Mani's M16 is a lot of work. This was the first class EVER to make me cry, although that might have been from the pandemic. Still can't believe how stressful this class was for me and made me feel like I was failing until I saw that final grade. He expects hard work from his students but also works really hard himself. He's willing to hold extra office hours over zoom to answer questions and help you debug. His quizzes are a timed disaster, but in the end they won't hurt your final grade too much, as he has many grading schemes choices. His lectures can be a little long to sit through but they are worth the time. The projects can take very VERY long, so really do start early. Overall, this class is one of the more organized ones I took this online quarter (but also made me cry)

This class was very tough, but also very rewarding. Professor Mani put in a lot of work to transition the class to the online format, and it definitely shows. Expect to spend a lot of time on the design assignments, especially the later ones. The quizzes were very tough, but the curve was generous as most of us got lot scores. I would recommend reading the textbook, as the lecture draws a lot from the chapters, and it helps to get exposed to the concepts twice, especially later in the quarter when it gets more complicated. During this online quarter, there were multiple grading schemes, and the best grade overall was chosen. I learned a lot from this class, and Professor Mani is a great teacher.

Honestly it really depends- if you are an EE major and really interested in digital system stuff, then be prepared for hard work and go ahead and take this class. But if you are a CS major just taking this class to fulfill requirements- then wait for another professor's M51A or M16 PLEASE. Mani is a super nice guy and very very passionate about teaching. His lectures are really inspirational and he interacts a lot with students via piazza, answering almost all questions on his own. He is super willing to help, so take him if you are really interested in the topic.

OK here let's see something about the course. The first 7 or 8 weeks of the quarter is nice- almost no homework, only things to do is understand what is going on in lectures. But the last two weeks are driving me crazy. There is a project due every week in the last few weeks, not including the finals week since there is another final project.. It really takes a lot of time and efforts, especially when everybody is under the stress of other finals, etc. For the quizzes, I think the professor is really expecting you to go though every corner of the class materials carefully. And the time is very very tight- something around 30 min 15 questions.

Prof. Srivastava was very passionate about teaching. He puts in effort to hold extra office hours and responds to Piazza questions extremely quickly, sometimes very bluntly but still gets the point across well. Towards the middle of the course pacing ramped up and quizzes were definitely hard, but grading scheme was generous and TAs helped a lot with projects. Participation was counted if you showed up to class or office hours or posted on Piazza, pretty sure everyone got full marks. Would recommend his class but definitely be ready to put in the work and be patient!

Professor Srivastava is probably one of the most helpful professors that I've met so far at UCLA - he was constantly on Piazza, and willing to answer most of the questions that the students have. His lectures do lack some clarity, but the overall concept becomes clear with a little self-study. My decision of taking this class on P/NP wasn't due to the quality of his teaching though - I accidentally took too many classes, so I changed this class to P/NP so that I don't mess other classes up. If possible, taking this class on letter grade would be the most sensible option since the materials are quite important for EE majors. Like some other posts suggested, I would recommend taking this course with him only if you're someone who truly enjoys digital systems, since he gives out tons of work towards the end of the quarter. Otherwise, taking this course with other professor would alleviate a lot of pressure.

I really don't understand how this professor has such good reviews. A lot of them say that he is a very 'nice' and 'helpful' guy, but in actuality he is anything but. I don't even believe we had a single thing to hand in until week 4, which may sound nice but really isn't, as this is a topic that you really can only begin to understand through actually doing it. We only had about 6 things total due this entire quarter, including 2 exams and the final. During our final exam (which we had all of finals week to complete), the professor kept on changing his mind on certain guidelines in a very unclear way, and students rightfully kept on asking him to clarify what was and wasn't allowed on Piazza. In response to students asking questions, the professor essentially shut down Piazza for the final exam, by forcing you to read through 50 messages of his before asking a question, none of these messages which seemed to really clarify the questions at hand.
Also, good luck making friends in this class to help you out with understanding things, as the professor has the strictest collaboration policy of any that I have seen so far in my time at UCLA. If you are caught collaborating on even a homework in any way, you get an immediate 0 in the course followed by a report to administration.
All in all, I would recommend taking this class with a different professor.

I'm a CS major, and I found this class EXTREMELY DIFFICULT, but Mani is actually a very good professor. I recommend this class only if you are an EE major that wants to master the material.

There are weekly homework sets and design problems that are helpful, but also very time consuming. They are graded rather harshly, so double check everything.

The midterm was very difficult, and per his grading policy, you have to get a C on the tests to pass the class, so some people were forced to drop out half way through the quarter. The average was low, and curved up to a C. The final was super difficult, encompassing the hardest problems from the course. I was one of 2 people to get an A+ in the class.

The test format is part short answer, where you lose points for guessing the wrong answer (yes- you can get a negative score), and challenge problems similar to the homework.

Mani records videos of all the lectures and posts them, as well as the slides, online. They are very helpful.

He recommends a textbook, but it is useless. Don't get it.

What saved me was the TA- Elmalaki was a GOD-TIER TA, and she gave life saving discussion sections really.

There is an optional final project that is to program a combinational lock in verilog. This was very time consuming and difficult, but VERY worth it, as it replaces a large portion of the final grade.

One of the hardest classes I have taken at UCLA ever. M16 is supposed to be easy but his classes are incredibly difficult. He gives homework packets that take 8-10 hours and some were too thick to staple.

His tests were incredibly difficult, tricky, and require you to figure things out on the test. He gives design projects that are the most difficult things I have done since Project 3 in CS32.

That said, he is very effective. My friends who took this class previously didn't know how to do my first homework set, they never had to do design projects, and they were confused why my class was so difficult. Afterwards you will completely understand the subject, but you will also lose a chunk of your sanity.

Reviews are right about the assignment schedule, we had two 30-minute problem sets and 1 quiz in the first 8 weeks (basically nothing for the first weeks). Class material is not hard, and he tries to upload lectures. Most of his lectures were uploaded, but sometimes just looking at the lecture slides he provides is easier. He had a very generous late policy, giving 7 late days to spread out on a total of 3 assignments. However, the two design assignments had, one serving as the final, were slightly confusing to understand, and his Autograder was pretty rigid with errors so if anyone misunderstood the spec they just got 0's on the performance part of the grade. (I think a lot of students did this because the means were always like 15/40). Anyways, he curves/makes adjustments in order not to fail half of the class. He also grades on area cost (best score is used as baseline), so there was pretty cutthroat competition for about 20% of the grade. Wasn't too sure if I was failing the class or getting an A until the final grades came out, but I guess it worked out. Since you're reading this, I think you should be okay taking this class if you have no other choice. Know what to expect in the last two weeks and start early on the design assignments so you can ask questions about the spec.

To preface this, I've had bad professors before. but Prof. Srivastava is far and away the worst professor I have ever have the displeasure of being instructed by.

- His class grading scheme is needlessly complicated, always leaving you wondering whether your going to pass or not.

- His lectures barley manage to keep me awake, and I was excited to take this class. Half the class even bothers to show up, he's lucky he isn't teaching to an empty room. He also records and uploads his lectures on a "when I feel like it" basis, so good luck if you have time conflict.

- His piazza posts are grating and unhelpful, most of them can be summed up by the line "read the assignment". I find this funny since to receive credit for piazza posts (yes, part of your grade is dependent on being active on piazza) you need to make at least 50 contributions.

- Speaking of dumb requirements, part of your grade is dependent on attending office hours! Office hour attendance and piazza account for 5% of your total grade.

- The first 5 weeks of the quarter had no assignments/homework to speak of. I'm usually not one to complain about a lack of homework, so what gives? Well, we still had to do a full quarters worth of work (what would the class be graded on?), just dumped in the last 4 weeks, and further concentrated in the final 2 weeks of instruction. What a great way to end off the year!

- His quizzes (some might call them midterms) are unreasonably difficult. Expect the average to be around a 30 to 40%. You won't receive any partial credit for large, multipart questions (obviously). I guess the only saving grace about these quizzes is that they are online and curved. But really, being online is just more justification for making the quizzes even more difficult.

- The design assignments, or really design assignment, was honestly the only part of this class I almost enjoyed. It probably would have been more fun if it wasn't dropped at the end of the quarter, without ANY prior experience in the design software we where meant to use. The single design assignment was supposed to be 2 assignments done throughout the quarter, so that we could gain some experience with the design software before trying the hard stuff. But it wasn't.

- The final was so ridiculously hard, I barely made it out with a working solution. If I hadn't taken multiple CS classes beforehand I don't think the assignment would have been possible. Luckily, your grade is not only dependent on how well you did, but also how well everyone else did! So even if you have a working solution, someone else with a better solution can come along and steal 20% of your grade!

To conclude, I'd like to address the Prof. directly:

Your class sucks, cry about it.