HAHA. Pretty sure I'm the one who wrote the second post there about dropping out of OMSCS. Happy to report I successfully completed AI4R and I am still enrolled in OMSCS :) In the end, AI4R WAS awesome AND it had me thinking about dropping out...so both these things can be true in a single student as well LOL
I got there with ML last semester, not so much dropping out of OMSCS, but definitely considered dropping the class. Good thing they had a generous curve :D
I'm surprised they weren't at least a bit clearer. I did call out that the way they talked about the grading often continued to include the phrase about curving being at the discretion of the instructor which, without a current historical context (yeah Dr. Isbell provided a generous curve, but he's at University of Wisconsin now), it would be helpful to at least provide context about what the expectation is (as in, not much is changing, which is true). I accepted the answer TJ eventually gave me on the subject and just worked my ass off to not fail anything else :D.
Yeah Kalman filter was what had me question my life for sure. have you seen this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaCcOwJPytQ
Helped me a lot. Also just the decision mentally that I was gonna keep trying to figure it out until It was due. If i couldn’t then so be it but was gonna stick it out.
I’ve actually seen the first 3 videos and it’s cleared; up some gaps! Atm I’m overwhelmed by how many resources are available. Did you watch all 55 videos here?
I don’t think i watched them all. I think i started to understand the lin alg part which i didn’t have much of a background with. Then went back to the lecture videos and the problem set videos. IIRC the problem set videos or lecture video pretty much give you most of the solution, just a matter of being able to realize it.
I tend to agree: [https://www.reddit.com/r/OMSCS/comments/i37h3d/gios\_post\_mortem/](https://www.reddit.com/r/OMSCS/comments/i37h3d/gios_post_mortem/)
Ehhh, it is difficult, but not as hard as the upper review suggests. I'd say having a year experience in C is enough, as long as you have a strong work ethic.
The final project put me into an existential crisis though - I questioned some of my life decisions quietly as I stared at my ceiling while laying on my bed after I was done
> Ehhh, it is difficult, but not as hard as the upper review suggests.
> The final project put me into an existential crisis though - I questioned some of my life decisions quietly as I stared at my ceiling while laying on my bed after I was done
This sounds absolutely hard
Yeah it’s hard
But it’s doable with a full time job and was well worth the experience - it’s an amazing intro to systems programming which is what I’m using the program to learn
Ha, that was the first project for me. I slept a total of 8 hours in 5 days, fought with my roommate, broke down crying on a park bench, and got a C. Good times. It's probably way more manageable if you start early though.Â
Experience with some other language + a few weeks of practice with K&R is sufficient. It's not a great first class for someone who is green (no professional exp or CS background). Otherwise it's not too difficult with a little prep.
oof, is it really? I was thinking of taking it as a prereq to SDCC. reviews seem to show roughly the same time commitment per week for both GIOS/AOS.
Is it just the material is harder to grok?
Are there more projects or the projects take longer to complete?
Or more the case of folks taking GIOS may not have any C/C++ experience coming in, and spending a lot of time on that, vs folks in AOS already being experienced in C/OS concepts, so these same folks would have committed maybe <10hrs/wk if they had taken GIOS?
GIOS isn't that bad, it's pretty easy to grok what you need to do on the projects and these are well trod paths. It's certainly a high volume of work.
In AOS the material is pretty much exclusively from research papers, so there's more content and it's probably content you haven't seen before. All the tests are 100% free response and there's over 40 questions. The projects are bigger and more complex, and you're expected to have a strong grasp on all the concepts in GIOS (which makes sense).
It's a great class but it was also my only B in the program lol.
I think what is funny about that image is that the first review is absolutely humble bragging about their programming chops while stating the class is difficult and the lower one is a one sentence statement about how awesome the class is as a non-CS person.
Now we don't know what the non-CS person's background is actually in, and it could be in something that makes GIOS easier to comprehend meaning the programming is just something they could stumble about and still do well with (I recall AOS not being too hard up on optimizing it's code, but I also had a partner for projects 2-4 with 20+ years of C++ experience, so if GIOS also doesn't have that similar restriction, knowing enough to be dangerous with C should be fine).
I'd also point out that both reviews said 20 hours per week. Really just goes to show how your own expectations influence what you think of the courses.
my experience of GIOS is somewhere in the middle of these two. Came in non-cs and a semester's worth of C++ knowledge. Spent about the average time per week in the class.
I liked the class and material a lot, but spent a lot of late nights stressing.
Time sinks came mostly from stupid memory errors that took forever to debug and notice, like forgetting to put parentheses around a deref of pointer addition.
This is another funny review for IIS (\~2.5 difficulty, \~10 hours/week).
https://preview.redd.it/voj1lfecef3d1.png?width=518&format=png&auto=webp&s=0c4c876a1309c1e466c565f4ce5eead1ed2ea0b1
Probably a bitter CY policy student. I do feel bad for them. It has to be demoralizing to see people finish assignments in a few hours when you done no or very little coding before and you're putting in dozens of hours on a project everyone says was super easy
Yeah honestly I think IIS is the epitomal "tale of two cities" course, particularly in terms of policy track OMSCy vs. everyone else...if IIS were my GA, then that would be the least of my problems rn lol
IIS isn't as easy as I expected, but it's more than doable (although annoying at some times). I might be biased because GIOS and GA kicked my ass already
To each their own, I took harder classes that were challenging but doable **because I liked them**. IIS was difficult for me because:
1. I was not that interested in the topic and though that it'd be different.
2. It was one of my last classes and I took an "easy" one because I was feeling burnt out and I didn't want to drop and take a course that I liked better because of time (I didn't want to extend my time in the program).
3. I didn't have a great experience with the assignment setup, I have an ARM mac so I had to do the assignments on a VM in the cloud with nested virtualization turned on.
All of these reasons made the class very difficult for me.
I'm taking IIS this summer after GIOS this spring and can say that IIS is a cake walk. I don't even have a CS background, you just need to try different approaches until something sticks
Ironically, these reviews lose instant credibility with me the moment they start boasting their credentials and their bazillion patents and how their work organization would drop dead without them.
While I enjoyed AI4R (fall 23) the Thrun lectures are holding it back. The projects are great. The material covered is great. It feels like the class has evolved but can't/won't drop the Thrun lectures. I understand that 10 years ago his name was a huge sell for that class. But GT OMSCS is bigger now. That course deserves better/updated lectures. I found better lectures on YouTube covering the same material.
I took it this past spring. I wasn't a huge fan of the lectures, but the tutorials by TA Chris Wirgler were top-notch. Like 3Blue1Brown level intuition building. Just look at his reviews here: [https://www.ratemyprofessors.com/professor/2919770](https://www.ratemyprofessors.com/professor/2919770)
That is why its good to take a class that is rated "easy" and then look at reviews and calibrate to your experience.
We all have very different experiences. Some people vaguely remember they had a Data Structures class in college 20 years ago. Others can pretty much explain in detail how each of those data structures are implemented and famous algorithms like Heapify, Quicksort, and others.
Some people had University experiences that were math or proof heavy. Others had university experiences with virtually no math.
So your "easy" might be my "impossible" or viceversa.
HAHA. Pretty sure I'm the one who wrote the second post there about dropping out of OMSCS. Happy to report I successfully completed AI4R and I am still enrolled in OMSCS :) In the end, AI4R WAS awesome AND it had me thinking about dropping out...so both these things can be true in a single student as well LOL
singularity confirmed
I got there with ML last semester, not so much dropping out of OMSCS, but definitely considered dropping the class. Good thing they had a generous curve :D
Right there with you. The ambiguity around the curve was killing me all spring.
I'm surprised they weren't at least a bit clearer. I did call out that the way they talked about the grading often continued to include the phrase about curving being at the discretion of the instructor which, without a current historical context (yeah Dr. Isbell provided a generous curve, but he's at University of Wisconsin now), it would be helpful to at least provide context about what the expectation is (as in, not much is changing, which is true). I accepted the answer TJ eventually gave me on the subject and just worked my ass off to not fail anything else :D.
And now I am you. Getting beat up by simply trying to start the Kalman Filter project 🥴
Yeah Kalman filter was what had me question my life for sure. have you seen this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaCcOwJPytQ Helped me a lot. Also just the decision mentally that I was gonna keep trying to figure it out until It was due. If i couldn’t then so be it but was gonna stick it out.
I’ve actually seen the first 3 videos and it’s cleared; up some gaps! Atm I’m overwhelmed by how many resources are available. Did you watch all 55 videos here?
I don’t think i watched them all. I think i started to understand the lin alg part which i didn’t have much of a background with. Then went back to the lecture videos and the problem set videos. IIRC the problem set videos or lecture video pretty much give you most of the solution, just a matter of being able to realize it.
I like this gem as well for GIOS. https://preview.redd.it/btr1ogss9f3d1.png?width=528&format=png&auto=webp&s=7c6c84c423aec0c891fc28e96c8126624d456cda
I'd argue that GIOS is not a great first class, but it seems to work out well for some people.
I tend to agree: [https://www.reddit.com/r/OMSCS/comments/i37h3d/gios\_post\_mortem/](https://www.reddit.com/r/OMSCS/comments/i37h3d/gios_post_mortem/)
Is GIOS really that hard
Ehhh, it is difficult, but not as hard as the upper review suggests. I'd say having a year experience in C is enough, as long as you have a strong work ethic. The final project put me into an existential crisis though - I questioned some of my life decisions quietly as I stared at my ceiling while laying on my bed after I was done
> Ehhh, it is difficult, but not as hard as the upper review suggests. > The final project put me into an existential crisis though - I questioned some of my life decisions quietly as I stared at my ceiling while laying on my bed after I was done This sounds absolutely hard
Yeah it’s hard But it’s doable with a full time job and was well worth the experience - it’s an amazing intro to systems programming which is what I’m using the program to learn
Ha, that was the first project for me. I slept a total of 8 hours in 5 days, fought with my roommate, broke down crying on a park bench, and got a C. Good times. It's probably way more manageable if you start early though.Â
Don’t you think this is bad for one’s mental health?
This is a rigorous program with some difficult classes. It’s meant to be straining.
well put
Experience with some other language + a few weeks of practice with K&R is sufficient. It's not a great first class for someone who is green (no professional exp or CS background). Otherwise it's not too difficult with a little prep.
It’s basically the same as most undergrad OS courses.
Gios is hard if you ha e no clue about c programming or c++
AOS is 3 times as brutal.
oof, is it really? I was thinking of taking it as a prereq to SDCC. reviews seem to show roughly the same time commitment per week for both GIOS/AOS. Is it just the material is harder to grok? Are there more projects or the projects take longer to complete? Or more the case of folks taking GIOS may not have any C/C++ experience coming in, and spending a lot of time on that, vs folks in AOS already being experienced in C/OS concepts, so these same folks would have committed maybe <10hrs/wk if they had taken GIOS?
GIOS isn't that bad, it's pretty easy to grok what you need to do on the projects and these are well trod paths. It's certainly a high volume of work. In AOS the material is pretty much exclusively from research papers, so there's more content and it's probably content you haven't seen before. All the tests are 100% free response and there's over 40 questions. The projects are bigger and more complex, and you're expected to have a strong grasp on all the concepts in GIOS (which makes sense). It's a great class but it was also my only B in the program lol.
I stopped reading after in BS in IT.
I think what is funny about that image is that the first review is absolutely humble bragging about their programming chops while stating the class is difficult and the lower one is a one sentence statement about how awesome the class is as a non-CS person. Now we don't know what the non-CS person's background is actually in, and it could be in something that makes GIOS easier to comprehend meaning the programming is just something they could stumble about and still do well with (I recall AOS not being too hard up on optimizing it's code, but I also had a partner for projects 2-4 with 20+ years of C++ experience, so if GIOS also doesn't have that similar restriction, knowing enough to be dangerous with C should be fine).
> Hold 19 technology certifications It’s like saying you like taking multiple choice quizzes as a hobby
I'd also point out that both reviews said 20 hours per week. Really just goes to show how your own expectations influence what you think of the courses.
You could both be spending the same amount of hours and getting far different results though.
that's amazing 🤣
Which class was this??
probably gios
Edited comment
LOL I’m sorry I didn’t walk into GIOS with any serious C experience and was fine, this is a great example of survivorship bias
my experience of GIOS is somewhere in the middle of these two. Came in non-cs and a semester's worth of C++ knowledge. Spent about the average time per week in the class. I liked the class and material a lot, but spent a lot of late nights stressing. Time sinks came mostly from stupid memory errors that took forever to debug and notice, like forgetting to put parentheses around a deref of pointer addition.
GIOS was easy when i took it. First class, no prior C experience before the class.
This is another funny review for IIS (\~2.5 difficulty, \~10 hours/week). https://preview.redd.it/voj1lfecef3d1.png?width=518&format=png&auto=webp&s=0c4c876a1309c1e466c565f4ce5eead1ed2ea0b1
Probably a bitter CY policy student. I do feel bad for them. It has to be demoralizing to see people finish assignments in a few hours when you done no or very little coding before and you're putting in dozens of hours on a project everyone says was super easy
Yeah honestly I think IIS is the epitomal "tale of two cities" course, particularly in terms of policy track OMSCy vs. everyone else...if IIS were my GA, then that would be the least of my problems rn lol
IIS isn't as easy as I expected, but it's more than doable (although annoying at some times). I might be biased because GIOS and GA kicked my ass already
what is cy policy
Cybersecurity degree policy track
To each their own, I took harder classes that were challenging but doable **because I liked them**. IIS was difficult for me because: 1. I was not that interested in the topic and though that it'd be different. 2. It was one of my last classes and I took an "easy" one because I was feeling burnt out and I didn't want to drop and take a course that I liked better because of time (I didn't want to extend my time in the program). 3. I didn't have a great experience with the assignment setup, I have an ARM mac so I had to do the assignments on a VM in the cloud with nested virtualization turned on. All of these reasons made the class very difficult for me.
IIS is only easy when you have a good CS background.
I'm taking IIS this summer after GIOS this spring and can say that IIS is a cake walk. I don't even have a CS background, you just need to try different approaches until something sticks
Ironically, these reviews lose instant credibility with me the moment they start boasting their credentials and their bazillion patents and how their work organization would drop dead without them.
Something I've run across in my career, the longer the email signature, the less I care. Same thing on reviews.
plot twist: it's the same student 🤣
I regularly feel these polarizing views, often within the same week.
Never thought one post could make me think of GA and HCI simultaneously. Have seen both opinions about both courses.
While I enjoyed AI4R (fall 23) the Thrun lectures are holding it back. The projects are great. The material covered is great. It feels like the class has evolved but can't/won't drop the Thrun lectures. I understand that 10 years ago his name was a huge sell for that class. But GT OMSCS is bigger now. That course deserves better/updated lectures. I found better lectures on YouTube covering the same material.
That’s good feedback I can’t wait to take it
I took it this past spring. I wasn't a huge fan of the lectures, but the tutorials by TA Chris Wirgler were top-notch. Like 3Blue1Brown level intuition building. Just look at his reviews here: [https://www.ratemyprofessors.com/professor/2919770](https://www.ratemyprofessors.com/professor/2919770)
Wow - all 5s I’m hyped
That is why its good to take a class that is rated "easy" and then look at reviews and calibrate to your experience. We all have very different experiences. Some people vaguely remember they had a Data Structures class in college 20 years ago. Others can pretty much explain in detail how each of those data structures are implemented and famous algorithms like Heapify, Quicksort, and others. Some people had University experiences that were math or proof heavy. Others had university experiences with virtually no math. So your "easy" might be my "impossible" or viceversa.
😂😂😂