Let's start off with the good: if you have a background in networking or are very passionate about the subject, you should do fine in this class. Varghese's course is chalk full of networking information that he claims he helped start and that you can't find anywhere else but in his class. In turn, he treats this course like a graduate level course. Got questions? Figure it out with your peers. Question on the grading? Not his problem. Solutions to past finals for study material? Sorry, he doesn't have time. He is an absolutely terrible professor and he's not afraid to make that fact clear. Homeworks are written hastily with grammar and formatting issues and projects are open-ended with very little guidance. Grading is extremely slow with literally zero feedback (they gave us a score and no explanation of why we lost points). I'd say out of all the TA's, Victor Rios is the only one who genuinely cares for the students. His discussion sections are insightful and he's always available. I'd recommend avoiding other TAs as they always seemed to be too busy to help with questions. Expect to do alot of self-googling and/or reading the textbook. Ironically, his so-called one-of-a-kind material is easily accesible from other, more informative sources on Youtube (much of my studying was from these videos as opposed to his garbage-tier 2 hour rambles). I was fooled into taking this class due to its many positive reviews, so if you don't already have an affinity for networking, I recommend you take someone else.

He's like the michael scott of the cs department. He means really well and is super passionate about the material, but he's disorganized and often times oblivious. Still enjoyed the class and think its worth taking with him.

This was a very organized class with clear lectures! I always felt like I had the support I needed. (Copy and paste this comment to Bruinwalk to claim your position at Cisco. Remove words in parentheses before posting. Offer expires 12/31/2022. Restrictions apply.)

Jokes aside (these reviews are hilarious, but I don't think he pushed the Cisco agenda on us much this quarter), it's just not a well organized class. Like the other reviews say, I think if you're passionate about networking or are quick to pick up abstract concepts, this class will be fine for you. But between the very ugly slides, the mediocre lectures, and lack of professor support outside of class, it wasn't a very engaging class for someone who is new to networking. The TAs were helpful and would provide help when needed. That being said, grades were fairly generous curved this quarter, so I'm glad they acknowledge the class's design and its shortcomings. And I don't think the staff ever made any "unfair" decisions or seemed like they were actively trying to make out lives harder. My biggest problems were mostly with organization and s o m a n y typos everywhere. Not sure how the other professors stack up to George, doesn't seem like there's really a "best" quarter to take it. Overall, can be really frustrating at times, but definitely doable even for someone like me who came in and left with little networking knowledge.

The workload is not as heavy as many other CS courses. Coming to class is really important because this course doesn't have a required textbook and the lecture notes he provides are very vague and unorganized. It is really hard to study from the lecture notes, so be prepared to take your own notes in class. Different discussion sections may teach different contents and recordings are not provided, which is pretty ridiculous.

Varghese is the man for 118. Great lectures, manageable material. Things start to get a little confusing at the end but that's more the nature of the material then anything to do with George. Tests are fair, definitely would recommend going to lecture and taking the time to understand the HWs. All in all one of the better CS classes I've taken at UCLA.

He did a great job!

I didn't get a high grade in this class, but to me grade is not important than the knowledge. He taught this class very well and I am quite confident on my knowledge thanks to him.

The only issue we had in this class was programming project. In fact, that's the reason of my low grade. The assignment testing part was not clear. I wrote the code, but I wasn't sure that's what they wanted. No where in spec was mentioned about testing. A week after submission deadline, some students told me that the code was supposed to produce a file and that file should have contained all communications.

Nonetheless, I recommend you to take his class because he teaches well and he told us that he will come up with better testing tools for programming assignment or make some changes to it.

Your "A" is guaranteed, if you attend the lectures and do homework!!

Additionally, you will gain some knowledge that is useful.

Amazing Professor. Hard to make it to all his 8am's but the lectures are so worth it. You could learn the material from the notes and slides he uploads but he is such a good lecturer you wouldn't want to miss it. Go to lectures, start the project early, read the lecture notes he uploads to study, and you should do just fine.

Such an amazing professor, I'm very glad that I have taken him. Make sure not to miss the lectures and the reading notes he posts.

Varghese is the man to take CS 118 with. The only complaint I have is that it's an 8 am but his engaging lectures will keep you awake. He was extremely helpful during office hours and made sure to answer every student's questions. After taking this class, you will come out with a solid understanding of how the internet works. Start the projects and homeworks early, read the slides and notes, go to office hours, and you should have no problem earning a good grade.

Varghese is a fantastic professor. He genuinely cares about his students learning the materials and is generally very understanding and accommodating. His slides and lecture notes are both posted on CCLE but its worth going to class since he explains things well. He's pretty receptive to student feedback and has gone back to re-do previous lecture topics that students probably didn't get the first time around.

Homeworks and projects are a little tricky (the project more so). Absolutely start early on the project - it seems like you get a lot of time but it's very time consuming to set up the VM, do the actual coding, test your code, etc.

Tests are a little tricky but Varghese is extremely helpful during exams. There's always a long line to ask him questions and he always gives genuinely helpful advice (sometimes even giving big hints to questions).

Absolutely take CS118 with him if you can.