Professor
Sharmila Venugopal
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2015 - I loved this professor. She was super nice and always helpful and willing to answer questions. For the most part the tests matched the homework/lecture content though she did throw 1 or 2 tough ones in there! Overall I thought the grading was very fair and I felt pretty confident about all the material by the end of the quarter.
Fall 2015 - I loved this professor. She was super nice and always helpful and willing to answer questions. For the most part the tests matched the homework/lecture content though she did throw 1 or 2 tough ones in there! Overall I thought the grading was very fair and I felt pretty confident about all the material by the end of the quarter.
Most Helpful Review
Summer 2020 - I took Ls30A with Dr. V in Summer 2020 and here is my intake: - The class content is very easy and very manageable - Actually read the textbook and watch the videos recommended for you in the syllabus - Dr. V is not good at lecturing...like at all! going to lectures felt like a waste of time and I did not learn anything through her lectures and learned through reading the book - Super easy to get an A and she provides a lot of extra credit - Homework is manageable but can be a little hard sometimes - Coding is a little challenging but your TAs will help you out a lot so go to their office hours. - The midterm and final were open notebook take home, but were very open-ended so some of the questions were not clear. - Take this class if you want an easy A, but only if you are willing to put in the effort to self-study! - Make study groups!!
Summer 2020 - I took Ls30A with Dr. V in Summer 2020 and here is my intake: - The class content is very easy and very manageable - Actually read the textbook and watch the videos recommended for you in the syllabus - Dr. V is not good at lecturing...like at all! going to lectures felt like a waste of time and I did not learn anything through her lectures and learned through reading the book - Super easy to get an A and she provides a lot of extra credit - Homework is manageable but can be a little hard sometimes - Coding is a little challenging but your TAs will help you out a lot so go to their office hours. - The midterm and final were open notebook take home, but were very open-ended so some of the questions were not clear. - Take this class if you want an easy A, but only if you are willing to put in the effort to self-study! - Make study groups!!
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2021 - I've heard a lot of complaints about Dr. V and I was kinda scared to take her class at first, but honestly, it's quite a good class. She's really reciprocating with our requests, like, our first bi-weekly quiz was kind of hard, so when she got the feedback from us she immediately changed her test style and made the rest of our bi-weekly quizzes much more suitable. She's also organized in terms of letting you know exactly what you're learning, and there's a clear outline to each lecture, homework, and quiz. The midterm was pretty much exactly what she taught in lectures and the TA's study office hours. It was very straightforward. Also, she links us to supplement videos to get a better understanding of the content. Obviously, it seems tedious to have to watch even more videos on top of lectures, but I see it as studying, just like how you would read textbooks outside of lectures to gain a better understanding. I had a different professor last quarter which many students loved, but I find myself understanding Dr. V's lectures with ease, and just understanding the content in general much better. To me, the workload isn't too bad either. Every two weeks I probably spend a day doing the bi-weekly homework, and a day watching supplement videos as revision for bi-weekly quizzes. Obviously, this is just my personal experience and opinions, everyone is different and has different learning styles. But yea her class is really manageable.
Winter 2021 - I've heard a lot of complaints about Dr. V and I was kinda scared to take her class at first, but honestly, it's quite a good class. She's really reciprocating with our requests, like, our first bi-weekly quiz was kind of hard, so when she got the feedback from us she immediately changed her test style and made the rest of our bi-weekly quizzes much more suitable. She's also organized in terms of letting you know exactly what you're learning, and there's a clear outline to each lecture, homework, and quiz. The midterm was pretty much exactly what she taught in lectures and the TA's study office hours. It was very straightforward. Also, she links us to supplement videos to get a better understanding of the content. Obviously, it seems tedious to have to watch even more videos on top of lectures, but I see it as studying, just like how you would read textbooks outside of lectures to gain a better understanding. I had a different professor last quarter which many students loved, but I find myself understanding Dr. V's lectures with ease, and just understanding the content in general much better. To me, the workload isn't too bad either. Every two weeks I probably spend a day doing the bi-weekly homework, and a day watching supplement videos as revision for bi-weekly quizzes. Obviously, this is just my personal experience and opinions, everyone is different and has different learning styles. But yea her class is really manageable.
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2020 - I've heard mixed reviews about this class but I'll give my take on it. Venugopal is a professor who actually tries to teach her students the concepts and I can't lie that these concepts will stick with me for a long time - it is interesting, insightful, and logical. However, be warned - this class is very (note VERY) coding heavy; this is especially true in the labs. In addition, the exams she administers are very LONG (way longer than the 3 hours she says it should take) and are vague (however, this has gotten better through the quarter and they became much more explicit). She gave us 30 points (of 1000 in the course total, so 3%) extra credit but no more as of Fall 2020. With respect to her lectures, I have to admit, I have not gone to any of her classes nor attended her lectures (with the exception of the more difficult concepts) because of time-zone differences but frankly, looking at the slides and going to lab will allow you to succeed in the class. As of Fall 2020, you're graded on 4 different categories: Labs, Homework, Knowledge Assessments, and Exams - which I will go over briefly: Labs: Tedious, but the TAs are very helpful (shoutout Alec if he's still teaching it!). The labs can be difficult to understand but they do integrate very well with what is learned in class. I recommend going to the labs synchronously as you will need to consolidate your code for your homework (if you get something wrong in the lab, then your homework will also reflect that) - NOTE as of Fall 2020, labs are not GRADED Homework: Built on the concepts learned in class and lab. Literally, most of it is copy and paste (with respect to code) but the later labs require you to make some edits in accordance to your understanding; having background knowledge in Python would be very helpful however is not needed - it will be more difficult though. Knowledge Assessments: Just to reconsolidate your information and is a good way to summarize concepts between weeks. Was graded on completion during Fall 2020 (you submit it, you get full points, hence completion) Exams: She gave us 24 hours to do them but said it should take 3. In actuality, the midterm takes around 5-8 and the final takes around 7-10 hours. The final was a LOT better structured than the midterm however, the TAs do seem to give as many points as possible and did so as long as you are thorough. Her exams, however, are poorly structured but she did listen to feedback (I think!) about the poor structures and the vagueness so this shouldn't be much of a problem. The thing is, the exams in this class are just open-ended and require you to understand the concepts to be able to complete them. Thus, you'll be writing essays for each subpart of the question to fully grasp and cover all your bases to maximize your points. (Also, points allocations for individual questions on exams do not exist in this class and are hella unclear on what constitutes to what, even in her rubric, so you just gotta cover all your bases to get as many points as you can.)
Fall 2020 - I've heard mixed reviews about this class but I'll give my take on it. Venugopal is a professor who actually tries to teach her students the concepts and I can't lie that these concepts will stick with me for a long time - it is interesting, insightful, and logical. However, be warned - this class is very (note VERY) coding heavy; this is especially true in the labs. In addition, the exams she administers are very LONG (way longer than the 3 hours she says it should take) and are vague (however, this has gotten better through the quarter and they became much more explicit). She gave us 30 points (of 1000 in the course total, so 3%) extra credit but no more as of Fall 2020. With respect to her lectures, I have to admit, I have not gone to any of her classes nor attended her lectures (with the exception of the more difficult concepts) because of time-zone differences but frankly, looking at the slides and going to lab will allow you to succeed in the class. As of Fall 2020, you're graded on 4 different categories: Labs, Homework, Knowledge Assessments, and Exams - which I will go over briefly: Labs: Tedious, but the TAs are very helpful (shoutout Alec if he's still teaching it!). The labs can be difficult to understand but they do integrate very well with what is learned in class. I recommend going to the labs synchronously as you will need to consolidate your code for your homework (if you get something wrong in the lab, then your homework will also reflect that) - NOTE as of Fall 2020, labs are not GRADED Homework: Built on the concepts learned in class and lab. Literally, most of it is copy and paste (with respect to code) but the later labs require you to make some edits in accordance to your understanding; having background knowledge in Python would be very helpful however is not needed - it will be more difficult though. Knowledge Assessments: Just to reconsolidate your information and is a good way to summarize concepts between weeks. Was graded on completion during Fall 2020 (you submit it, you get full points, hence completion) Exams: She gave us 24 hours to do them but said it should take 3. In actuality, the midterm takes around 5-8 and the final takes around 7-10 hours. The final was a LOT better structured than the midterm however, the TAs do seem to give as many points as possible and did so as long as you are thorough. Her exams, however, are poorly structured but she did listen to feedback (I think!) about the poor structures and the vagueness so this shouldn't be much of a problem. The thing is, the exams in this class are just open-ended and require you to understand the concepts to be able to complete them. Thus, you'll be writing essays for each subpart of the question to fully grasp and cover all your bases to maximize your points. (Also, points allocations for individual questions on exams do not exist in this class and are hella unclear on what constitutes to what, even in her rubric, so you just gotta cover all your bases to get as many points as you can.)
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