This class has some pretty important material, but I don't think I learned any of it. Ercegovac is a really nice professor that makes jokes during lecture, but he is pretty bad at structuring the class and explaining stuff during lecture. There was way too much of the hard material squished into the last week of class, and not enough time to actually learn it.

The quizzes were pretty bad because there wasn't enough time to finish answering the questions. The midterm was okay surprisingly. The final was actually horrendous, as the questions didn't really make sense, unless you understood what Ercegovac was asking for (he wasn't even at the final). He gave us a practice final to study for the exam, but it was filled with mistakes, and even the TA didn't exactly know where he got some of the solutions.

There was not much partial credit given by the TAs. I once made one mistake that ended up carrying over to multiple parts of the problem and I didn't get any partial credit.

On the bright side, the curve was nice. I somehow got a B with quiz and midterm scores that were at or below median and a final score that was horrendously below median.

The textbook is also not bad, so be sure to read it.

Milos is super sweet and clearly understands the material at a level that nobody else does. The lectures are hard to follow sometimes just because if you don't pay attention for a split second, you get pretty lost. The quizzes are rough. There isn't enough time to answer questions of the complexity that he provides. I recommend trying to understand how to solve the types of problems in the course by going through some of the exercises in the book. The class is definitely curved (in a good way) and Milos also said if you do well on the final and did poorly on other parts of the course, he would weight the final more. This is an option although the median was a 70.

This class was insanely difficult due to not having a structure to it. Quizzes and midterm was graded with rarely and partial credit and required a lot of calculations that didn't test knowledge of material but rather how well you could do math. The material was not difficult to learn, but the tests were different beasts. The midterm was ok, but the final was difficult. Professor Ercegovac cares about student education, but his lectures are just not engaging and very confusing to follow.

Ercegovac is a really nice professor, except I think he's too smart relative to the material to understand most students aren't following along in lecture. If you have the self-discipline, I would recommend ditching lecture, reading the book (which he wrote), and then doing practice problems in office hours. Either way, not a huge deal - the midterm and final are pretty reasonable. The quizzes are less so, but if you follow the above formula, you should kill it. The class has very little homework, so DO NOT rely on the homework to keep you on track. You NEED to practice book problems on your own if you want the A.

Professor was pretty helpful, the midterm was very fair. Quizzes were too rough in my opinion although other people did well on them. Homeworks were graded mostly based off effort (with I think usually 2 problems being graded for correctness). My TA was very good and clarified a lot of stuff, but based off our test averages I think she maybe didn't cover the same material as the other TAs since my section had a lower average than the overall class by quite a bit for some quizzes but higher for some other ones.

Email ktmtbsnscans@gmail.com -- selling pdf of the textbook for $10.

Milos is an adorable old man, and makes this class pretty nice overall. I'd recommend taking it with him, the workload isn't too bad and his curve is quite nice. That being said, the material is not easy to master and is pretty dry.

Milos wrote the book, and while his slides are mostly derived from the book, I still recommend getting the book, and going to lecture since he goes over examples in lecture, and in general explains thing in greater detail. The examples he goes over in lecture are also important for the quizzes, which help.

The class had 5 homework assignments. These were not very easy, so make sure you start early. Milos is also very helpful in office hours. There were also 4 quizzes, which again were pretty difficult. The homework and solved examples in class usually helped with the quizzes, so make sure you do those. Also, the quiz was the same even though there were 3 discussion sections at 3 different times, so try to enroll in a late discussion section and see if someone in an earlier section can tell you what was on the quiz.

The midterm and final were also quite lengthy and tricky, but they gave very good partial credit even for very incorrect solutions. Make sure you attempt every question to maximize this partial credit.

Milos himself is very kind and helpful. Don't hesitate to ask him questions even if you think they're basic. Even if you can't make it to his scheduled office hours, ask if you can make an appointment with him. He also answers questions on Piazza.

M51A is a change from the code-heavy CS 30 series, and I'd definitely recommend taking it with Milos. I scored around the median on everything, and got out with an A-

Enjoyed this class! I went to most of the lectures and read the textbook/slides. Ercegovac makes a lot of nerdy jokes which I thought really lightened the mood. The curve is also nice. And Ercegovac himself is super helpful and nice at office hours even if you think he thinks you're stupid for not understanding something.

Don't listen to the other reviews that say "Oh just don't go to class, read the book and you'll be fine." That's honestly what I listened to. I tried to do that. You can't. You will NOT survive unless you're really super smart. I didn't go to class, I read the book and I suffered. Do not make the same mistake. Go to class, highly recommend office hours because Ercegovac is a lot more helpful 1 to 1. Class material is hard, quizzes are decent, get your homework done early! Midterm isn't very hard, but the Final is difficult.

This class required more work than I expected--not in terms of homework but in terms of self studying. Buying the textbook is a must, and it's only about $20 from Amazon. I wish the turnaround times for homework and quizzes were better, since we were only able to get them back the day before the final. My TA and the professor were nice enough but I felt like they expected you to already know the answer to a question you were asking. I scored below median on pretty much all the quizzes, the midterm, and the final but I did end up with a B which is nice.

Long story short, you don't really need to go to lectures since you can just read the textbook, which he wrote. Actually, it might be a waste of your time to go to lectures since you'll just end up more confused. Other than reading the textbook, make sure that you understand the homeworks and you should be good to go!