Be sure to read every. single. detail. of each homework assignment, or you will regret it. The graders are very generous with point deductions. The content of the course is challenging, but interesting, and you gain a better understanding of some commonly implemented data structures.

Submitted Tue Nov 19 2024

Roughly the same difficulty as 271. Assumes you're already pretty strong with python. Start the homework early. The python debugger is your best friend. Read, understand, and follow the assignment specifications. Prof Scovil can sometimes come off as a hardass, but he's hilarious. Super professionally done course videos. He won't give you answers and he expects you to do most of the problem solving. One of my fave courses so far at OSU

Submitted Tue Jun 25 2024

Randy Scovil's homework specs were so vague and unhelpful. Most times, they would omit many details that you would only find out in Gradescope tests. Once you find them out, you have to go to Office Hours and wrestle with.the TAs to get help. Scovil's OH were like his homework specs: vague and unhelpful. When you ask him a question, he would ask you a question back and leave you even more confused.

Submitted Mon Apr 01 2024

To parrot everyone else: start assignments as early as you can! You can 100% every assignment if you give yourself enough time, and that makes the exams much easier too. I recommend getting on the course's schedule. Modules unlock on Monday, but their assignments don't open till Friday. Use the week to go through the notes (and work through the previous week's assignment) so when the new assignment unlocks you can start it the day it opens. Going into this class I was nervous as hell but I took the final with a high A For the work itself, draw things out on a whiteboard or scratch paper and use the debugger! Compare your program against their test cases then use the conditional debugger to get to the test that's failing (because you will have failing tests and that's okay!) and step through/into slowly to see which variables are off. It's significantly less stressful doing this process when you know the assignment isn't due for like 5+ days, and practicing it on the assignments before AVL makes AVL more manageable (that one it's updating the parent/child references that fucks everything up)

Submitted Mon Mar 25 2024

I enjoyed this course and found the assignments and tests to be fair and balanced. The concepts were explained OK in the readings, but the assignments really helped to drill in the knowledge. My main pieces of advice for this class are to (1) actually read the explorations and take notes - a lot of people complained that things were not explained but they were in the explorations - and (2) start the assignments as early as possible!!!! Some of the assignments sneak up on you in terms of difficulty. I studied moderately for the exams and got a 100 on both, they are pretty fair and go over a good amount of the class without being too nitpicky and detailed. Good luck!

Submitted Thu Jan 04 2024

Start assignments early.

Submitted Thu Dec 21 2023

Make sure you grind the material. Review online. With python this is fairly easy. Most of the structures have been done before, so refer to other material to get a good starting point if you're every stuck.

Submitted Wed Dec 20 2023

Make sure you have a good understanding of object-oriented programming! The assignments are not too difficult if you watch lecture and read the explorations. The midterm and final were fair.

Submitted Sun Dec 17 2023

You don't get the benefit of collaboration in this course like you did in 161-162.

Submitted Thu Sep 07 2023

Not too hard at all. You go over the basic data structures and implement them from scratch starting with a static array to hashmaps. However, they provide starter code and the assignment document is very detailed and well written. Tests were fair and as long as you do the explorations you should be fine.

Submitted Mon Aug 21 2023