Professor
Omid Abari
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2025 - I'm going to write a fair and honest review of Professor Abari—even though I believe some aspects of the course were very unfair. Professor Abari, if you're reading this, get ready—I'm just stating the truth. Let’s start with the positives: Professor Abari clearly puts effort into his lectures. Up through week 8, his explanations were solid and engaging, often connecting course concepts to real-world applications. If I had to rate his teaching for the first 7 weeks of the quarter, I’d give it a strong 9/10. I genuinely learned a lot—both in and out of the syllabus—and up to that point, this was one of my favorite CS classes at UCLA. We had 4 assignments, each worth 10%. At the end of each assignment, we got a set of extra practice problems, and it turns out those were essential for passing the exams, because that was pretty much all the practice we got. The problem is, after week 8, we didn’t get any practice — so most of us didn’t know how to apply the later material. Things went downhill after the midterm. Apparently, he gives the same midterm every year, and I only found out about this after taking it. The average was 13/15, and I didn’t have access to past exams beforehand. For the final, I tried finding past finals and even reached out to other students, but barely anyone was willing to share. After the exam, I found out it was almost identical to the previous year’s final. The final was HARDD! Most of the final focused on weeks 8–10—the hardest part of the course—and we had almost no practice on that content. We spent 2–3 weeks at the beginning doing basic material with tons of examples, but weeks 9 and 10 felt rushed. It didn’t feel like we had enough time or support to really grasp those topics. Yes, he did give a little extra time for students who needed it, and said there would be a curve. But here’s the issue: The “curve” is the worst part of this class. It was completely backwards. If you got a B-, you basically got nothing. But if you got a C, you got bumped two letter grades to a B-. And if you got a C+, you got bumped one letter grade to a B-. How is that fair? So people who put in less effort ended up with the same grade as people who worked way harder? I will never forgive him for that. When we emailed him about it, we all got the same copy-pasted response: “The distribution of grades was already good (half or more than half of the class was A range), therefore the curve did not really help for those who got over ~B. They just got +1%, and for some students that +1% hasn't changed the letter grade. However, if the grade was really low, the curve has helped a little bit more. Hope this is clarifying.” A “little bit more” being a two letter grade jump? Okay sure... Also, his email replies are usually incomplete—just a few words, not full sentences. Piazza was basically dead; the TAs barely responded and their office hours weren’t helpful either. This class started off as one of my favorites and ended up giving me nightmares. Advice to future students: - Find past exams. Seriously. The exams barely change year to year. - Practice, practice, practice. Assignments are your only source of preparation. - Double your study time for the final. Especially for weeks 8–10. - Be ready to memorize a lot. No cheat sheet allowed—which honestly feels unnecessary. Even a small index card would help.
Winter 2025 - I'm going to write a fair and honest review of Professor Abari—even though I believe some aspects of the course were very unfair. Professor Abari, if you're reading this, get ready—I'm just stating the truth. Let’s start with the positives: Professor Abari clearly puts effort into his lectures. Up through week 8, his explanations were solid and engaging, often connecting course concepts to real-world applications. If I had to rate his teaching for the first 7 weeks of the quarter, I’d give it a strong 9/10. I genuinely learned a lot—both in and out of the syllabus—and up to that point, this was one of my favorite CS classes at UCLA. We had 4 assignments, each worth 10%. At the end of each assignment, we got a set of extra practice problems, and it turns out those were essential for passing the exams, because that was pretty much all the practice we got. The problem is, after week 8, we didn’t get any practice — so most of us didn’t know how to apply the later material. Things went downhill after the midterm. Apparently, he gives the same midterm every year, and I only found out about this after taking it. The average was 13/15, and I didn’t have access to past exams beforehand. For the final, I tried finding past finals and even reached out to other students, but barely anyone was willing to share. After the exam, I found out it was almost identical to the previous year’s final. The final was HARDD! Most of the final focused on weeks 8–10—the hardest part of the course—and we had almost no practice on that content. We spent 2–3 weeks at the beginning doing basic material with tons of examples, but weeks 9 and 10 felt rushed. It didn’t feel like we had enough time or support to really grasp those topics. Yes, he did give a little extra time for students who needed it, and said there would be a curve. But here’s the issue: The “curve” is the worst part of this class. It was completely backwards. If you got a B-, you basically got nothing. But if you got a C, you got bumped two letter grades to a B-. And if you got a C+, you got bumped one letter grade to a B-. How is that fair? So people who put in less effort ended up with the same grade as people who worked way harder? I will never forgive him for that. When we emailed him about it, we all got the same copy-pasted response: “The distribution of grades was already good (half or more than half of the class was A range), therefore the curve did not really help for those who got over ~B. They just got +1%, and for some students that +1% hasn't changed the letter grade. However, if the grade was really low, the curve has helped a little bit more. Hope this is clarifying.” A “little bit more” being a two letter grade jump? Okay sure... Also, his email replies are usually incomplete—just a few words, not full sentences. Piazza was basically dead; the TAs barely responded and their office hours weren’t helpful either. This class started off as one of my favorites and ended up giving me nightmares. Advice to future students: - Find past exams. Seriously. The exams barely change year to year. - Practice, practice, practice. Assignments are your only source of preparation. - Double your study time for the final. Especially for weeks 8–10. - Be ready to memorize a lot. No cheat sheet allowed—which honestly feels unnecessary. Even a small index card would help.
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2024 - Do not take this class! Can you imagine a graduate course professor will give any students grades lower than B-? This is the first professor I've seen in the graduate department that will ever give students a C. Me and my teammates went to every single lecture, and we completed all assignments, project, and the exam, and ended up getting C's. Funny though, he even claimed that he gave us 2% extra credit. What's the point of that? He didn't value student's efforts at all.
Fall 2024 - Do not take this class! Can you imagine a graduate course professor will give any students grades lower than B-? This is the first professor I've seen in the graduate department that will ever give students a C. Me and my teammates went to every single lecture, and we completed all assignments, project, and the exam, and ended up getting C's. Funny though, he even claimed that he gave us 2% extra credit. What's the point of that? He didn't value student's efforts at all.
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