[spring 2020 covid online quarter] For me, I didn't take PIC 10A so I had to find my footing at first. One of the first topics is pointers, which are really confusing but push through it! Don't give up because it gets better and way easier after that.

Quizzes: started out too hard but Prof Chu listened to feedback from us and made them more reasonable. She emphasizes theoretical questions on these.
Homework: One assignment per week, I thought it was really reasonable and tbh I found them too easy compared to the rest of the level of the class. Tends to be a lot of code already written for us.
Midterm/Final: Did on Gradescope, was overall a very fair and good experience.

Thumbs up for adapting to online format, thumbs up for listening to students and adjusting the class, thumbs up for organized/punctual lectures and always answering our questions when something's unclear. While to some extent the class was just business, let's learn the content and do the class, the prof and TA reminded us they still saw us as humans with lives during this time and were very sensitive to that.

The real sice was the TA, Jennifer, who, besides having the most balanced mindset towards school (which I loved), just straight siced us the entire quarter. The time and effort that she and the prof put into this class for us was evident and just big thanks.

Pay attention and I don't think it would be hard to get an A.

Tests were a little tough, but also I retook this class after already DRUDGING through the extreme standards of Lindstrom, so all of the assignments were easy asf. Prof was lax and tests were just normal hard cs tests

Personally the tests were hard and annoying. I'd had 5+ years of programming experience at this point and had taken PIC 10A and STILL got a 50% on the midterm... I studied and did the homework too. I don't know I do know I am salty about it but I feel like it's valid if you know the material to be frustrated that the class doesn't accurately determine that. A lot of minute things can be looked up online while coding and are completely unnecessary to know by heart.

Professor Chu doesn't deserve the lower rating in this class. We literally got to use a compiler on tests. Material is taught clearly albeit rather slowly. Discussions are entirely unnecessary. Professor Chu also listens to students concerns. Grading scheme is very generous with dropping 2 quizzes. Quizzes and
HW lagged behind lecture so I watched lectures later. If you did well in AP CSA and PIC 10A this class is a breeze.

Grading Scheme:
40% Homework
30% Quizzes
9% Midterm
20% Final
1% Course Evaluation

Personally I didn't watch lecture because the professor read off of the slides. I also didn't feel a need to attend discussion. The slides were concise but explained concepts pretty well. The homework assignments were pretty fair and took around 6 hours a week on average. My advice: Start early on the homework in case you run into problems. The professor lacked clarity and did not specify everything she wanted in each homework spec which resulted in a lot of students getting points docked off on the first few homework assignments. Consequently, many students complained and got some of these points back, and future homework assignments were graded more fairly. The timed quizzes were super difficult and theoretical at first, but the professor listened to feedback and made the quizzes more doable (as long as you looked over the slides). The midterm and final were 24 hours and were doable as well.

This was the most positive experience I've ever had in a programming class. Granted, that's not hard to achieve given the atrocity that is Michael Lindstrom. This class was a great balance between learning really cool concepts and rigor. When the course ended, I felt very confident in my programming abilities. I'm writing this review a year after I took this course and I'm still surprised by how much of the material I retained. I can have a substantive conversation with my CS peers about inheritance, polymorphism, and algorithms/data structures 101. Unlike Lindstrom, Chu actually spends time letting the concepts sink in. I literally cannot tell you what I learned in PIC 10A, but can go on an on about PIC 10B.

This course was very organized, with 8 weekly homework, one midterm and one final. Professor Chu was awesome! She always stopped to ask anyone if they had questions and was extremely helpful and friendly during office hours.

But don't let the reviews fool you. This class was NOT a low-hanging fruit. I felt this course was rather difficult for an intro class. I managed to get an A only because I had programming experience in high school and had to study really hard for it..

The class as I took it is graded by 8 100 point Homeworks, 1 midterm, and 1 final. (participation is 1% of grade). As far as I can tell this professor is the best professor to take for program in computing that being said she was still not great. The midterm took me about 8-9 hours ("designed to be 1 hour) and the final took me 17 hours ("designed to be 3 hours"). My particular TA was not the best at teaching but she was very kind and helped me tremendously with the homework. There was 1 week to complete each homework.. but do not start it late it took me 3-4 days at least. The teacher spoke too fast for me personally so I would watch the recorded lectures and take notes from there. Basically, no collaboration is allowed as all coding needs to be original which makes it hard to ask peers for help. I feel like the people who did the best either had prior experience or just were inclined to computer science. I was not one of those people and it took all my time but still was able to pass. The Homework is %70 percent of the grade and is what basically determines your grade so they are your best bet at succeeding in the class.

I took this class with 7 years of programing experience in C++, and yet somehow this professor was so bad at teaching and explaining that I got a C on the midterm and on the final. Not going to lecture would probably be more useful than going.

Chu speaks really slow. If I took this class in person, it'd be frustrating to listen to lectures. I listened to all the lectures at 2x speed, so the class being online definitely was nice. She is pretty good at teaching the material, but it's pretty much directly from the textbook so I guess you could just read the textbook instead of watching lecture. She added quizzes to the class this quarter because the class was online. The quizzes were kinda hard but it was fine as long as you studied a little before each one. The midterm and final were relatively easy. The homework/projects weren't bad either and you get 1 week to work on them, so that's nice