- Very good class
- 8-9 homeworks that take 25-40 hours each depending on how smart you are
- difficult material
- disgustingly hard final that everyone thinks they failed on, only to end up with an B to an A in the class
- if you put genuine effort into the homeworks and at least try to write something for each question on the final you'll get at least a B in the class
- lecturer speaks quietly and monotonously but the explanations make a lot of sense if you can pay attention

Amazing class but make sure you take the prereqs first. Insanely hard.

I took this class as an undergrad. Really good class if you're interested in the topic, and you're learning it from one of the authors of the book. Clear lectures, slides and book are also a good second resource. Homeworks are difficult but you learn a lot of interesting and useful things. Do the extra bonus problems as practice, they are very useful and help prepare you for the final. Final is difficult but the class is curved well. I thought I would do worse than the grad students in the class (since they can drop week 10 friday... typically the remaining grad students are quite sharp!) but this was definitely not the case. Study hard and you will do well. It is hard and the final will creep up on you so recommend taking this class with a schedule that doesn't have a lot of finals or you will actually hate life. As an undergrad, recommend taking 133A with vandenberghe before unless you feel quite comfortable with matrix algebra. 236A is useless and a waste of time.