CS 371g Summer 2020: Final Entry

Yichen Liu
2 min readJul 28, 2020

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How well do you think the course conveyed those takeaways?

I think these takeaways are conveyed pretty well by this course. Every topic was demonstrated through detailed code examples. The experience of building those examples with Prof.Dowing and other partners in breakout rooms is very helpful. Projects and exams further strengthen our understanding of them.

Were there any other particular takeaways for you?

One takeaway for me is to utilize std functions like copy, fill instead of reimplementing similar functionality in a loop.

How did you feel about two-stage quizzes and tests?

In general, I appreciate the idea of two-stage tests. It’s a good way to force some collaborations in class. But sometimes the collaborative part could be redundant when the quizzes questions are too easy or the exam questions are exactly the same. I think it would be better if you make the collaborative part of the exam to have just one new harder problem instead of multiple same problems.

How did you feel about cold calling?

I have no problem with cold calling from day one. It helped me stay engaged and it’s a good thing to have someone to talk to in this special time.

How did you feel about office hours?

Office hours are pretty helpful for projects. And I appreciate the mini-office hour after each lecture. However, consider this course has not been taught for three years it’s understandable that Prof.Dowing forget some details of specs of projects when I ask him in office hours. Also, it’s good to attend it even if you don’t have a specific question because other’s questions can sometimes be very inspiring.

How did you feel about lab sessions?

I prefer to ask questions in office hours so I haven’t been to any of the lab sessions.

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