This course is not at all difficult, but as noted by many former students, the grading and requirements are nit-picky. I thought that the continuous integration project was a good experience, but in general, I don't think there's enough useful content to justify an entire class. Also, the professor is not pleasurable to interact with. If I wasn't close to already finishing this program, this course would be enough to give me pause and reconsider if this degree is really worth it. It was a poor combination of lack of rigor, lack of good instruction, and pointless content. Hopefully the school either repurposes the course or gives it to an instructor who has actually worked in industry.

Submitted Mon Dec 16 2024

The class revolves almost entirely around verification (aka testing), so don't expect to be doing much programming. As others have noted, grading can be nit picky. Make sure to review Ed posts and past chats on the discord channel. These saved me from getting points deducted for small things that are not clarified in the requirements. The group project does not start until halfway into the term - don't stress out too much about finding teammates. I have personally found more success being assigned to groups randomly rather than actively seeking teammates who aligned with my schedule/communication methods because random groups tend to be more flexible. The proctored final exam has some trick questions, but you should do well just from reviewing the study guide posted on discord.

Submitted Wed Aug 21 2024

READ THE ASSIGNMENT INSTRUCTIONS MULTIPLE TIMES! Because it's considered an easier class, they are super strict and will not be afraid to deduct the tiniest points for the tiniest oversight. Everybody will fall for it at one time or another. It's fine. Move on.

Submitted Tue Jun 04 2024

The class itself is not extremely difficult. Some of the testing concepts were fun and definitely eye-opening. Be careful to read instructions thoroughly or you'll lose easy points lol.

Submitted Sun Mar 31 2024

On the one hand, there's a lot of really useful content here, and you'll likely walk away from this class having gotten a handle on a good amount of it fairly painlessly. On the other hand, for an expensive course like this the instructor is absolutely a disappointment. The grading is very nitpicky and gotcha-based, and I just got the impression that the instructor (who doesn't seem to any experience outside of academia) approaches computer science as a puzzle or game of sorts. It's frustrating if you're looking to successfully break into tech, as I assume the vast majority of us are. That said, it's not hard to get the grade you want, and the modules are generally done well. Just be aware that the instructor will be wasting your time on the assignments.

Submitted Sat Mar 23 2024

The issue with this course really is the grading. The professor has a very long assignment page for each assignment but then posts additional requirements all over ED, so be prepared to dig around or you're going to miss major points. If you are vigilant and follow his many, many extraneous requirements, it's an easy A. But you really do have to pay attention. He is not gracious if you email him.

Submitted Sun Mar 10 2024

Read the grading feedback/rubric WELL. You can complete the homework and activities, but earn a 0 on the assignment, due to some ridiculous grading criteria.

Submitted Sun Mar 10 2024

Assignments are a boring time sink. Each week there is only about an hour worth of learning material. The instructor is a condescending egomaniac. The assignments are riddled with booby trap criteria that will automatically land you zero with points for the assignment. Regrade requests must be done publicly so that the instructor can shoot down your request and stroke his own ego in front of everyone. Overall, there is about 8 hours of learning material in this $1500 course. This class is a scam that is led by a person who has no professional experience in the CS field.

Submitted Sat Dec 30 2023

This class is (mostly) very easy and low time-commitment. There were weeks where I forgot it existed. However, there is important practical information in here, so that doesn't mean you should ignore it. It's mostly about testing and using git. There isn't much of a routine structure to the course. Varying week to week, there are little assignments where you follow some workflow, a few quizzes, some coding projects, and a group project. The coding projects range from stupid easy to easy in theory but incredibly time consuming. Most of them can be done in a couple of hours or less, but the black box testing project can suck up hours and hours if you don't efficiently identify all of the bugs you should be testing for. The group project is pretty straightforward. You and your teammates each get one function to implement and write tests for, and then you collaborate on a shared repo to simulate a code review/continuous integration process using Github actions. The class has a final exam that is a little trickier than the weekly quizzes, so make sure to re-read the modules before taking it.

Submitted Tue Dec 19 2023

Some of the activities are annoying in the amount of work you have to put in, but nothing is too difficult. Just a bit of a time sink. A group project involving continuous integration is highly dependent on having group members who don't suck. I believe the teacher chooses the groups, but just be prepared to test your classmates' code yourself because your grade will depend on how accurate the code is - even the parts you didn't write. Final exam is conceptual - and concepts in this class are fairly easy to grasp. Just read assignments very carefully as it's easy to lose points for simple mistakes. Some assignments will be an automatic zero for such mistakes.

Submitted Mon Dec 11 2023