If you're taking this class because you never took calc/want a refresher, you probably don't need to. There is little to no math involved in this class, which makes it pretty easy. Jane is a very slow lecturer, and it was difficult for me to pay attention during class, but the class is BruinCasted, which is a huge plus. Overall, I think this class was a waste of time, and I wish I would've just started with 30A. However, I enjoyed the coding we learned in lab (except it was a little hard at first), but the TAs are very nice and helpful.

Rough class. Too much work especially with the heavy coding HW during finals week

Jane is super sweet and funny. She is the only professor that genuinely made an effort to help students get to know each other during covid that I had. The group project was really fun and interesting. The tests were quite easy if you payed attention to what she said.

EDIT: I had this review in drafts for about a year, and didn't realize that I forgot to post it

Overall, I really enjoyed LS30B with Dr. Shevtsov. Let me preface by saying that I did coding in high school. I enjoyed LS30A and B labs quite a bit, any though admittedly, SageMath is a tad annoying, even if you already know Python. I also still sometimes do single digit addition and subtraction by counting with my fingers, so if I could do well in a math class, I wager anyone could.

Grades were, I think, very fairly calculated. We had pretty low stakes midterms and finals with a final project at the very end. We had the chance to make up 50% of the points we lost in the midterm, and there was a decent amount of extra credit to help pad out any points lost. The final project was also very generously graded (my project was absolutely awful, and our groups still managed to do well).

Exams were 24 hour, short answer exams. While I do believe they were decently challenging (especially the final), the questions still felt fair, they were just more challenging than examples we had in class. I personally didn't do spectacular on either exam, but because neither exam made an overwhelming part of your grade, I still managed to pull away with an A. Labs were challenging, but doable since we had a week to solve all the lab questions (I finished most of my labs during lab section itself). Some labs were definitely more irritating than others, but I never had a lab that I felt was impossible.

I really think Shevtsov was a great lecturer. She really took time to throughly explain the hard to understand concepts of LS30B. Because we were assigned videos before lecture that went over the basics of the concepts we'd go over in lecture, Shevtsov had more time to go over harder to understand elements of the course's mathematical concepts. This may be subjective, but the way she explained concepts just made sense to me, she really allowed me to visualize and understand what certain equations and concepts do, along with what implications they may have on a system. She was very quick responding to emails, she agreed to look over my group's final project before we turned it in (which keep in mind was Friday of Final's Week). She definitely gave us the resources necessary to succeed.

Overall, 8.5/10 class, would take again.

Jane is a good professor however, I think her classes are much better when they are confined to zoom and not in person. I spent the first five weeks online, and the second five in person and it made the world of a difference. I aced the content that was taught online but struggled a lot with the content that was taught in person. The in person lectures can often be incredibly slow, confusing, and chaotic. Jane has a speech impairment which makes it really difficult to understand her in a massive lecture hall. 90% of the time the mic was set too low to understand her regardless. She's also physically unable to write on the whiteboard, so an LA did it. Our LA often wrote wrong things on the board, or would write so incredibly slow that it was hard to focus on taking down notes from him and listen to Jane at the same time. The zoom environment was much less distracting, and her slides were so helpful.

Homework was extremely overbearing and annoying. The textbook didn't provide enough information to help you figure out how to solve it, so I often put down stuff that I made up. It was graded based on completion, so as long as you put in the effort, you should be fine.

Labs were also pretty hard. The first 2 weeks or so is spent on nailing down basic concepts of coding and then it progresses into harder LS 30A related coding. I frankly thought it was ridiculous that they thought a coding language could be taught that fast. Try your best on the labs and try to find a partner to do it with because those are graded on correctness. However, the Lab Practical in Week 10 is extremely easy, and is only tested on coding material up to about week 5. Its an easy 100 and also an easy way to boost your grade.

Her problem solving sessions are AMAZING. I would highly recommend attending them before the midterm and the final as she lays out everything clearly and you often don't have to study those concepts again because it'll become so clear. The midterm was extremely easy for me, but the final was super hard and confusing. Be sure to practice the practice tests that she gives out as the structure remains the same for most tests.

Overall, Jane is not a bad choice but if you can get it with someone better, I would go for them. I'm in a 30B class this quarter with another teacher and its a complete 180 (in a better way). Good luck!

Do not take shevtsov, this class was so hard, the amount of homework was insane. I techinically had to teach myself the topic. Most of the time i couldnt understand what the professor was saying and she never had good slides, everything was so vague

Professor Jane is the definition of a mediocre (leaning on the bad side) teacher. Her lecture slides felt disorganized at times, and she often found herself repeating herself over again to correct mistakes she made. She cannot write stuff down herself, so someone is writing everything down for her - creating a little disconnect. She wrote the textbook and goes rapidly into various subjects; she doesn't explain herself very well. Each week, they assign practice problems from the textbook, + you have to finish your lab from that week. The labs were horrible, I didn't learn anything from them, and my TA was not helpful with anything outside the coding.

However, her midterm was almost a carbon copy of the practice ones she gave. I wish I could say the same for the final. Despite all that, if you find a good group of people, study, and dedicate a reasonable amount of time to this course - you should be okay in the end! good luck

This series was quite literally the bane of my existence. I genuinely have not struggled more in a class than I did in LS30B. The slides were very disorganized and were only published after lectures which definitely hindered my learning experience. The professor is not very clear and I did not feel supported by the TA’s as I felt they were inexperienced. It was very tough to establish connections between the content. It’s definitely a doable class, but you will have to put in a lot of effort. I studied weeks for the final and they were the most stressful weeks of my life. Lastly, there were a couple technical difficulties in regards to the mic so it was tough to hear especially in such a big lecture hall. Good Luck.

Overall, this class is pretty confusing because the lectures are not really helpful at all. The lectures are so slow that I eventually just stopped going and learned everything on my own using the textbook. The homework problems are often extremely long (one submission was over 20 pages) and include coding too, which is not even tested on the midterms or finals. Another issue is that the answer key for the homework isn't available until days after the homework is submitted, which is really problematic when the questions are difficult. The midterm was easy and I did better than expected on the final, which helped my grade a lot. There is also a capstone project which includes a lot of coding that was extremely time consuming, especially since it was assigned the last 3 weeks of the quarter. Overall, if you are planning on taking this class with shevvy, be prepared :))

Shevtsov is not as bad as people are making her out to be. Her office hours are really good and she spends a significant amount of time answering people's questions, however the other professors are more clear in explanation of material. The capstone is unnecessarily difficult along with the lab portion which should have not been put together. Expect to really lean on TA's Office Hours for support with this class. For exams, the old practice finals are especially helpful