I'm finishing up this course this quarter, and have never felt more unprepared for a final exam. Avoid Zhang if you want a professor you can actually understand speaking English... I stopped going to lecture because she would just read off the slides in whatever sequence she wanted, not like I could understand her anyway. The course material (slides) themselves could also use some work, I used the textbook Big C++ for much of my self-teaching. The slides need to go deeper into syntax and focus less on the unclear examples she recites off.

This is my second time taking this class and I passed! Yay!

Homework: 50%
Midterm: 20%
Final: 30%

Alternative breakdown
Homework: 50%
Final: 50%

She is not the best instructor, but she is okay at introducing topics. She speaks very quietly... I suggest you sit very close to the front to see the slides properly. Take some notes during lecture and review the topics on your own time. It won't be enough to just go to lecture, make sure to read the text book as well. Her slides are based on the textbook.

The best thing you can do to have a higher chance of passing this class is to get 100% on ALL homework assignments. She drops the two lowest scores, but I suggest doing every single homework to be on the safe side. I went to a TA's office hours every week. It is crucial to receive help if you are lost. I could not have done good on the homework without the TA Aryaman Rajesh Gokarn (from syllabus). He was great!

The exams were very fair I would say, but the final was definitely a bit harder than the first because of the topics. I did do better on the final than the midterm, but that is because I started to interact with the topics. For the midterm, I wasn't reviewing any material or testing out different codes on XCode/Visual Studios because the information seemed straightforward. I reviewed the midterm and found my mistakes. I also watched some youtube videos to explain some concepts in more detail. Every little detail matters on the exams so do your best to know what happens in certain situations or code placements.

Good luck!

This class is HARD, coming from someone who has never coded before. This is supposed to be an introductory class, but it is definitely better to have some basis of coding knowledge. The homework is worth 50% of your grade, so in putting in time into that you can help pad your grade, but make sure you are spending time in office hours and discussion sections!

To preference, I had experience with Java going into this course so the material wasn't very difficult to understand at first. Even then, I still showed up to lectures and discussion every day. Her lectures were not helpful or clear, and she would read of the slides. I would show up, take notes on the slides in the beginning of class, and if something didn't make sense I would wait until she got to that part to see if it would clear it up (usually it didn't). I had Talon Stark as a TA and he was AMAZING. Maybe the best TA in the universe. He unfortunately had to leave for two weeks before our final so Jason Brown took over our discussion, and he was also pretty good! Midterm was pretty similar to what was on her slides, but the final was difficult as everything we learned after the midterm was conceptually harder to understand. Overall not the worst class, but if I didn't have any coding experience it would've been ten times worse. Do with that as you will, and rely HEAVILY on your TA.

Let me preface this by saying I had absolutely no CS knowledge before starting this course, like actually none. I'm not even in the math department. Here are the things you need to know:
1. Prof Zhang's grading is actually pretty fair. She had two grading schemes: 50% HW, 20% midterm, 30% final and 50% HW, 50% final. The midterm was in week 7. There are 8 homework assignments in total (one due each week starting week 3) and you can drop two scores. I ended up doing all of them anyway--they are the best way to test if you know the concepts you're supposed to.
2. Her lectures are not very good, but I still recommend going (she does not post the recordings). Her lectures are basically her mumbling off the slides (that she already posts on bruinlearn) and showing a few practice problems in xcode. However, I do think it was easier for me to absorb the information from lecture compared to just reading off slides (I skipped lecture like twice and it was definitely more difficult to learn the content on my own). That being said, I also had no coding background, so if you have some experience I bet you can just skip lecture and read the slides.
3. The homework is doable, even if it seems difficult on first glance. There were no homework assignments that I actually had no idea how to solve. They do require some trial and error, but I don't think they were above the level of what was taught in class. Just make sure to check your code in the PIC lab before submitting if you have a mac like me.
4. The class gets much harder after the midterm. I thought the midterm was very fair -- 3 questions, closed book/note, short answer (find the error, predict the output, and define functions), and on paper, but no content that was not covered in lecture slides. The content itself was also pretty basic. The final, on the other hand, was honestly a mess. The content after the midterm was much more complicated and it felt like I could never understand enough to confidently say what would happen in any given scenario. It was similar to the midterm in that it was closed book/note, short answer and on paper, but there were 7 questions instead of 3 and some questions had concepts that were only vaguely covered (if at all) in lectures.
5. Talk to Prof Zhang. She is definitely not suited to be a lecturer as she seems very introverted, but I do think she was helpful when I asked her questions one on one after lecture. She is very reasonable and will help you look through your code if you just ask.
6. Show up to discussion. The lecture slides have a couple example problems, but not enough to grasp the content fully. Discussion is where you will get the majority of your practice problems, which are really useful for preparing for the midterm/final (I used practice problems from all three TAs to study). Take Jason Brown if possible--he's the best TA I've ever had and is probably the reason my experience in this class was not as negative as some of the other reviewers.
All in all, this class is definitely doable for beginners, but it takes some dedication for sure. I used w3schools for the first few weeks of class to make sure I was really getting all the foundational concepts because it only gets harder as you go, and I recommend all beginners do the same. I would say this class was a decent introduction to programming and it deserves like a 3.8-4/5. Not great, but not the worst either.

She reads off the slides moderately fast with an accent that is slightly difficult to understand (the words kind of blend together). I stopped attending lectures after the first two weeks because going to class was not helping me whatsoever. She posts the slides online, your best bet is to self-teach yourself with those. Luckily my TA (Jason Brown) was much better than the professor and really, really helpful, but if you're taking Zhang please make sure you have a good TA.

The midterm was really easy and covered easy topics, but the final was very difficult and confusing. It was mostly topics we covered after the midterm (in around 3 weeks) and I don't think anyone was adequately prepared.

I also don't recommend taking Zhang if you're a complete beginner to programming ~ I don't know if I could've kept up with the class if I didn't take AP CSA or was a beginner to programming. The assignments for this class are due at 5 pm, so aim to finish them the day before so you have time to go to the PIC Lab and check if they compile on Windows (if you have a Mac). Definitely attend discussion sections and ask your TA if you have any questions, the professor isn't much help ~ I don't know if she understands our questions 😭

Tests are super easy - as long as you understand how Python works, you'll be able to get a 100 for sure. There is a group project, which might be bad if you don't get to know students who are able to code in the class.

Professor unfortunately doesn't teach very well, and was not very helpful when I went to her for homework/project assistance (she told me to just stare at the code and hopefully a solution will come to me later 😭). Relied on TA Chaeyeon all throughout the quarter, she was really great and would try to help you as best as she could!

My advice if you have to take this class with her: hope you get a great TA and consult with them a LOT. Be prepared to self study, especially when you get to the machine learning part.

Horrible teacher but the content is not too hard to self learn. Definitely avoid taking her if possible.