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.

Professor Zhang is extremely unclear in her homework directions, her lectures, and her speaking. I had her as a teacher for PIC 10A last winter and this class was significantly worse. She only uses Jupyter Lab files for all of her lectures instead of PDFs which often times made it harder to follow along with, especially when she would get the code wrong and not be able to explain why or correct it. She hardly explains anything in the lessons and responds in a very unhelpful, non-constructive way when someone asks her a question or gives an incorrect answer. Discussions are somewhat helpful, but everything else about this class is unclear and makes no sense, ESPECIALLY the unnecessarily complicated group project that's only worth 10% of the final grade. You're better off skipping the lectures because you're going to have to teach yourself all the material anyway. Awful teacher for an introductory computing class (both PIC 16A and PIC 10A), so if this is your first time coding, please find another professor.

Lectures are just going through a juptyr lab notebook with the relevant code and some commentary. Explanations are not always clear, but professor is still really chill. The other reviewer is overly harsh, it's really not that bad. Go to lecture (not recorded but code is posted), review the material on your own as well, finish discussion worksheets. Homeworks have you solve interesting problems. Same with the group project. Exams are not bad, just make sure you know all the python tricks. We didn't have to write any code on the exam, just write the output/multiple choice. You will learn some machine learning, which is the most interesting part of the class.

I took AP Computer Science A, so I was familiar with some of the concepts. However, the professor was not clear or engaging at all. She basically read off her slides, and her voice was very quiet so it was hard to hear. I didn't pay attention.

The material up to the first midterm was review for me. The first midterm was easy. The second midterm was less easy, but overall still okay. There are many grading schemes, where 40% either midterm 1 or 2 or 20% for each. Since I did great on midterm 1, I didn't have to try on midterm 2. Final was okay, but you aren't able to see what you received. Homework was weekly and was decent length. Discussion wasn't that helpful to me.

Absolutely hated this class. I'm a math/econ major and coding is my least favorite thing to do. Not only is this coding, but it's C++ and Zhang SUCKS at explaining things. I didn't go to lecture after week 2 because I couldn't hear her (she spoke super quietly and had a thick accent with no mic) and it was pointless. She uploaded her slides which were helpful but the exams were awful. Midterm 1 was really easy but midterm 2 and the final were really bad. I had a 97.5 average on my midterms and somehow ended up with a B+ after the final. I never even got my final back to look at so I don't know what my score was. Absolutely hate this class and this professor. Do not take this unless you have no other choice.

Cannot understand this woman at all omg. She also is lowkey an opp just because she is actually is so unhelpful lol. Dont expect to understand a word that she says.

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.

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.