George is hands down the best professor I've had in the UCLA CS department. In addition to being extremely knowledgeable, he is humble, and wants to share that knowledge with his students. He was able to do so in an engaging way. Furthermore, he was able to do so in a relevant way that connected to student's needs.

George focused on general takeaways about how to THINK as a computer scientist. I honestly felt very inspired by this, and feel very excited to go forward in my life as an engineer. NO other class, or professor, has made me feel like that. Even better, he was able to weave different views of how to live life meaningfully, which I felt were motivating and made class a rich experience.

I feel fortunate to have taken this class with George, and hope to stay in touch because of what a wonderful mentor figure he is.

Professor Varghese is a one of the rare professors who is not only a leading expert in the field, but also engages with students with great care and empathy. He explains concept in a clear way, but also provides great slides and comprehensive notes to accommodate students in different timezones (or if you can't attend lecture for some reason). I found his dedication to helping students to be profound, especially when asked questions during lecture, or office hours, or even exam review! Overall, the content of this course is presented in an enjoyable manner, and is further enhanced by the renown internet giants he brought in for interviews. The only part that was difficult really were the programming projects, but TAs and Piazza were readily able to help you if you got stuck and there was a nice collaborative spirit in the class as a whole. I had a fun time :)

Professor Varghese is an amazing computer science prof. He is the most compassionate and kind professor I have had at UCLA. He knows his stuff and has a lot of connections in the industry which makes his lectures and interviews with "internet pioneers" engaging and inspiring. He answers all student questions with care and clarity. The exams were not insanely hard (they were open note due to online learning) but the time crunch can get you on the midterm; it's not so pressing on the final. The two projects can be pretty difficult and when they tell you to start early, you definitely should. Despite the difficulty of the projects, the TAs are extremely helpful with them during office hours and they teach you a lot about the concepts that you're learning. I highly recommend taking this class with Professor Varghese.

Professor Varghese cares about his students and makes a strong effort to teach the material in an engaging and understandable manner. Moreover, he constantly asked for feedback and incorporated it into the class.
There is a lot of material to cover in this class, and it helps to have some prior exposure to networking concepts.
The class has 4 homework assignments and 2 programming projects. The programming projects were, at times, frustrating, but not too difficult if worked on early and over the course of several days. Thanks to the TAs for answering questions quickly on Piazza. The exams are comprised of a multiple choice section and a short-answer section; the short-answer questions are similar in style to the homework.
I would definitely recommend taking this class if you have the option.

As someone who failed CS 33 & CS M151B and barely passed CS 111 & CS 131 over COVID with the option of P/NP, I can say this class is one of the better one! The professor is understanding, and the projects are pretty straightforward. The exam may be a little tougher, but considering the topic of the course, they are doable.

Varghese is the man for 118. Great lectures, manageable material. Things start to get a little confusing at the end but that's more the nature of the material then anything to do with George. Tests are fair, definitely would recommend going to lecture and taking the time to understand the HWs. All in all one of the better CS classes I've taken at UCLA.

Let's start off with the good: if you have a background in networking or are very passionate about the subject, you should do fine in this class. Varghese's course is chalk full of networking information that he claims he helped start and that you can't find anywhere else but in his class. In turn, he treats this course like a graduate level course. Got questions? Figure it out with your peers. Question on the grading? Not his problem. Solutions to past finals for study material? Sorry, he doesn't have time. He is an absolutely terrible professor and he's not afraid to make that fact clear. Homeworks are written hastily with grammar and formatting issues and projects are open-ended with very little guidance. Grading is extremely slow with literally zero feedback (they gave us a score and no explanation of why we lost points). I'd say out of all the TA's, Victor Rios is the only one who genuinely cares for the students. His discussion sections are insightful and he's always available. I'd recommend avoiding other TAs as they always seemed to be too busy to help with questions. Expect to do alot of self-googling and/or reading the textbook. Ironically, his so-called one-of-a-kind material is easily accesible from other, more informative sources on Youtube (much of my studying was from these videos as opposed to his garbage-tier 2 hour rambles). I was fooled into taking this class due to its many positive reviews, so if you don't already have an affinity for networking, I recommend you take someone else.

He did a great job!

I didn't get a high grade in this class, but to me grade is not important than the knowledge. He taught this class very well and I am quite confident on my knowledge thanks to him.

The only issue we had in this class was programming project. In fact, that's the reason of my low grade. The assignment testing part was not clear. I wrote the code, but I wasn't sure that's what they wanted. No where in spec was mentioned about testing. A week after submission deadline, some students told me that the code was supposed to produce a file and that file should have contained all communications.

Nonetheless, I recommend you to take his class because he teaches well and he told us that he will come up with better testing tools for programming assignment or make some changes to it.

Your "A" is guaranteed, if you attend the lectures and do homework!!

Additionally, you will gain some knowledge that is useful.

Amazing Professor. Hard to make it to all his 8am's but the lectures are so worth it. You could learn the material from the notes and slides he uploads but he is such a good lecturer you wouldn't want to miss it. Go to lectures, start the project early, read the lecture notes he uploads to study, and you should do just fine.

Such an amazing professor, I'm very glad that I have taken him. Make sure not to miss the lectures and the reading notes he posts.