. He's often intentionally vague on answers to questions which can be frustrating in the moment but is really beneficial in the long run.

Happy Enrolling,
A Smallberg Fan