Just study and put in the work. Utilize any and all resources your professor may give you, always, always go to office hours if you have any questions, and you should be fine.
The quizzes are your midterm and avoid Jeffrey McDaniel at all costs. He doesnt curve
Not too bad. Took it with Jeffrey McDaniel. I'm not sure if it was his attitude or the way he presented the material, but i understood what he was talking about. The topics covered arent too difficult to wrap your head around. RSA encryption, integer partitions, graph theory. Ocassionally he would not make sense for a bit. Notes are online. TA was helpful, prepared stuff presented in class, additional problems or whatever. Very math-y. Not really a CS course, pretty much an extension of Math011. Not too bad, easier than cs61 for sure lol
Took this with Jeffrey McDaniel; the class isn't hard but it is very punishing if you make mistakes in your work. Even if you had the right thought process and wrote the correct steps but ultimately messed up a small arithmetic error, you will get 0 points for the whole problem. The grading was 4 quizzes, 5 homeworks, and 1 final(400 pts quizzes, 200 pts homeworks, 400 pts final, no midterm) so you really have to be careful not to mess up on the quizzes. McDaniel liked to put some really weird numbers in his questions so that the problems ended up with monstrous quadratic formula roots that were annoying to tackle.
If you're terrible at math like myself and know it this will be one of the hardest courses you take almost on the level of Physics. Find yourself a good partner who can teach you the material and help you with the HW. You're going to need every resource the teacher gives you. Even during the Final review sessions with the professor there were people asking basic questions because honestly the lectures are just the professor proving the equations. Not many examples on how to use them.
You need to put some effort to pass this class. The homework and exams can be relatively easy if you go to the lectures and discussions.
Avoid Elena Strzheletska. The cumulative grade was made up of 4 quizzes (10% each) , 5 homework (4% each) assignments and a final (40%). I think most people in my class can agree that she does a poor job at teaching the class. She speeds through the powerpoint, and changes homework questions the night before assigning them ( from last years hw questions ), leaving some problems very difficult to solve since she hasn't worked out the answers yet. For one homework assignment she even had to change a homework question 3 times because she didn't check the difficult of it beforehand. A lot of the hw questions are very vague and require meeting with a TA to understand how to solve. In terms of quizzes, she give a quiz 'syllabus' and 'sample' quizzes for each quiz, which is nice, but the material on the actual quizzes were very different than the sample ones. She actually gives quite a bit of extra credit for the quizzes though, so keep that in mind. Usually in class, she'll give you a timed ~5min problem than you can choose to answer for extra credit ( 1-2 points ) that gets added to the next quiz. At the end of the quarter she also give an extra credit quiz worth ~9 quiz points, if you can prove a few of the really challenging proofs she goes over through the course. In total, the amount of extra credit you could potentially get was close to 15 points which is 50% of a quiz grade ( out of 30 points normally ). The final was on the difficult side, with the average around 60% but she slightly curves it, so that the average is around 65/70%. Overall, prepare to spend a lot of time outside of the class on this course.
Had Elena. She's decent as an instructor, but the quizzes were annoying as hell. You don't ever use the book, so the only resource for practice problems really is her lecture slides. But even then, she'll put problems on the quizzes that are more difficult/confusing than were on the lecture slides.
Homework is graded strictly and the finals is super hard.
Took with Elena. I was not used to proofs, so it was a rough ride in the beginning. I also had to miss every Friday lecture. The tempo of the class was annoying. Each week, I was either stressing over the homework or a quiz. It can get pretty overwhelming at times. Lecture won't really teach you much. She basically just wants you to learn everything on your own. Attendance was taken irregularly during lecture and used as extra credit. Very rarely there would be a bonus problem at the end of lecture for a small extra credit. You have enough time and resources for the homework. However, the quizzes might catch you off guard. Around half of the questions will be similar to the provided sample quizzes, but the last questions are going to be related to using proofs from lecture. If given the chance, do the homework before the quizzes. There were a number of times where the homework and quiz questions were near identical. In the end, the material was not that bad, but the way it's presented to you can be confusing at times.
Material in the course can be difficult, but if you spend the time to understand it by doing homework, practice problems, paying attention in lecture and discussion, you should be fine. If need be, go to office hours. I took it with Elena, even though I had heard she was difficult. I felt unimpressed. Even though her practice quizzes don’t look exactly like actual quizzes, quizzes never had unexpected material. If you don’t pay attention in class, and don’t do your part to understand material course will be much harder. I’m a CS major, but felt proofs required for the class were easy to understand. Only reason I put difficulty at a 7 was that I had to put in more work than normal, but Elena wasn’t the problem, was just the material covered.
I had this class with Strzheletska. Here's the webpage for spring 2019: http://www.cs.ucr.edu/~elenas/CS111/cs111spr19.html. She can be pretty helpful in office hours, so be sure to go if you can.
Wasn't as bad as everyone said it was. Ended up with a 77% overall but Elena gave me a B- after the curve. I honestly slacked off at the beginning of the quarter and could have done better. Just put in the time and you will do fine, Elena is a good person and willing to help her students out.
Class is really hard. You must really understand the homework assignments and you must read the book to pass this course.
Took it with Elena. I honestly don't think this class is as bad as people make it seem. It definitely isn't easy but not impossible to pass. I agree the lectures aren't the most helpful but if you have any questions Elena is very helpful during office hours which she offers quite often. Quiz syllabi are very helpful in preparation for quizzes. If you just so happen to be taking a math class while taking this class I suggest asking your math TA for help on the hw rather than the TA's for this class (at least for the proofs, I don't think they can help with run times). Homework must be done in latex. If you study hard leading up to the quizzes (and not just the night before) you should do fine. Just don't slack off, this class really can be time consuming. Take every opportunity to earn extra points leading up to the final. I think what makes this course difficult is the amount of material covered.
Took with Elena. The content isn't extremely difficult, but the format of the course is what's killer. There are 4 timed quizzes, 5 homeworks, and the final. The quizzes were doable; however, I never felt as though we were given enough time considering the number of problems and amount of computation required. Homeworks are required to be done in Latex and weren't always straightforward, but there were definitely enough resources to complete them on time. Unfortunately, I was part of the quarter that had the online final, so all I have to say about that is it was overkill - part 1 had too many questions, there was too little time, and part 2 was too difficult to even attempt. Best of luck
This class is as hard as you hear it is, and definitely the one I spent the most time on this quarter. 5 quizzes, 5 homeworks and ofc a final. The first quiz is basically a CS11 review and is ROUGH for everyone, as she basically expects you study for it by yourself. The only real concept that we use a lot from CS11 is induction and the score for this quiz can get replaced later. Make sure to start the homeworks as early as you can, USE HER OFFICE HOURS as they honestly helped me a ton. Do the problems on the quiz syllabuses and the practice quizzes, as they definitely help out. Elena is an alright lecturer, but be sure to pay attention as a lot of the material builds off each other. Our final was online cause of COVID-19, open note and on zoom, but pretty concept based. The average of our quiz scores was used to form 1 half off the final grade, pretty sick imo. Definitely can't slouch in this class.
I took CS111 Summer 2020 with Elena. We had 3-hour sessions Mondays and Wednesdays mornings - Elena gave us 10 minute break about halfway. For the summer, Elena gave out quizzes, worth 45% total. Quizzes were open note (no looking at slides). Final was closed-book and completely on graphs. Elena often gives us 5-10 to upload exam material to iLearn - hard if you’re uploading pictures. Final grade was composed of grade on final exam and grade on quizzes. I highly recommend doing well on quizzes (80% or higher, if possible). Elena allowed us to replace bad scores on the quizzes with practice problems (similar to those we got wrong). After the final, Elena required us to state whether we cheated or not (submit pdf on Gradescope).Elena has a very strong, somewhat annoying, emphasis on cheating - to the point where it's very annoying. Elena also almost always never posts the submission links for homework until you tell her to. For example, if homework is due Wednesday 11:59 pm and you don’t see the submission link at Tuesday 8 pm, email her to tell her to release the submission.
Pretty difficult, but required. Elena usually teaches it and she's who I took it with. Make sure you study the material and you should do okay. DO NOT WASTE TIME PROCRASTINATING ON HOMEWORK. Seriously. I know plenty of students who waited until the last minute to do everything and got screwed.
Pretty difficult if you were to take it by yourself. Have a study group!
Fuck this class and fuck Elena's inability to teach properly. Please take it with anyone but her. she won't even answer ur questions you ask her, she'll just say its easy and give a convoluted explanation that makes no sense. so you have to self learn and end up losing points on the hw because its not the "right" answer. For the winter 2021 final it was divided into two parts and part 2 could either cover all the material from the course (minus graphs which she just sped through and didn't cover properly at all) or it could be replaced with your quiz average. Part 1 is all graph theory and for the final she made it so damn difficult (10 questions mostly proofs and stuff we had never seen before). most students ended leaving multiple blank because she never taught us how to do these problems. she's admitted before she could never deal with timed quizzes and hard finals if she were in our shoes so idk why she structures it like this.
Took it online with Chrobak. Homework grading was straight terrible, like "arrive to the correct answer and get 2/10 for doing a different process" terrible. Chrobak's lectures aren't worth attending, you can learn more from a 5 min Youtube video on each concept than listening to him. Office hours is worth it though. Final was absolutely killer, MUCH harder than any of the practice exams they gave us. The CS111 discord server had a poll and 34/34 voted that it was hard as fuck, not even a single troll vote saying that it was easy.
The course material really isn't too bad. I had Marek Chrobak, and he was a professor with a good attitude. Just practice enough, and you're set. However, the grading distribution is what hurts students. Also, the final was split into 2 parts. First part was mandatory and only tests on graphs, but the second part is optional. If you don't take the part 2, it's your quiz average. If you do, it'll test you on the rest of the course material, but whatever you get (even if it's lower than the quiz average) is your grade on this portion. Each portion is 20% of your final grade. 4 quizzes = 40%, and 5 hw = 20%.
The quizzes are difficult because you have to complete them within 30 minutes. Make sure you spend a lot of time outside of class studying and take advantage of the office hours as much as possible. You have to know the material well in order to do well in the class. Try to get a high quiz and homework average since the final is very difficult and will bring down your grade quite a bit if you don't do well.
Have to retake this class because Professor Chrobak refused to round my 58 to a 60 while rounding other peoples grades from a D+ to a C. Ridiculous expectations such as 30 minutes per quiz, final worth 40% of grade. Highly recommend taking this class in a lighter quarter with 2 other easy classes as you'll have more time to study.
The format of this class absolutely destroys you with the quizzes and homework, plus the final destroys everyone. Decent curve at the end that moves you up 1/3 - 2/3 of a letter grade up. You have to start of this class solid to even have a chance of getting a decent grade.
Took the class with Elena. Honestly not too bad. Make sure you know the content really well because what makes the class hard is the 30 minute quizzes. Read over the slides and really understand the material by doing extra practice problems. Go to every single office hours as she will help with the HW and give you extra practice questions for the quiz. The final was the hardest thing I've ever taken in my life with class was overall curved generously.
I had Prof. Elena she is a great professor. she really wants you to understand the material. If you put in the time to truly understand the homework and do the practice quizzes she post you will be fine. The final was tough I dont think anyone in our class said it was easy. don't skip lectures it will hurt you and ask questions. Got a B in the class. there was like a 5-6% percent curve at the end.
Had this class with Chrobak. The examinations were extremely difficult and there was very little time on every quiz. Every test is a time scramble and time is probably one of the largest factors here. The homeworks are required to be written in LATEX which you have to learn at the beginning but is not too bad once you get the hang of it, just time consuming. However do be warned, the grading was extremely non transparent. A grade shift curve was applied at the end but however was not released so students did not know how much their grades got shifted if at all and emails to the professor asking about the general curve were not answered. Basically, watch your time during quizzes tests and know proofs. This class has many proofs in the lectures and in the final. There were a total of 4 quizzes total and a 2 part final, the 2nd part of the final being optional (If you didn't take, the average of your quizzes were the score used for the second part of the final). The averages for the quizzes in our class were 74.4%, 71.3%, 80%, and 71.5% and the finals were 61.73%(part 1) and 67.92% (part 2) and the homework average across 5 assignments were 88.29%. (After regrades, the averages are probably slightly higher) Asking many students about their grades after the curved, I could be totally off but I would give an estimated guess of about a 3-6% curve to your final grade.
Took Chrobak in Spring 2021. No matter if you choose Chrobak or Elena (who is the head professor), you will have a hard time. Lectures are heavily dense with explanations on the mathematical proofs behind why a certain theorem exists, which aren't utilized for the homework or exams at all, at least for this quarter. It is unironically a better experience watching Khan Academy or Numberphile on YouTube than attending lecture. ACR tutoring for this class filled up extremely fast too, so good luck getting any outside tutoring. The final only focused on graphs and was worth 30% of the grade. Final for BOTH sections were moved to the earlier scheduled final, which opens up the risk for time conflicts. The final was also only 2 hours instead of 3 hours. Grades released within TWO days of taking the final, which created grading errors. Average on the final across both sections was a 57%. However, because the maximum was a 93.8%, that was the curve that was used, so it didn't impact much. Survey was taken for this class. 50% were expecting to fail the final, 48% hated the decision to move the final earlier, 81% felt that 2 hours wasn't enough, 67% felt sample materials weren't sufficient enough to study for the final, 67% said the final was harder than expected, and 90% were in favor of a steeper curve. Future classes that require this class as a prerequisite only require a D-, keep that in mind before dropping early -- it will still screw with your GPA though
Took with Elena Summer 2019. Of course its tough but I actually liked her teaching. Maybe there's something wrong with me idk. I sat near the front and never tried to joke around and asked a question every now and then and she went super easy on me, she gave me a hint for one of the questions during the final bc she saw me struggling on it. I guess the secret is to be kind of a suckup without being annoying.
Everything is graded like its an exam, be careful.
So I had to retake this class so I took it with Elena as she was the only one teaching at the time. The lectures weren't particularly helpful tbh. For the quizzes, the mock quizzes she gave a few days before the quiz were more helpful than the google drive ones. She also gave 40 mins a quiz vs 30 mins when I took it the first time with chrobak so that definitely helped me a lot. I would spend around 3 days studying for the quizzes, 1 day to work through google drive samples, 1 day to time myself on the mock quiz, and another to go through lecture problems. This is really necessary as the final was all on graphs and since its worth 35% it can bring your grade down harshly. The average on the final was around a 50% so my grade dropped from a b- to a c- but then she pulled some magic at the end and I ended with a b-
Took with elena, dont slack, go over slides and do problems, have a study group, do any practice quizzes she gives out, make sure to try all the hw problems yourself. Tough but not bad.
took it with Chrobak, think he did fine as a professor, his accent was kinda heavy so it was hard to get what he was talking about but what are you gonna do about that, I think he gave a pretty good amount of resources to do pretty much everything in the class, from his slides, to formatted lecture notes, lecture recordings, recorded discussions, and practice quizzes. His midterm and final pretty much cover everything youd done in the hw and quizzes. WATCH OUT FOR THE QUIZZES the biggest grade killer imo, you get like no time to do them so if you cant snap out a question immediately its pretty much over for that question killed by grade and got me a D+ even with a cruve. The hw is also kinda weird like i would get marked off for not showing something even though i thought i showed it enough but overall it fine, tedious cause he makes you format it into latex, but fine.
I took this class twice with Elena. I failed the first time. The second time around I made an active effort to ask questions and go to office hours. Alot of people think Elena is like from the depths of hell, ya she's strict but she really does care. And she will notice the effort you make. Attendance isn't mandatory but she loves to threaten the class if people don't show up to class. If you go to lecture you'll see a lot of parallels between HW problems and the lecture examples, same with discussion. Usually 5 homeworks, no midterm, 4-5 quizzes, and final. Do the practice quizzes. I cannot stress this enough, the quizzes are pretty much structured the same as the quiz and it's good practice. Final was hard af, on graphs. I failed it but hey we still passed boys its ok. The class is not programming heavy, except for 1 HW. The class is challenging but it's doable. Don't cheat, don't bother trying, they will catch you. And, there usually is a curve at the end and sometimes she offers EC, and 60% or higher is passing.
I took this class back during spring quarter of 2022 with Chrobak when remote learning was still an option and it was very difficult to stay focused during the lecture. The homework has unrealistic expectations when it comes to grading as it may be impossible to get a good score on and the worst part is that the homework may save or ruin your grade. Quizzes worth 40% with a constraint of 30 minutes or less to solve rigorous problems that were either on the homework or lecture. I barely crawled out of this class alive academically thanks to the homeworks. 141 is like this class except it has a more balanced approach to the grading scale. I wouldn’t take this class again.
Very difficult class, took it with Chrobak. The key to surviving is to, and this is much easier with a study group, go over and fully understand each of the hw and every single problem on the practice quizzes given out beforehand. Don't overthink the theory, just memorize how to solve each problem, most topics/problems can be solved like puzzles if u just memorize a tutorial. Homeworks are graded like exams for accuracy, don't make mistakes. Overexplain on proofs during quizzes, I've gotten lots of points docked off on proofs just for missing key terminology or math symbols.
Took with Elena. Hard class but doable. 20% for hw and 50% for quizzes and we had 6 with 1 dropped. I dont think shes as bad as people say she is but shes not amazing either. She also tries to scare students into thinking they should drop the class early if they dont know a few things that they wont even need after week 2. Just go to class and pay attention. If you dose off for a slide, youll most likely be lost for the rest of lecture. Utilize discussion bc she has good examples that will be on the quiz or on the hw. And dont worry if u dont do good on the first quiz, the rest of them are a lot easier imo.
i took this class in spring 2023, and personally I found it really difficult, so I would say consult ULA or outside tutoring because you’ll need it
Took with Strzheletska in spring 2023. absolute pain in the ass of a class if you aren't good with math, so find help or find god cuz struggling by yourself is the worst thing you can do. She does a bunch of curving and stuff and apparently someone in my class had a 112% right before the final but that's definitely not happening to the average layman.
Avoid Yugishari Shashwat at all costs (or however he spells his name). Bro does not know how to teach lol
Class is tough. Be ready to spend a good amount of time studying the topics. The lecture period is not enough to comprehend the complexity of the material. The beginning and end of the class are the toughest. Don't fall behind.
Took with Elena Strzheletska. She's completely no-nonsense and kind of ominous but I liked her. Very strict no-tolerance cheating policy. Quizzes were hard. My advice is to make sure you actually understand all of the material and double-check any uncertainty with TAs. You can't half-ass this class. Even if you have the right answer, if your process doesn't add up you'll lose points. But if you put in the effort and manage your time you can do well.
Had Professor Elena; be prepared to work, but this class is not impossible. She gives clear quiz syllabuses, meaning that if you practice enough, you should have no reason to do really bad on quizzes. She's super caring in office hours, and will help you out. I would recommend going to a TA for homework help (for answers lowkey LOL), and Elena for quiz help. She's actually pretty generous about extra credit/curving (she does one or the other). Overall, a hard class, but not impossibly so.
Elena is quite paranoid about cheating and talks about it every class. A lot of work but if you are able to build a fortress from the homework and quizzes then the final (which is stupidly hard, like seriously, chances are you won't be able to finish it) won't hurt you too bad. Stingy with curves, but there's 3% extra credit.
This class absolutely sucks! Everything you hear about this class is true!
Took in Spring 2025 with Elena. One of the hardest classes I have taken so far because of time taken to do homework or understand material. Homework uses LaTeX which takes a bit of time to learn the first time. Get a good homework partner to distribute the typing workload and compare answers to. Lectures are useful for explanations of topics but posted slides don't include notes. Grading can feel harsh sometimes and the class grading makes quizzes super important. Final is only on graphs however but is still difficult. EC can be max 1% added to your final grade. Tough class and lots of work but managable. Office hours and discussion sections are super helpful.
Took in Winter 2025 Quarter. This class is overall better than I expected. The quizzes, final, homeworks, and presentation project isgood as long as you do the work. The practice quizzes are helped to prepare for thesteps you need to solve a problem. Honestly, the content is not that difficult to understand.