COM SCI 181
Introduction to Formal Languages and Automata Theory
Description: Lecture, four hours; discussion, two hours; outside study, six hours. Enforced requisite: course 180. Designed for junior/senior Computer Science majors. Grammars, automata, and languages. Finite-state languages and finite-state automata. Context-free languages and pushdown story automata. Unrestricted rewriting systems, recursively enumerable and recursive languages, and Turing machines. Closure properties, pumping lemmas, and decision algorithms. Introduction to computability. Letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
1 of 1
Most Helpful Review
So first off i will say that I took computer Science 181 two times, i took it with sherestov (he is great) but i had to retake the class and i took it with burgin. So for sherestov he tested x4 and had 80% tests 20% hw and about no partial credit, straight scale with a little curve, i didn't end up so good. He did teach really well though! But the tests were just not good for me. I took this class with burgin and from the knowledge from the previous class, i can say he is a good guy and an ok lecturer, he goes over more of the proofs and more in depth. He also goes into some other topics that were not covered in the other class. He talks very slow and sometimes may be a little hard to understand, but he is always open to questions. If any topics don't make sense I just read the book, or went on youtube to review.(EXCEPT THE LAST TOPICS which i will mention in a bit) So i got a F with Sherestov and a B with Burgin. Burgin grading is 0-30 F 30-49 D 50-74 C 75-90 B 90-100 A I can say passing this class will be easy, getting a B is completely doable, but A is a little tough to get since it is straight scale. Our grading break down was ----- Hw 30% (3 hw assignments) Midterm 30% Final 40% i got about 87% on Hw's 85% on Midterm and the final Score i don't know but IT WAS HARD His hws are a bit hard, and you want to work on it, but they were really close to what was asked on the midterm and final. The midterm was fairly easy but the final was REALLY hard. However, if he sees that your trying and you understand the concepts and elaborate he does give partial credit. (MUCH MORE THAN SHERESTOV) He also gives EXTRA CREDIT that is not 1-to-1 but a percentage of how much extra credit you get, but these points help your grade and let you retake your midterm and choose what grade was higher if you accumulated enough points!!! All you have to do is answer his questions in his class which range from easy to hard. We did not have a TA so all questions and discussion was run by the prof as more lecture/discussion. Don't miss out the last few lectures he was the one that "invented" or "researched" these topics and you will not find anything really on super recursive things so go to class ALSO OPEN NOTES ON TESTS FOR US AT LEAST YAYY!!!! Overal he is a great guy, sometimes a bit hard in lecture but he is always open to questions, if you need more help or just want the basics without the proof just read the book or watch some youtube stuff, simple enough. TLDR: I got F then got B in his class, grading is nice (EXPECT getting B, HARD TO GET A)(straight curve modified ), extra credit and open notes for us, midterm: easy->medium, final: hard, hw :medium->hard, not the best lecturer but nice and will answer your questions. need more help read the book or go on youtube. Overall give him like a 8.1/10
So first off i will say that I took computer Science 181 two times, i took it with sherestov (he is great) but i had to retake the class and i took it with burgin. So for sherestov he tested x4 and had 80% tests 20% hw and about no partial credit, straight scale with a little curve, i didn't end up so good. He did teach really well though! But the tests were just not good for me. I took this class with burgin and from the knowledge from the previous class, i can say he is a good guy and an ok lecturer, he goes over more of the proofs and more in depth. He also goes into some other topics that were not covered in the other class. He talks very slow and sometimes may be a little hard to understand, but he is always open to questions. If any topics don't make sense I just read the book, or went on youtube to review.(EXCEPT THE LAST TOPICS which i will mention in a bit) So i got a F with Sherestov and a B with Burgin. Burgin grading is 0-30 F 30-49 D 50-74 C 75-90 B 90-100 A I can say passing this class will be easy, getting a B is completely doable, but A is a little tough to get since it is straight scale. Our grading break down was ----- Hw 30% (3 hw assignments) Midterm 30% Final 40% i got about 87% on Hw's 85% on Midterm and the final Score i don't know but IT WAS HARD His hws are a bit hard, and you want to work on it, but they were really close to what was asked on the midterm and final. The midterm was fairly easy but the final was REALLY hard. However, if he sees that your trying and you understand the concepts and elaborate he does give partial credit. (MUCH MORE THAN SHERESTOV) He also gives EXTRA CREDIT that is not 1-to-1 but a percentage of how much extra credit you get, but these points help your grade and let you retake your midterm and choose what grade was higher if you accumulated enough points!!! All you have to do is answer his questions in his class which range from easy to hard. We did not have a TA so all questions and discussion was run by the prof as more lecture/discussion. Don't miss out the last few lectures he was the one that "invented" or "researched" these topics and you will not find anything really on super recursive things so go to class ALSO OPEN NOTES ON TESTS FOR US AT LEAST YAYY!!!! Overal he is a great guy, sometimes a bit hard in lecture but he is always open to questions, if you need more help or just want the basics without the proof just read the book or watch some youtube stuff, simple enough. TLDR: I got F then got B in his class, grading is nice (EXPECT getting B, HARD TO GET A)(straight curve modified ), extra credit and open notes for us, midterm: easy->medium, final: hard, hw :medium->hard, not the best lecturer but nice and will answer your questions. need more help read the book or go on youtube. Overall give him like a 8.1/10
AD
Most Helpful Review
She is the worst professor I've had at UCLA. It is clear that at one time, she was a preeminent mind in her field (around 8th week, you do a section on "Greibach Normal Form"). I would guess that she was at one point a pretty good teacher as well- she at least makes attempts at humor, she seems to understand the material pretty well, and she seemed to at least mildly prefer that we learn something. That being said, she should have retired 10+ years ago. I sat in the third row, and I couldn't hear a word she said. She somehow managed to mumble in a quiet monotone. We started with 40 people in the class, and by the time I stopped going (around 6th week) there were only 12 students still showing up. Her course reader is a collection of fragmented sentences giving vague psuedocode descriptions of algorithms you've never heard of. The savior of this course was Brian Taigku, the TA. If you have to take this class, don't bother going to lecture- just go to your discussion section and you'll be fine. Greibach seems like a nice person, and I have nothing against her personally, but it is clear that she is at UCLA for the sole reason that she is a big name in the field of automata theory. I was surprised her bruinwalk raitings were so high- I suspect that people gave her some leniency because she IS a sweet old woman. Just not a good professor.
She is the worst professor I've had at UCLA. It is clear that at one time, she was a preeminent mind in her field (around 8th week, you do a section on "Greibach Normal Form"). I would guess that she was at one point a pretty good teacher as well- she at least makes attempts at humor, she seems to understand the material pretty well, and she seemed to at least mildly prefer that we learn something. That being said, she should have retired 10+ years ago. I sat in the third row, and I couldn't hear a word she said. She somehow managed to mumble in a quiet monotone. We started with 40 people in the class, and by the time I stopped going (around 6th week) there were only 12 students still showing up. Her course reader is a collection of fragmented sentences giving vague psuedocode descriptions of algorithms you've never heard of. The savior of this course was Brian Taigku, the TA. If you have to take this class, don't bother going to lecture- just go to your discussion section and you'll be fine. Greibach seems like a nice person, and I have nothing against her personally, but it is clear that she is at UCLA for the sole reason that she is a big name in the field of automata theory. I was surprised her bruinwalk raitings were so high- I suspect that people gave her some leniency because she IS a sweet old woman. Just not a good professor.
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2020 - Professor Meka was one of the BEST professors I have had in the CS department! I think he did a great job teaching this class remotely. The course structure was changed this quarter and was more about "Theoretical Computer Science" than what it was before. The content was always very interesting and often times mind blowing, especially near the end of the quarter when we covered uncomputability, TM, and proved Godel's Incompleteness Theorem!! Coming into this course, I had no idea what TCS is about and even though I am not that interested in the field, I still find the class very interesting. This class is full of proofs and you won't write a single line of actual code (aside from pseudo-code). Proofs are difficult, but with Professor Meka's great explanations, it becomes somewhat manageable. All the HW are proof-style questions that re-empahsizes concepts taught in class. About half of the questions will be somewhat doable if you attended lecture, but there will always be VERY HARD questions on the HW that I couldn't figure out on my own even if I were to stare at the question the whole day. Even so, the TAs were extremely helpful!! They would often give hints to difficult HW questions during discussion and if you need more help, you could always go to OH where they go over the HW questions in detail until you understand them. S/o to TA Hadley and Shawn! There were 3 non-cumulative exams throughout the quarter (including the final). The exams were increasing more difficult and I would say that the final was really hard (but still doable imo). Even though, I only did well on the first exam, and scored about average on the latter two exams, I was still able to get an A. I think there is a nice curve. Compare to my friends who took it in previous quarters with the old course structure, I would say this class is definitely **harder than before**, but you will definitely learn A LOT more than ppl in previous quarters did. So, I 100% recommend taking this class with Meka!! You will have a great time and learn a lot :)
Fall 2020 - Professor Meka was one of the BEST professors I have had in the CS department! I think he did a great job teaching this class remotely. The course structure was changed this quarter and was more about "Theoretical Computer Science" than what it was before. The content was always very interesting and often times mind blowing, especially near the end of the quarter when we covered uncomputability, TM, and proved Godel's Incompleteness Theorem!! Coming into this course, I had no idea what TCS is about and even though I am not that interested in the field, I still find the class very interesting. This class is full of proofs and you won't write a single line of actual code (aside from pseudo-code). Proofs are difficult, but with Professor Meka's great explanations, it becomes somewhat manageable. All the HW are proof-style questions that re-empahsizes concepts taught in class. About half of the questions will be somewhat doable if you attended lecture, but there will always be VERY HARD questions on the HW that I couldn't figure out on my own even if I were to stare at the question the whole day. Even so, the TAs were extremely helpful!! They would often give hints to difficult HW questions during discussion and if you need more help, you could always go to OH where they go over the HW questions in detail until you understand them. S/o to TA Hadley and Shawn! There were 3 non-cumulative exams throughout the quarter (including the final). The exams were increasing more difficult and I would say that the final was really hard (but still doable imo). Even though, I only did well on the first exam, and scored about average on the latter two exams, I was still able to get an A. I think there is a nice curve. Compare to my friends who took it in previous quarters with the old course structure, I would say this class is definitely **harder than before**, but you will definitely learn A LOT more than ppl in previous quarters did. So, I 100% recommend taking this class with Meka!! You will have a great time and learn a lot :)
Most Helpful Review
He was a good professor. While he didn't do much to spruce up the material, it in itself was fairly interesting and kept me interested. He's not the greatest lecturer, and occasionally strays off on tangents, but they are all fairly relevant and do not detract from the class. Exams are manageable, but our homework grader marked everyone down so liberally most people ended up getting around 20% on most of the homeworks. If you went and talked with Parker though he would listen to your arguments and make changes if he felt you had valid points. Parker is fairly accessible and you can tell that he is genuinely concerned about student learning, though he isn't the greatest lecturer.
He was a good professor. While he didn't do much to spruce up the material, it in itself was fairly interesting and kept me interested. He's not the greatest lecturer, and occasionally strays off on tangents, but they are all fairly relevant and do not detract from the class. Exams are manageable, but our homework grader marked everyone down so liberally most people ended up getting around 20% on most of the homeworks. If you went and talked with Parker though he would listen to your arguments and make changes if he felt you had valid points. Parker is fairly accessible and you can tell that he is genuinely concerned about student learning, though he isn't the greatest lecturer.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2019 - What an amazing experience CS181 with Professor Sahai was. If you like mathematics, you are in for an absolute treat. Professor Sahai, in his own words, conducts the "advanced mathematical version" of CS181. Anyone who wants to take this class must be prepared to invest a considerable amount of effort. But the rewards are entirely commensurate with the effort. Professor Sahai's lectures involve extensive interactions with students and opportunities abound for extra credit. The homeworks, midterm and exam are all very interesting, and several questions are challenging. Some of them really require meditation and contemplation over the course of several days, and are not at all the type of questions that can be solved in one sitting of a few hours. Several ideas only came to my head while I was in the shower, walking around campus, or eating dinner. These ideas require time to germinate and develop. This is how mathematics is supposed to be done. This was by far the best CS class I ever took at UCLA. And Professor Sahai was the best professor I encountered in CS.
Winter 2019 - What an amazing experience CS181 with Professor Sahai was. If you like mathematics, you are in for an absolute treat. Professor Sahai, in his own words, conducts the "advanced mathematical version" of CS181. Anyone who wants to take this class must be prepared to invest a considerable amount of effort. But the rewards are entirely commensurate with the effort. Professor Sahai's lectures involve extensive interactions with students and opportunities abound for extra credit. The homeworks, midterm and exam are all very interesting, and several questions are challenging. Some of them really require meditation and contemplation over the course of several days, and are not at all the type of questions that can be solved in one sitting of a few hours. Several ideas only came to my head while I was in the shower, walking around campus, or eating dinner. These ideas require time to germinate and develop. This is how mathematics is supposed to be done. This was by far the best CS class I ever took at UCLA. And Professor Sahai was the best professor I encountered in CS.
AD
1 of 1
