CS33 is a pretty hard class but Professor Nowatzki is an amazing professor.

Content/Lectures:
The content of this class is very different from CS31 and CS32 (which is really a continuation of CS31) but I do think that I did learn some valuable things from this class. This class is essentially about dissecting the layer between software and hardware and connects the commands you type with the keyboard to what is actually happening inside a computer (somewhat). Professor Nowatzki is really passionate about this class because the topic is relevant to his research. As a result, he is extremely knowledgeable. He uses slides during lectures, which he will put up. To be honest, I found the class to be a bit fast-paced, as a lot of material requires further thinking and trying to understand why things work they way they do. It is HIGHLY recommended to read the textbook before class (which I didnt do, but I did find the textbook helpful for when I was looking at the slides on my own but couldnt understand some concepts), so that you will have an easier time following along in class. It is really easy to be lost during lecture, but I would highly highly recommend staying engaged (once again, by reading textbook beforehand, even skimming helps) and asking questions if you have any. For my quarter, lectures were mandatory for participation and the professor enforced it by having "pop quizzes" randomly, which is an online poll that you have to fill out during lecture. There were 3 in my class.

Discussions/Participation:
I personally didnt find discussions really helpful, but it involved the TA going over again the content from the past week and then the LAs going over a worksheet. This quarter, discussion was made mandatory and enforced with an online poll every section. However, in past quarters, discussion was not mandatory and there was homework that was checked for completeness instead. I'm not sure if this will change for future quarters

Projects/Labs:
The projects are actually really really manageable, in my opinion. The first one, data lab, took a lot of thinking and a lightbulb going off in my head before I figured it out. The bomb lab and attack/buffer lab I actually found to be really fun. The malloc lab was infamously hard for having bugs and seg faults, but during my quarter, there was a much easier solution and, as a result, many people (including me) were able to complete it without that much difficulty. I'm not sure if the test cases will be changed, because that simpler solution is very dependent on the test cases given and it might not work as well for some test cases. After the malloc lab, the last one, thread lab, is a breeze.

Exams:
One thing I really like about Professor Nowatzki is that he has past exams and full solutions that he provides as practice. However, those dont cover all the types of the problems and concepts that may be covered for your actual exam. Not that he will ask questions about things you've never learned or hes never talked about, but more like, just because you see bomb lab questions on two past exams doesnt mean you should expect a bomb lab question to appear on your exam. However, his exams are pretty doable and fair (in retrospect).

Piazza:
Both Professor Nowatzki and the TAs are very active on piazza and will answer questions very quickly.

Extra Credit:
Professor Nowatzki gives extra credit on almost every lab and on both midterm and final exam!

ALSO, THIS IS KIND OF IRRELEVANT TO THE COURSE, BUT PROFESSOR NOWATZKI IS AN AWESOME PERSON. HE IS FUNNY AND I HONESTLY LOVE READING HIS REPLIES ON PIAZZA.

Overall, would recommend.

The professor lectured off his powerpoint presentations, however they were often confusing and it was hard for me to stay engaged in class. However, his tests were fair due to the curve and extra credit and most of the material was covered very well in the textbook. A note of advice, the concepts are much harder to grasp then cs 31, cs 32, but the labs themselves are not that bad once you understand the concepts, unlike CS32 which just took up a ton of time.

Loved Tony with all my heart!!! Literally the one of the best professors I've had at ucla. Super responsive on Piazza and always stops to answer questions in lecture. The material in this class is pretty hard at times but Tony made it understandable. He has extra credit on all of the labs and tests so you can easily make up some lost points. I would definitely take classes with this professor again no doubt.

CS33 is a difficult course that's not usually intuitive to most students, but you have to take it anyway so you may as well take it with Tony. His course is objectively well-structured, clear in its expectations, and forgiving grades-wise.

Labs account for 40% of the grade, the midterm 20%, the final 30%, and the remaining 10% amounts to just showing up to section. The lab specs are clear, and they're honestly even fun a lot of the time. Previous reviews ranting about the difficulty are antiquated since he replaced malloclab with a different, straightfoward lab. If you have any trouble, one trip to his office hours will probably clear it up. There's even a bunch of extra credit on the labs if you're clever. In conjunction with the free 10% for attending section, that's 50% of your grade that should be in at least the mid-high 90s.

Exams are fairly difficult, but that's to be expected. Again, he offers loads of extra credit (usually around a dozen to two dozen possible extra points). You have to take this class anyway. You'd do well to take it with Tony.

This class is much harder than CS 32 if you aren't used to reading the textbook or taking very conceptual tests. Honestly I hated this class, full disclosure, but it wasn't because of the TAs or Prof.

Good Stuff:
1) Tony is cool
2) The class is pretty fairly graded, except for the bad stuff.
3) The textbook is helpful

Bad Stuff:
1) Discussion sections. They tried something new with making worksheets mandatory and having different grading schemes, and I was not a fan. I think either make discussions mandatory, worksheets mandatory, or just chill. Having two sets of students learn at different paces was chaotic and unhelpful.

2) Malloclab. It kind of sucked. I did learn and will never forget how malloc() works, though. Please start this one earlier than you think is necessary. SEGFAULT.

3) MC questions on the final/midterm have multiple answers, all or nothing credit. The MC was worth a lot on both tests and also was incredibly easy to ruin your grade on even if you knew the material.

4) Slow af servers. The servers were DYING when we did the Threadlab / Malloclab. Please someone stick a new Xeon in Lnxsrv06 and put it out of its misery. Test your stuff early else risk testing it at 5am.

Prof. Nowatzki is one of those teachers that obviously cares about student learning. He's readily available to answer student questions, is very active on the Piazza forum with thoughtful responses and some funny jokes, and has an engaging lecture style. The midterm and final are straightforward, and Nowatzki provides his midterms and finals from previous years as well as a Google Drive of study material for you to practice. The projects are all pretty manageable except for the malloc lab, which was 30 hours of stepping through GDB while sobbing. That being said, I got a C on that lab but an A+ in the class, so don't sweat it too much. My TA was also SUPER helpful. If you can, definitely take Yugo Watanabe's discussion section! 10/10 one of the best TAs at UCLA. Overall, it's not difficult to get an A as long as you actually pay attention in class and clutch on the final. Would take again with this professor!

Prof Nowatzki is pretty amazing overall. His shortcomings are that his lecture slides can be confusing and his lecturing style sometimes boring (like many people too deep in CS, he can lose sight of what it's like learning that material for the first time). His advantages are what makes this of the most enjoyable classes I've had at UCLA: extremely active on Piazza, super nice attitude (very pleasant office hours), wacky sense of humour (makes every project goofy, jokes in slides, posted funny finals answers as his last piazza message), lots of practice material for exams. I found it really worthwhile to go to two discussions since my TA (shoutout to Atefeh) had really good summary slides and Yugo Wantanabe (the legend himself) was 50% of the reason i understood anything at all in the class. TLDR: content can be hard but prof w great attitude plus helpful TA outweigh that.

I didn't really like the presentation of the lectures: very much reading off the slides although with helpful explanations. The slides, I hate to say it, use one (1) boring font (Calibri) and have a lot of words on each. I do wish I paid more attention or tried harder to in class. Reading the slides on time and carefully while using the textbook as a complement will help a lot in this class. Start your labs early. The malloc lab is tricky. I scored less than 40/100 for malloc and didn't turn in the thread lab, but did well on the tests which balanced out. Know your strengths: taking the exams (which were open book this quarter), or doing the lab exercises. If you get the textbook in a physical copy which you can bring to the exam, know how to use the contents page and index. I really liked the trigger warning on zombies, although I didn't need it.

the professor is really nice but trying to understand lecture off slides is pretty difficult and he goes really fast. I suppose it would've been better if I had read the book before lecture but the book is so dense and there's so much to read...
definitely going to discussion under yugo was super helpful because he would take the time to explain things, go over examples and draw on the board and talk to us rather than going off slides.
you're given a lot of time to work on the labs and the prof is really nice and occasionally trolls you... i still ... i can't... thank you piazza

Conceptually, the material in CS33 was a lot tougher compared to CS31 and CS32. However, Tony made the class really enjoyable. He's one of the nicest professors I've ever had at UCLA and would occasionally post memes/troll on Piazza. He was also super helpful in office hours and was really receptive to questions as a whole. Because of this, I actually ended up enjoying my experience in CS33. I personally struggled to understand the lectures because the material was sometimes too deep for me, but after going to discussion and reading the textbook, things seemed to slow down. 10/10 recommend going to discussion (especially Yugo's) would recommend taking this class with Tony.