Professor
Giovanni Pau
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2021 - * COVID-19 Quarter* I feel like this guy gets a bad rap from a lot of students, but compared to some of the other professors in the department Pau is pretty tolerable. CS118 isn't coding heavy or math heavy, it felt kind of like CS111 if we only did half the chapters. Extensions were given on both coding projects, and the final exam had a 48hr window which is extremely generous in my opinion (with extra credit questions!). If you talk to Pau / listen to lecture, it's clear he really wants to help students learn and is very open to answering questions in/out of class. Pau follows the PPT slides provided by the book authors 100%, so if you read the book you will pretty much cover everything you should know, aside maybe from variations due to different editions. The homework sets (4 total) are doable since we have weeks to complete them and Google + textbook + TAs at your disposal. Project 1 was hilariously easy, especially when compared to CS111's socket programming assignment. Project 2 is a LOT more involved, but he gave us a manageable watered down version due to COVID and we were allowed to have 1 partner to help out. Now, onto the exams. Man are they wild. The man chose to do a rapid test format for the midterm (40 minutes long?), and it included 5 math questions relating to packet delays, bandwidth allocation, etc. Point being, math questions were NOT AT ALL stressed in class or in the book, and some questions required equations that never appeared in class (but were tucked away in the book). Average was ~60% for the midterm, not too surprising. His exams are probably why people dislike him, but if you read the book you would've seen the equations and been able to answer enough of the math to survive. Overall, I learned a good amount from the class (primarily from reading an easy-to-grasp textbook), and don't think Pau is a "must avoid" professor. He doesn't offer much additional insight into networking as some others might but he drops random interesting nuggets here and there, and is definitely out to help.
Winter 2021 - * COVID-19 Quarter* I feel like this guy gets a bad rap from a lot of students, but compared to some of the other professors in the department Pau is pretty tolerable. CS118 isn't coding heavy or math heavy, it felt kind of like CS111 if we only did half the chapters. Extensions were given on both coding projects, and the final exam had a 48hr window which is extremely generous in my opinion (with extra credit questions!). If you talk to Pau / listen to lecture, it's clear he really wants to help students learn and is very open to answering questions in/out of class. Pau follows the PPT slides provided by the book authors 100%, so if you read the book you will pretty much cover everything you should know, aside maybe from variations due to different editions. The homework sets (4 total) are doable since we have weeks to complete them and Google + textbook + TAs at your disposal. Project 1 was hilariously easy, especially when compared to CS111's socket programming assignment. Project 2 is a LOT more involved, but he gave us a manageable watered down version due to COVID and we were allowed to have 1 partner to help out. Now, onto the exams. Man are they wild. The man chose to do a rapid test format for the midterm (40 minutes long?), and it included 5 math questions relating to packet delays, bandwidth allocation, etc. Point being, math questions were NOT AT ALL stressed in class or in the book, and some questions required equations that never appeared in class (but were tucked away in the book). Average was ~60% for the midterm, not too surprising. His exams are probably why people dislike him, but if you read the book you would've seen the equations and been able to answer enough of the math to survive. Overall, I learned a good amount from the class (primarily from reading an easy-to-grasp textbook), and don't think Pau is a "must avoid" professor. He doesn't offer much additional insight into networking as some others might but he drops random interesting nuggets here and there, and is definitely out to help.
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