Boring class.

Took it with TA Sam Lee
definitely made it easier for me!
GOAT

I took this class in Winter 2022, and it was really different from what you'd expect from a class. The class is entirely run by the TA. I didn't even see the professor once. Also, I don't know why we have to take this class. It's literally useless. You'll find that the projects aren't too hard, but you can get into trouble by running into 1000 problems with their outdated software. I had Samuel Lee for this class, who was extremely helpful and lenient. I talked to my friends from the other sections, and they mentioned that they were simply given the spec and instructed to read it themselves and do the projects. Sam studies all the projects and picks out parts that he thinks will be difficult for us, and he legit made an entire slide deck going over difficult concepts and how we should do the projects. He's also super reasonable, so if you go to his office hours and talk to him, he's likely to help you out. I give the class a 7/10 cause the class sucked, but the overall experience wasn't bad.

You should expect 4 labs. The first two labs are fairly easy. The third lab might wreck you, but if you go to office hours you can survive. The fourth lab is a project of your choice (HINT: CHOOSE AN EASY PROJECT GUYS).

Boring and useless class. But like what others said, a good TA (and parter) will save you tons of effort. The projects are fairly easy and the spec is mostly clear (unlike the shitty 152B). You can find past solutions online. Writing reports is tedious, time-consuming but not difficult. For the final project which you can make on your own, I suggest working on something simple, because a complicated one will not bring you much grade boost and will likely cause trouble.

Fuck this class. It's fucking useless.

This class is an entirely TA-run lab, and your grading is entirely dependent on your TA. I had Tang, who was goated. This class is doing 4 verilog labs, with the fourth being a final project. They're all basically based on completion, it just takes time and sucks to write Verilog. Pretty boring and useless class, had a cool lab partner which made it better.

Class is fun and easy albeit pretty useless.
Being good at M51A helps.

There isn't much guidance.

This is a lab class taught entirely by the TA. We had four lab that were one in Verilog, with the last one being a large final project. Each lab had its own guide pdf for what to do. We followed those and the TA walked around the classroom being available for questions. Verilog is annoying and the labs are time-consuming, but my group (you work in groups for this class) was able to get everything done in class, only attending office hours once or twice.

(These ratings are for Tyler Albarran because this class is entirely run by TAs and not Majid)

Tyler is the best TA! Take this class with him if you can. He's very helpful and knowledgeable. Yes, there are lots of issues with this class, including the deprecated software and buggy hardware, but I actually greatly enjoyed taking his lab section.

All the labs 1-3 are very reasonable and can be done without external help or extra time outside of class. Lab 4 is where you create your own project and can not be completed in time without going to office hours. Be warned: there are huge lines, especially during the last week before the lab is due. People were waiting in the hallways for up to a few hours before Tyler implemented a policy to randomly kick out one lab group every 30 minutes.

Overall, not too bad, but the whole course is in serious need of a refresher.

shuwen qiu my queen