Got my grade back and I got an A. Great professor in retrospect.

Pros:

Good lecturer, obviously knows her stuff and can explain a lot of things

Excellent homework, takes a short period of time (unlike some teachers that assign homework that takes FOREVER) but really checks to see if you understand the material.

Grades are fair

Encourages you to work hard. You HAVE to read the book and really understand networking and the class if you want to do well.

Cons:

Projects are pretty epic. Haven't spent that much time on a project class since 111. Especially the second project. Make sure you know your forks and mutexes before you go into this class or you are up a creek, no paddle, and lots of sharks.

Recommendation:

Yes! Take her, you will learn a ton about networking. Just be committed to the class.

Tips:

Understand how TCP SYN/ACK works, seq, ack numbers, flags. How DNS works, the differences between the protocols, and just overall networking ideas like how switches operate at the ethernet/frame/link-level and how that differs from how routers work via IP addresses.

Start early on the projects.

Read the book.

Liked her lectures, she's good with questions. A nice person who tries to make a fairly boring subject interesting.

Her grading is fairly flat, split 25% for midterm, final, homework, and projects. This means you have to be on top of your shit the whole quarter. None of that whole do-well-on-the-final-get-A business.

I ended up doing really well on both projects and the final, but bombed the midterm and the homeworks. Didn't get my grade back, but I'm really hoping for an A- (B+ is pretty reasonable too I guess).

For 118:
Do expect to spend a good chunk of time on it. Networking takes time to learn and is not something you can just mess around with. Having a good fundamental understanding of networking is how you do well on Zhang's tests, because they test you on your in-depth understanding of the material.

Take this class with M117 if you can, it's enlightening to take two networking classes at the same time and you can approach the subject from top (applications-level) down and bottom (physical) up.

Pretty horrible lectures. She's smart, of course. But not a good lecturer.

HW is easy.. google is your reference if you get stuck.

HW and exams and reasonable and pretty easy. Just know whats kinda going on and have the slides on you (im pretty sure the slides came with the textbook).

Projects are pretty tough. Especially the second one. They are from Stanford and the servers were down until 10th week which left 10th week and finals week to work on it (project due Sunday after graduation). Most of the stuff needed for the project is taught at the end of the class too so an earlier start is hard.

I heard other prof who teaches 118 assigns way easier projects so i'd probably try and avoid Zhang if i could go back a year.

She's not all that bad though..

I'm somewhat surprised at the amount of negative reviews. Coming into this class without a networking background, and actually dreading it, it turned out to be not so bad thanks to Prof. Zhang.

Her lectures and the class in general are well organized- you always know what what to expect and where things are going. I appreciate that she always comes back to the big picture to put things in perspective. Even if some details are hazy, at least you don't feel completely lost.

Exams are reasonable, they give out a fair amount of prep materials so you're not caught off guard. Weekly homeworks are pretty easy-mostly there to keep you on up to pace with the material. Projects are well-designed. But, get an early start on project 2 (the router).

Yes, lectures can be mildly boring, but it's networking. What do you want her do? She's enthusiastic, and I found the subject more interesting with her than I had before taking the class. She's also very approachable and welcoming to students asking questions or seeking extra help. If you're going to take networking, I'd easily recommend her.

Not quite sure why Zhang has such a low professor rating. Sure she has an accent but there are definitely worse professors out there. She posts all her slides online which are extremely helpful.

The midterm and final were all very fair and nothing that you don't expect. Homework was worth a good portion and was extremely easy considering all the questions are easily google-able. The second project was a bit tough but the overall grading for the course was fairly lenient.

This class is definitely doable.

The other evaluation is out dated. Check the date and you see.

Book: Computer Networking 5th

the book is terrible. It offers superficial information and ton of analogy to explain what network is. It barely tells you about anything that could help you do the projects. You has to buy it because your professor teaches directly out of the book by using the slide from book resource.

Professor:

She uses slides and her slides are sometimes ambiguous (I won't tell you where, you just has to read and see). You can't use it for reference. Yes, the slides isn't hers. It is from book resource. For lecture, she basically read off the slide. Book is superficial, guess what slide will be. Superficial. Detail is ignore from the slide. Guess what she is lecturing. Superficial. Therefore, guess what the exam will be? detail. and detail that is ignore from the slide, lecture, and book.

Good luck taking cs 118 with her. That is sarcasm.