Class is recorded but discussions are mandatory and she gives extra credit quizzes during lecture.

this class is very different from cs31 + cs32 (not necessarily more difficult though). personally, I thought it was less workload than cs32, but conceptually more difficult but it really depends on what you like to learn. a lot of the time, it feels that we're learning about unrelated topics and it's not really clear how to solve problems for tests during the initial lectures. sometimes Batista does in class slido quizzes (not for a grade) for extra practice or extra credit which is helpful. discussions are super helpful for test problems, lab (project) help, and most of the learning honestly. so even though you only have to go to ~50% of the discussions, you should try to go as much as you can. also, unlike cs31 + cs32, the discussion worksheets are mandatory to submit for completeness/effort.

I LOVE THIS PROFESSOR!!! My fav professor!! Guys choose this professor!!!! As long as you put effort on this class, you will GET AN A!! (CS31)

Prof. Batista really cares about her students and if you go to every lecture this is almost a guaranteed A since she answers a lot of student questions in class. Also this class is recorded.

honestly lectures are sleepy but they're recorded, tho sometimes random extra credit opportunities are thrown in live. discussions are basically mandatory a certain number of times (form a group with other ppl, and at least 2 must be present per disc, and each person has a minimum number they must attend.) labs are fine, support online. midterm was snork mimimi ez but i personally found the final pretty difficult. curved at the end. batista is supportive and responsive to students

Most understanding professor I've had. Lecture participation goes a long way. Would highly recommend.

batista was certainly a good professor, and i generally enjoyed this class. this is a really involved class, with mandatory discussions (you have to form groups of 4-5 and every week at least 2 of you must go which is annoying), weekly homework, and some extra credit quizzes. the extra credit quizzes are only announced in class so if this is something you care about i'd go, she also explains things in pretty good detail in class. the midterm was pretty chill (mean 75) but the final was HARD. i think towards the end of the class the topics get more complicated and i think the homeworks are not the best at helping understand those, so it was a really confusing exam. in the end, she does curve, and batista genuinely really cares about her students

Really reachable professor. Would recommend!

Review for 180, Summer 24:

tl;dr: take her, her teaching is very useful and is very easy compared to other profs

Before taking the class, I didn't have much experience in Leetcode. I can solve medium-level problems, and I definitely didn't know crazy stuff like dp. My professor for math 61 wasn't great either, and I got a B in discrete.

However, Prof. Batista is truly the best professor I've had at ucla to date. I've learnt a lot of proof-based math and algorithmic techniques from her, which have helped me in my ECE 102 and CS 35L exams for sure. Batista teaches material very clearly and slowly, is very engaging with students inside lecture and during her office hours (I went to her office hours instead of discussion sections). When I went to her office hours for help with the homework, she gave tips on algorithmic thinking/how to approach the prblem which was much more useful and generalizeable to other problems. The answers to her exams are literally the exact proof she teaches in class, with one twist per question. Exams and homework were very easy to complete.

I will acknowledge a few shortfalls from her class: While she did offer 3 1% extra credit assignments (you implement an algorithm she chooses in Python, total of 3% boost to overall grade), some people in class said that she curved down three percent? I calculated my grade and I dont think I was affected by a curve down, so not sure if that's true. Her tests were moderately difficult, but I think this is valid given that she gave 4 hours per exam, open note and no proctoring over summer (I think she made them harder to mitigate Chat-GPT usage/cheating).

However, I do think the reviews from summer are a bit biased. Students would ask very basic questions during lectures/information that was covered literally in the prevous slide. Also, this was a summer class, and I think almost all of us took this class as a "cop-out" to taking it over the school year, and I think people are just butthurt that it wasn't as easy as they were hoping it was.

I highly suggest taking Professor Batista's class. She's a lot better than the other professors that teach this class (I've seen my friends get cooked).

Like the other reviewer, this is a review for CS 180, not 181. I have been spurred to write this as I feel that while the other review communicates frustrations with the class that are very much valid, an overall rating of 2.0 is far lower than deserved for Batista.

The homework assignments were difficult, but fair, and both the deadline and grading policies were very lenient (could submit two days late for full credit, and homework was graded on effort). I feel that the lectures may not have prepared students enough for the assignments, but they gave you enough understanding to be able to dig a little deeper on your own and complete the assignments without an unreasonable amount of stress.

As for the exams, the other reviewer is definitely right. Given that the course was entirely online and asynchronous (including exams), it was apparent to most students that the exams were designed with a level of difficulty that strongly accounted for the possibility of cheating. But of course, in doing this, you essentially unfairly deflate the grades of almost everyone who wants to be honest and not cheat. The exams seemed like they required a much longer time than was given (4 hours given, and the claim was that they were meant to take 2 hours, yet 4 was not enough), and also seemed to require a level of thinking that I don't think could be expected given the content of the lectures. I took this class very seriously and managed to do okay, but from what I know, cheating was rampant which I felt was unfair. Again, grading on exams was also quite forgiving, so that may have been the part of the intention of making the exams so hard, but the general consensus was that cheating was borderline expected.

That being said, Batista is a very kind and reasonable teacher, and some of the grading issues cited in the previous review are more than likely attributable to the TAs rather than Batista. I thoroughly enjoyed the course and looking back was happy to have been challenged on exams more than other courses.