Pretty solid professor, although his lectures can get a little boring sometimes. You definitely can't go wrong with Smallberg, and if you can pay attention for the entire 2 hours you will have a clear and conceptually deep understanding of the material.

The work for the class consists of five homework assignments, four projects, two midterms, and a final (which was made optional for our class given the circumstances). The homework assignments are reasonable, and can be completed in a few hours if done diligently. The first two projects are similar in difficulty to the homework assignments and do not require much work, maybe in the ballpark of a couple hours a day for a few days and you should be good. The last two are significantly longer and more difficult, but not impossible to complete on time; moreover, you will definitely strengthen your programming skills upon successfully doing them. The midterms were pretty easy in my opinion, and were doable with minimal studying if you paid attention and knew the material. It's not entirely clear what method he uses to assign letter grades, but 90+% raw = A is as good a guess as I have been able to make.

Overall, good professor and a fine class, even though projects 3 and 4 were a pain in the ass.

granted this was during spring 2020 so corona made things tough but smallberg is the worst professor i've ever had. by the final, he hadn't graded either of the midterms or any assignment since week 3. he also never gave us a syllabus or true grading scheme until two hours before the pass/no pass decision deadline. he barely gave us an "estimate" ish of our grade an hour before we had to make those decisions for pass/no pass and was very snarky throughout the quarter in his responses to students. he also changed the entire format of midterms a few hours before the actual midterms themselves. i found it more useful to skip his lectures and use nachenbergs slides instead. nachenbergs slides will get you 10x farther than smallbergs lectures will. i spent 90% of my time all quarter doing work for this class and had to neglect my other classes. projects take an insane amount of time. project 3 is just pure insanity. terrible class. i did learn a lot of fundamentals (from nachenberg not smallberg of course) but this class was a nightmare

My only word for him is a bad word

this class has good material, and smallberg is an efficient professor
but i felt the grading and workload of this class was highly unnecessary. projects are heavily long and inconsiderate of time of students, and while i see how it lets practice with some concepts, it gets really repetitive (do i really need 5 classes for same style of objects)
i think the tests were nice and a much better measure of how well somebody understood the concept, especially with how some people "collaborate" too much, but tests are a level playing field. this class should grade more based on tests and reduce project workload.

This class is definitely challenging, but overall wasn't too bad. It is really important to stay ahead of your work, as Smallberg does not accept late projects. The TAs are very helpful and office hours can ease your mind before submitting a project.

This class took up my whole quarter. The last half of the quarter the projects get crazy time consuming. It seemed like we were always doing a project or studying for an exam, there wasnt a time where I wasnt doing CS32. Smallberg definitely knows a lot about CS, but his lectures are filled with trivia about non-CS topics and him explaining what not to do. Whenever I went to lecture everyone was asleep or not paying attention and online shopping. We got behind in lecture, meaning for nearly all of the projects and homework assignments we were using topics that hadn't been talked about in class. Fortunately, Professor Nachenberg has slides that are extremely helpful, which is what my friends and I used to learn the material. There are LA workshops once a week usually which can be helpful depending on the LAs teaching. TA discussion section is also helpful (my TA taught us a lot clearer than the professor), but that depends on your TA. Be prepared to do a lot of self-study to get the concepts and have very little time to study for exams ( you usually have a project due the day before an exam). However, this is an extremely important class for CS so be sure to take it during a quarter where you can put all of your time into it!

smallberg is the goat, but he always spills coffee on his shirt. he needs to find that monkey ASAP

Genuinely this class was the bane of my existence this quarter. If you have the option to not take this class with Smallberg, TAKE THAT OPPORTUNITY. Don't be fooled by how digestible the lectures and homeworks can seem at first, because the projects and tests will have you feeling like a 79 year old grandma learning how to use an iPad for the first time in her life.
I studied for HOURS and DAYS on the midterms and finals, reviewed as many of the TA and Nachenberg slides as I could, just to end up with the worst scores I've ever received on any test I've taken before. Smallberg also doesn't distribute grades until a considerable amount of time after you turn in said homework/project/assignment and also doesn't review the midterms either, saying that they're merely a "method of assessment", so it's hard to learn from your mistakes as well. And to put into perspective how hard the exams are, we had about 40-50 answer choices to choose from and someone I know who has 10+ years of experience with coding admitted they struggled pretty badly on them.
And while I cannot confirm the validity of the other review saying that he humiliated a student's question during a midterm, it really wouldn't surprise me if it did happen given his cold and strict attitude towards any student who even DARES to have a question about the course's content.
So to those who are considering taking this class and have the option NOT to: let this be your warning. To those who HAVE to take this class: my dearest condolences and please make use of CAPS if needed. To the others who are taking this class right now and are looking for some words of solidarity/comfort: you are not alone and you are SO much more than an exam or project grade from this fucked up class taught by a MAX 5'6 professor.

Dear Smallberg,
I say this from the bottom of my heard. You are the worst teacher to ever exist. Giving the most fuckass midterms and exams. Making me shed tears, sacrafice my social life, turned me into a depressed person with no life, who just stares at a computer all day. All for what. All you do is laugh at students who you think is below your expertise. This class is degrading, example of pure misery. No matter how much I studied, however much hard work I genuinely put into this class. Money I spent for a fucking tutor. It all went to shit. I don't even know where to begin with my frustration, anger, sadness. I don't understand why he gets good reviews, I dont understand why people just glaze smallberg. I just don't get it. Anytime I walk into the exam room for smallbergs I always have some sort of mini heart attack, or a nervous breakdown. I don't care I'm done with this class.
PS. You wont find out your grades until the end of the quarter, because he takes years to grade. So you can't even know where you went wrong on your projects until after the midterms although he bases some midterm questions off the projects.

If you're in CS32 with Smallberg, you're probably too far down the path to turn back. Well, you can definitely change majors from this class, but nothing I can say in this review will likely save you from this class, unless Nachenberg or someone else is somehow an option.

That being said, here are the most important things I think you need to know!

- My biggest gripe with Smallberg is that he doesn't treat his students right, or at least puts on a bad appearance in front of them. A girl a few rows behind me once asked a question on the midterm and I later saw Smallberg make fun of "how stupid" her question was with some of the TAs, almost right in front of her! He can be quite condescending and late on emails/help. I've found many of my crucial emails completely ignored by him (and I say ignored because I doubt he could overlook ALL the emails I've sent over my two quarters with him).
- He's late with grading, but I bet you probably already knew that since you took CS31. Over a week after the final and we haven't gotten back half our projects and homework. I doubt I'll ever even know my final grade. Given that it's not research papers but coding projects that either work or don't, I really don't understand what's going on, unless he's secretly Batman in his spare time.
- Workload difficulty isn't that bad, but I did shed many tears over the projects. If there was a CS33 (and I mean one modeled like 31 and 32), I would be bald from stress by the end of it. The work does not let up, so don't get tired! Become a machine! Ex. I was in the top 25% of midterm 1 and the bottom 25% of midterm 2.

Overall, yeah, it's pretty bad. I actually really like coding, so too bad I was scared off further coding classes by the sad experiences I've had in this department so far.