Lectures are very long, but Prof Stahl is excellent. He genuinely cares abou student learning and is very good at explaining concepts. Exams are straightforward, lectures are recorded on Zoom, and practice problems are given.

Take Stahl!!! He's such a great professor! He's super nice, helpful, and really knows his stuff. Sometimes his lectures can get boring, but I assure you, it's worth it for the amount he goes over information because you won't ever walk out super confused. He takes his time to explain stuff with repetition, metaphors, and he makes everything super clear and easy to understand. He's a nice grader, and accepts regrades on tests. The projects aren't nearly as difficult as I thought they would be, usually taking just a few hours (definitely under 10 and you have 2 weeks to do them). An A is definitely manageable as on a lot of the projects, 50%+ students got 100%, and the tests average ~80-85. You get a written/typed cheat sheet: 8x11in front and back for all exams. Overall 10/10 would definitely take this class with him again!

I had Howard for CS31, and I still like him a lot. Again, his lectures are boring sometimes, but he really tries to break things down for you to understand better. He sometimes speaks in his own way (“garbage-y values” “hair pins < >”), so you’ll have to get used to his language because he’s the one writing the exam. He is very helpful in office hours, so if you have any questions go ahead and ask him! Be warned though, he does have his own interpretation of some things (like what quadratic probing is) that may differ from the general definition, but if you bring it up to him he’ll admit the difference and either change his definition or accept both answers. The class should be pretty doable, but a friendly warning is don’t rely on ChatGPT too much because you do need to understand the projects for the exams. And, don’t copy paste your friend’s code! There are consequences for clear cheating (some people in our class got caught… so rip)!!!

Pretty easy class, Tests have a few tricky questions and Stahl makes a lot of grading mishaps, but he is quite accommodating and flexible. Would recommend taking CS 32 with Stahl, especially if you are not very confident in your coding skills

Slow, clear lecturer. Skipped lots of hard topics. Simpler coding problems on exams but enforces syntax memorization and has you memorizing very course-specific implementations, and I don't like that. Raw score only, no curve. Easy projects with skeletons provided. Homework is canvas quizzes, often with tons of mistakes. Exams have a lot of mistakes too. He also taught quadratic probing in a way that goes against the conventions agreed upon by 95% of the internet. He's very kind and responsive when correcting mistakes, however. I wish he included more choice-based, more group-based, and more challenging projects.

PLEASE TAKE ANY CLASS WITH STAHL HE IS THE GOAT!!!

Stahl genuinely cares about his students and is the example of what a College Professor should aim to be. He never leaves you confused and it is always really clear with what he wants. I will say, it was his first time teaching this course so he had mistakes throughout but he was very understanding, and human, as he would always make clear. His projects were pretty chill, maybe a little too easy at times but take advantage of that. I will say, ChatGPT will not help you at all because you have to understand the projects to do well on the exams, and it is also fails a good amount of test cases. Two midterms, a final, 5 projects, and 5 homework quizzes (20 mcq canvas quizzes). Anytime you need help or clarification, whether it's a project, or even an exam, he will always guide you in the right direction so never be afraid to go to his office-hours or ask for help during a test. His lectures are broken down well, and as a visual learner, he did a great job. He does skip over some harder topics like sorting which sucked as it is important and he also is kind of boring at times, but he is just trying to make it understandable and easier to digest. He is also a genuinely down-to-earth guy and fun to just chat with. You can tell he loves what he does and loves his students even more. I know that as he teaches the course more times, he will have fewer mistakes, cover more of the harder topics and have a more streamlined process. 10/10 professor and 10/10 human. Well done!

Definitely easier than CS32 with Smallberg/Nachenberg. The projects (35% of our grade) are almost too easy (although the last 2 are a bit tough) and the homework (15%) is straightforward too. The exams are pretty fair (12.5% for Midterm I, 12.5% for Midterm II, and 25% for the final) and he is lenient with regrade requests. He also gives you 2 bonus points on either midterm 1 or 2 depending on if you actually go to section. His lectures can be pretty boring at times but he records them so watching them at 2X speed is recommended in addition to going to his office hours which are helpful. The TAs can be pretty dogshit, not going to lie. Mine barely spoke English and would buffer in real-time. However, Stahl's class is not super difficult and is 100% doable. You can definitely get an A in his CS32 class, which is supposedly a weeder too. I would take it again.

Pros: Howard fits in perfectly next to Smallberg and Nachenberg for an absolutely stacked CS32 teaching core. If you have the correct habits (going to lectures, participating in discussions, starting projects early) this class feels strangely too easy. For a class sometimes described as a weeder, Howard is so straight forward, logical, and clear that learning comes easy and besides making cheat sheets for midterms and finals I didn't even study. There is also no debate that Howard's projects and exams are easier than Smallberg and Nachenberg's but knowing many people that have taken CS32 with those professors I wouldn't say they knew any concepts or programmed any better than me after taking Howard. Definitely my favorite class I've taken at UCLA so far.

Cons: Some found his lectures a little boring and slow paced. Also, since it was his first time teaching CS32, he had mistakes in homework, projects specs, and exams.

Grading:
20% Homework
30% Projects
12.5% Midterm 1
12.5% Midterm 2
25% Final
Extra Credit for Participation in Discussion (Very Small)

Goated professor for this class. He teaches in a way that makes everything very clear and easy to follow. Tests were very reasonable and the projects were not too bad, just don’t wait until the last minute and they should go well.

Pros: he's extremely nice, he's a good lecturer, he made it clear what was covered on the exams, he was very approachable, the projects weren't too difficult

Cons: I felt he didn't go into enough depth on some of the topics (hashing, sorting, searching, etc.), which makes me feel less prepared for upper divs/interviews