Overall the other reviews put it pretty well. There’s a bit of reading for every lecture that explains things really well and you should definitely read it. Be careful with the discussion though because some TAs make a big difference. I had Victor Zhang but I would not reccomend. Instead, if Salekh is TAing definitely go to his section instead he’s the goat. His section was always packed.

Great class for CS 111. I really liked how the lectures for this class were all recorded, and the exams were conducted entirely remotely. This meant that I never had to physically attend class (which would be quite a pain since lectures occur at 8 am).

This course is tough, don't get me wrong. As the previous reviewers have mentioned, 100 pages of dense OS textbook reading a week. On top of that, you also have the lectures to rewatch and 5 projects that involve programming in C. I easily spent at least 10 hours a week on this class alone.

Professor Reiher is a very clear lecturer and always answers students' questions in a timely manner either on the Zoom chat or on Piazza. In addition, the labs this quarter were incredibly straightforward, as the TA's used Professor Eyolfson's labs. None of the labs were particularly difficult, and most of them took no more than 6-7 hours. I can definitely see how just a few years ago, one taking Reiher's CS 111 could easily spend over 20-25 hours a week on this course alone.

Exams were all multiple choice and remote (and timed, where you choose a 2 hour time period to take the test from a 24 hour window). That being said, you still need to know your stuff to do well on the tests. Many of the test questions were in the form of "Select all that apply," so it's essential to do the readings, take good notes on them, and study for the tests. I can see how one could get away with skipping some of the readings and then frantically Ctrl-F their way through the readings on the day of the exam looking for answers. But to save yourself stress, it's best to do the readings and watch the lectures ahead of time as recommended by Professor Reiher himself.

I somehow ended up just shy of a 93 percent in the class (like 0.1 percent away), yet still ended up with an A. Really thankful that Professor Reiher decided to bump my grade up!

Like the other reviewer said, the TAs this quarter used Eyolfsen's labs which were pretty straightforward. The lectures were at 8am but he recorded all of them so it was less of a pain. The exams were heavily based on the concepts and the assigned reading that were assigned each lecture (sometimes almost 100 pages per lecture!). However, since the exams were online and open-book, I didn't end up doing the reading and did fine on the exams.

The TA's in my quarter used the famed Eyolfson labs, so the majority of the class should be pretty straightforward. Midterm and final were 3 hour time limit that could be taken in a 24 hour window, online multiple choice, open book, open notes.

I really enjoyed the class, since it goes a lot into what I was curious about how computers worked. It follows the open source OSTEP textbook, which goes through virtualization (how to make many processes think they have control over the computer), concurrency, and persistence. Reiher also goes a bit into distributed systems and security towards the end of the quarter. The last couple weeks felt like an introduction for what upper div software CS would be like, which I liked

OSTEP Textbook is *phenomenal*. I used it to study for job interviews way after the course was over (and did get an offer from one of those interviews lol).
Reiher is a great lecturer, but even more important, his slides are great for studying and referencing during lecture. Projects are pretty time-consuming, comparable to most other project-based CS classes, but TAs are incredibly helpful during discussions, showing us how to set up the skeleton, what proper functioning looks like, etc.
Would take again with Reiher 10/10

Reiher is a no-nonsense professor. He gives his lectures in a very straightforward and matter-of-fact style, no jokes or humor or anything unrelated to class content. So I wouldn't exactly call him an engaging lecturer, but he is very articulate and clear, while also going through material relatively fast. His lecture slides are detailed and contain most of the information you need.

The workload in this class is tough, I think it deserves its reputation for the most part. Every week there is a project, most of them take 10-20 hours. In addition, expect to sink another 5-10 hours per week into doing readings and taking notes on them. The key to success in this class is taking meticulous notes on everything.

The difficulty of this class stems from the workload and breadth of material, not the conceptual aspects. There is comparatively little critical thinking when it comes to the tests. Doing well on those mostly comes down to how well you retain the readings or lectures (or how good the notes you took are). Overall, probably the best you can expect for 111, as other reviews have said.

Excellent professor. Best you can ask for in CS 111. Speaks clearly during lectures, covers topics in a timely manner, and allows students to ask questions whenever they desire. Readings are thiqq but they're the same with every professor. Same deal for the projects. Online tests were tricky because they were multiple choice with "select all that apply" types of questions, but the topics were always covered in lecture/readings. Take Reiher if you can.

I took this class online during spring quarter, and boy oh boy were the all-new CCLE timed multiple choice style tests a doozy in comparison with the standard all-free-response style midterm and final that is usually administered. Study hard and study well, because you'll be faced with mostly "Select all of the following that apply" type of questions with options a-f, and every little detail counts. The nice thing is that Professor Reiher gives out grades based on natural breaks (like how Corbin grades his physics classes), so many people who got low scores ended up with good grades in the class.

In terms of the projects, the TAs for the class graded much more leniently than the TAs for 35L, and you get to test your code with a "sanity script" that supposedly only checks for barebones functionality (although for certain projects, I'm pretty sure the TAs just use the sanity script to grade). I personally thought the projects were easier than 35L (especially compared to Aaron's 9th week project if you know what I mean), but don't be fooled into thinking you can breeze through them.

Also remember -- don't fall behind on the readings.

This class should be two classes. CS 111 had the most readings of any course I've taken at UCLA, and the projects were very unforgiving. The only saving grace for this course was that the midterm and final were fairly manageable so long as you did the readings, but there's so much to cover that you'll likely lose points here-and-there depending on the strictness of the graders. Reiher is also a good professor so I recommend taking CS 111 with him if you can. Also, don't trick yourself into thinking that taking it over the summer can make it easier. This may be the case with other courses but for us we had project due dates packed so closely together that the 2nd to last project was due the day of the final exam and the last project was due less than a week later with a hard deadline.

tl;dr CS Major Beware, You're In For A Scare

Despite hearing he is easier than other professors teaching this course, I still found the workload to be a ridiculous amount. 100+ pages of dense OS reading every week, alongside large projects that have nothing to do with the lectures. It's like they are two different classes. Professor Reiher tried his best to squeeze a course designed for a semester system into our very own rubbish quarter system, and the students pay the price. It's like CS kids aren't allowed to do anything besides study lol