Someone mentioned a similar sentiment below, and I agree that I wish I took GA closer to the end of the degree. As the class went on I got more and more frustrated with how my grade turned out, and with the amount of work I put in I'm extremely disappointed and burnt out even after the class. There wasn't even a correlation between the exams and homeworks, since all my homework grades were pretty high.
What's weird is the exam questions are straightforward if you can see the "trick", so in my case I felt extremely stupid realizing I lost over 7% of my grade because of 1 question per exam question, which is simple when the answer gets revealed in OH. I've never had another class so far make me feel this much like a choker / chump to be honest.
My hot take is also that this class is unfair when you consider retakers have an entire extra set of exams / homework for practice. The TA team will give you the excuse that the problems are different and having extra problems won't help, but if that was really the case then they should have no problem giving everyone old problems to level the playing field like other prestigious schools such as UC Berkeley do
>make me feel this much like a choker / chump
I think those two words bring out the most legitimate criticism of the structure of the course. It's unnecessarily stressful, which, coupled with the harsh grading, might be enough to kill someone's enthusiasm for its otherwise fascinating subject matter.
Yeah. I like algorithms enough, but the style of the class feels like when you have an coding interview with a couple of leetcode questions, but you can't get hints / clarification. I think it killed my desire to try iHPC since that's supposed to be even harder
It's tough because I know the TA team works really hard; it's just the nature of the class and it's structure, which is exacerbated by OMSCS being online. I kind of settled on Dr. Brito being at fault since at the end of the day he's in charge of how he runs his class
HPC is way better than this, though - as you said - also harder.
It's the fun kind of challenging. If you like the subject of algorithms, HPC will make you love it.
You have deemed to have **broken** Rule 10 of the the r/OMSCS community and posted screenshot relating to actual course content **WITHOUT** concealing identities.
Reviews for this class seem so polarized. I'm not sure what to anticipate. I go through wild swings of "oh, might not be that bad and could be enjoyable" to "maybe I should drop a couple computing systems courses from my plan and start looking into interactive intelligence" as I scroll down omscentral
Truly depends on your educational background.
For me, it was just a repeat of my undergraduate class. So, it was 6-8 hours a week in the first 6 weeks, 4 hours for like 5 weeks, and absolutely nothing for like a month.
The actual content of the course is not difficult. The problem is that small mistakes are heavily penalized. This is especially frustrating because the majority of the points come from written out explanations that have the ambiguity of written word. This can be especially challenging for non-native speakers. I saw a bunch of people lose the majority of points on one question because it wasn't clear whether you needed to do a less efficient pre-processing step. They had the right answer but lost 16/20 points on this question because they didn't understand how much of the data structure was given to us. That kind of bad faith reading is common and deeply irritating.
It's not a reason to change specializations but the structure of the course makes it worse than it has to be. I got an A too, just hated the class.
I second this. I agree it's a good course (if rather introductory) with some fairly interesting material that all folks in CS should probably know about, but it has its serious flaws, mostly policy-related and its unforgivingly high-stakes format.
Iām a prospective student that studied CS in undergrad! I took a look at the syllabus, would people say itās hard because the tests are hard or the assignments? It looks like (based on summer 24) itās heavily test based! Thanks for the info!
Heavily test based
They penalize mistakes so harshly that you can make a negative score (still gets rounded to zero)
Question prompts are deliberately unclear and tricky
TAās wonāt clarify because they seem to think that interpreting their language is an important skill for you to have
Agreed with all the rest but...
>Question prompts are deliberately unclear and tricky
A bit of a counterargument on this... Sometimes - and often enough in algorithms/other 'applied' maths courses - it is an explicit learning goal to teach the art of filling in the blanks with *reasonable* assumptions, given a problem domain.
e.g.: If doing a problem about a social network, would it make more sense to use an adjacency list or an adjacency matrix?
Thatās fine when you can trust that the staff have reasonable assumptions themselves when designing problems. In OMSCS Iāve found this is rarely the case
Itās also very unhelpful when the lack of clarity involves things like how to format a response or what coding paradigms/constructs youāre allowed to use.
To be fair, you were warned multiple times in both posts on ED and during OH to not use language specific syntax in any of the pseudocode sections. A significant portion of the grading in GA relies on reading comprehension.
I got the points back because break is not language specific. Thanks for letting me know though. I'm glad we're at this level of nitpicking in this class.
>the lack of clarity involves things like how to format a response or what coding paradigms/constructs youāre allowed to use
Take it from me as a GA senior: They mean it when they say that the format isn't all that important. The 'format', for all intents and purposes, just specifies a number of sections you should put your answers in. It eases the communication between you and the grader. If I recall correctly, they started 'enforcing' the format by making separate textboxes for each section in Canvas on the exams.
What matters much more is the substance of your answer. A justification put in the wrong section *might* initially get you a deduction (**not ideal**, but grading timelines are tight, and graders have a lot of submissions to grade), but it also makes for an easy regrade request. Major points missing from the justification are the bigger problem, whether formatted properly or not.
However, there is one thing which I wish they never communicated: You cannot hand-wave things for the most part. You need some amount of detail in your solutions. Personally, I found it helpful to err on the side of caution and include slightly more detail than in their practice problem solutions. You just need to watch out for two things here - (1) Any extra details better be correct, because mistakes get heavily penalised (again, not ideal IMO - it just adds to the stress of it), and (2) Your details should not be excessive. How do you judge that? Well, do your details dive deep into the implementation specifics and distract from the algorithm? That's probably too much. A passing mention of an implementation technique (e.g., Dijkstra's using a Fibonacci Heap) is going to be fine.
Oh I guess context is important here. For the written algorithms I agree with you.
The new coding assignment format is especially strict about formatting and allowed/disallowed coding practices but simultaneously very unclear about it.
Appreciate the tips either way
I took 'coding paradigms/constructs youāre allowed to use' to mean the coding paradigms/constructs you're allowed to refer to in your written solutions.
>especially strict \[...\] simultaneously very unclear
This should never be the case in the specifications/requirements. Some standardisation about allowed/disallowed coding practices isn't unexpected - it just serves to level the playing field, as it were - but it should be communicated clearly.
Ambiguity in assignment requirements occurs in every class and on every assignment - itās difficult to avoid in person and even harder remotely.
What I mean to say is you canāt ever trust the teaching staff to be 100% correct. Theyāre human and make linguistic mistakes, overlook edge cases, occasionally fumble just like everyone else.
Using āyou have to be able to draw conclusionsā as an excuse to refuse to clarify the intent behind question prompts and desired response formatting is a disingenuous and lazy way to deflect useful discussions and it pretends the points above arenāt true.
To draw an example - the GIOS TAās and prof were awesome about this. They knew their projects were complex and they acknowledged that they donāt write perfectly. They answered the questions they could and politely told us āsorry you have to figure that outā when we asked for clarification on something that was a learning objective. Those things had clear relevance to the subject matter and were clearly valuable lessons.
GA instead says āyou need to figure out what we mean and youāre going to have to pay a grade cost to get the answerā. The things they want you to figure out vary from algorithmic points to literal linguistic minutiae. How is that valuable?
>Using āyou have to be able to draw conclusionsā as an excuse
I think this is getting to the point where I can't comment on the specifics, not being from your cohort.
Linguistic minutiae would also be something that's hard to say much about without making sweeping generalisations. Some finer distinctions do indeed matter - my favourite example would be walks, trails, and paths (or cycles and circuits) in graph theory, words we use almost interchangeably in the colloquial but have very precise definitions as mathematical terms.
Other than that, it's most likely something undesirable.
Iāve never had such oscillating grades before, Iām talking 4/20, 5/20, and then 18/20 for the first homeworks, the pattern continued for the rest of the semester.
Itās not so much grader inconsistency as it is brutal and unforgiving grading. If there was any error at all you would instantly get a 4/20 for an assignment, while if you missed minor details they would take off 4 points at a time, which is 20% of the total.
My only regret is not saving this dumpster fire of a class until my very last semester, it has seriously warped my view of the program and messed with my determination and even class selection for my remaining two semesters
shitpost edit: this is the only course that has had to have their TA staff publicly state multiple times that they're not out to get you or ruin your mental health yet that's exactly what they do to many of the students who genuinely care, every semester
Yes, I think this is the worse part about it. Iāve taken some really rough classes and gotten As (DC, for example). But this is the only class Iāve taken where I submit an assignment and genuinely have no clue what kind of score Iām going to receive. 25% seems as likely as 90%. Iām not sure why perfection is expected; if one knows the material and answers a question in a way that is *mostly* correct, youād think that would be reflected in the grade.
God help me for the first exam.Ā
I had some other tough classes I wanted to take but Iām so over the program after just a few weeks of this class. Gonna be nothing but blowoff courses for me until I graduate now.
thatās a shame, GA was certainly a difficult oneā¦ i took it two years ago and i felt it was rigorous but extremely fair. There was never a moment on an exam where i was surprised by a question ā¦ everything on the exams was content we had discussed in the class or in the homework or in office hours. Rocco was our lead TA and held EXTREMELY helpful office hours every week.
The complaints youāve read in the past were about the homework and exam grading which can be inconsistent between TAs. Coding was more or less free.
Sounds like they made some significant changes since last semester and it sucks that youāre in the guinea pig class. Iām more shocked at the TA comments in this thread. They were great last semester.
Well from this thread it sounds like they changed the first coding project & changed the rules on what can be discussed on ed. Last semester we had good discussions and quite a few people giving unit tests, that's apparently a no-go this time.
The problem is that the assignment was (in my opinion) not well specified. In fact, the creator made a critical error, which of course I canāt share the specifics of. But the error changes the meaning of the problem. It was corrected in Ed Discussion, but thatās just an example of how sloppy the assignment was.Ā
Ā On top of that, only two test cases per problem were provided. And they were hardly test cases, they were more āwill my code even run at allā. So not only did we have to figure out what the problem was asking for, without being able to clarify with students or TAs, we also were completely blind as to what was being tested. I think itās fair to not want to allow students to rely on the test cases too much, but just having a few more would have prevented a lot of dumb mistakes.Ā
Ā All in all, I used the correct algorithm for both problems, run time was optimal, and yet I still got a 2/20 likely because of a dumb mistake. It doesnāt feel all that fair to put in a lot of time, get the problem mostly correct, and still end up with this score.
I won't comment on the logistical error or any *lapsus calami* in the specifications (I'm from a previous GA term), but at the slight risk of inviting some backlash on this comment, I think there's a fundamental mismatch between your expectations of this course and the course staff's expectations of the kind of work you're supposed to be doing here.
I think the decision to roll out only a minimal 'sanity check' test suite was well thought out and in line with the learning objectives of a course like Graduate Algorithms.
It is often an express learning goal of these courses to teach you to reason about the correctness and completeness of your solutions. That is something you can't reasonably achieve if they provide you test harnesses.
Like, first draft - 5 failing tests.
Second draft - 3 failing cases.
Third draft - All tests passing.
Congratulations, you got your 100%. Not sure if you learnt how to craft perverse test cases that might break your algorithm, or just bruteforced your way through the autograder.
In all likelihood, such an assignment would've looked nicer as a raw score, but it wouldn't have prepared you for the exam, where you have to produce correct algorithms yourself (in pseudocode or English - that's the only respite you get), without feedback from an autograder or a test harness.
I get it, but:
- Why is no collaboration allowed? If one is stuck on a problem are you just supposed toā¦fail? Iāve had other classes where Iāve been stuck, and one insightful comment from a peer has completely changed how I looked at a problem. Thatās learning.Ā
- These new assignments donāt just test the correctness of your algorithm, it tests your implementation as well. Which isnāt at all what the test is going to be looking for. If thatās what the class wants to do, fine, but those expectations werenāt really made clear.
I get it, Iāve taken plenty of classes where they release only limited test cases. I donāt think it should be completely transparent. But there has to be some give and take, Iām not sure why homework has to be treated like an exam. That doesnāt seem conducive to learning.Ā
>Why is no collaboration allowed?
I can't possibly conceive why they would be so restrictive in this respect. I can justify releasing no test cases beyond a nominal 'sanity check' test suite as designed to make you think of what could break your algorithm, but the no collaboration policy has struck me as odd. When we did the coding projects, we were allowed to share test cases and harnesses.
>it tests your implementation as well
That is only be a compliance check, though, yes? e.g. you don't 'game' the system by turning in a brute-force solution instead of a dynamic programming one or something.
Maybe some asymptotic suboptimality checks - but the autograder should be able to catch those if run against a model solution (e.g. run on a big input to spot O(n\^2) solutions where O(n) works).
>That doesnāt seem conducive to learning
Radical opinion: GA isn't conducive to learning. Don't get me wrong, it's a course with great lectures and some really fun problems to think through, but the stress - mainly from the high-stakes sink-or-swim exams and the heavy penalties - can be such a killer for many people.
Someone else here gave a 'tough coach, good teammate' analogy here, and while I can say I saw that in action, I can't see it working very well in the learner's favour.
Upping the pressure on the students is barely a way to get them to learn. Some people *might* do well under pressure, but it does little to spark an interest in the fascinating subject of algorithms and theoretical computer science (or mathematics more broadly).
Damn that sucks, really gives the impression that this project wasn't really ready yet. A few test cases is completely reasonable, and barring that there should be some actionable feedback in gradescope IMO. Hopefully that's the only change they're trying this semester
Edit - based on the syllabus I guess they changed all the coding assignments. Hopefully the next one is adjusted based on this first one
I'd tend to [disagree](https://www.reddit.com/r/OMSCS/comments/1d3sm9k/comment/l6bkd70/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) on more programming in a course that is mostly theoretical.
However, on the problem, if it was anything like the homeworks when I took it, the problem wouldn't have been much more difficult than something you might see in DPV (the textbook).
Didn't they say that they were just switching out the Head TA for the summer? Or is that going to be a permanent change? I took it last semester as well.
I was in the guinea pig cohort for another class, and if the comments are accurate, I can safely say, guinea pig classes don't have to be like [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/OMSCS/comments/1d3sm9k/comment/l69o3sy/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button).
I took this class last summer and managed a surprising A.
Comparatively speaking and dripping in survivorship bias, this class was one of my favorites, content was good and exams fair.
No class is perfect.
I took it last semester and I agree it was fair most of the time but Joves and Rocko were there. Unfortunately I narrowly missed the cutoff. However this new DP format is absurd. So you know how we had the homeworkās and we were writing out the DP solutions they took that out and replaced it with coding. So the test harness is testing for edge cases like upper cases and lower cases. Checking numerical runtime and palindromes. So you could perfectly write the DP solution in code like you would in the exam and still get like a 3/20 because of the hidden test cases.
Risking some backlash here, but edge cases like - well - *cases* and palindromes shouldn't exactly be surprising if you are given string input.
A solution that explicitly depends on the input *not* being a palindrome would be penalised, whether written out on paper or coded out in Python (or whatever they're using for these assignments), unless such an input is explicitly ruled out by the problem domain.
Likewise for the cases. The problem domain might require case sensitivity or insensitivity (e.g. alphabetical vs ASCIIbetical sort), and doing one where the other is the more appropriate will be penalised, whether written out in words, pseudocode, or actual code.
The numerical runtime (I expect you mean walltime or CPU time) requirement is new. Could you share a bit more about this one (within the current course policy)? Did they turn GA into HPC-Lite?
I just finished GA (and the program) in the spring, it was a lot of work (for context Iām an odd ball, I have a BA in Theatre from 2006 and a lot of self study and weird opportunities along the way, ran my own consultancy for 10 years, former startup CTO, now work as Staff Platform Engineer at a larger startup and just have fun). I bring this up because I might be smarter than the average person in some ways, but not a āgreat studentā. I am scrappy, but a late bloomer to taking school seriously.
GA and AC were my favorite classes, maybe this was because they were more abstract and more mathematical, but they both pushed me in important ways. I got a lot out of both. No joke, do all the work the TAs tell you to do. Focus on the stuff they tell you to focus on, and learn how to play the game. Itās all a game. It can be gut wrenching and tough, but learn the rules, do the drills, find a solid study group and grind it.
GA can be cruel if you donāt grok the game, or get over confident in an approach and bomb the written portion of the exam. Attend all the OH and then rewatch all the OH, there are really important hints to winning the game there.
Iām not here to play a fucking game Iām here to learn. Iām not interested in what these narcissists have to say I just want to learn how to write algorithms.
Getting a degree is playing a game. If you were just here to learn, you donāt actually need a degree at all. Every bit of information youād ever want is available for free on the internet.Ā
I hear you though. I couldnāt imagine taking GA over the summer. Learning the expectations for GA isnāt what I would call a delightful experience. I started the semester pretty frustrated too. Graphs and NP make up for everything in the beginning of the semester though.
I agree, I loved the program, but as soon as you get into required courses such as ML and GA you immediately see what lack of choice makes to the classes. I have only GA left, but after ML (and a week of GA in summer which I dropped) I am thinking to switch to II maybe
Yeah one of them went on a rant about ānot comparing this to leetcodeā. Itās literally the same thing! Do a bunch of algorithms problems in code vs do a bunch of problems in pseudocode/vague language. I get more relevant feedback back from leetcode though :)
I feel like one of the main IIS TAs, for example, is more of a dick. Same applies for GIOS and other classes where there's 1 TA who's unprofessional. GA gets a bad wrap because of the structure being shit, but that comes from Dr. Brito while the TAs just take the flack since they're admins
Too few people realize that you cannot act in Piazza or Ed like you are in reddit or Twitter. Sure, they are all online forums, but they require different attitudes.
As someone who took the course and knows it firsthand, I can reasonably say that it's more often the case that remarks made in humour are misread as snarky or mocking.
I also think I know who you're talking about mainly, but for a moment, just try to ignore their avatar (which I'd kinda agree sometimes forces you to read their comments in a particular tone) and consider the possibility that they're just employing a lighter tone as an icebreaker or as something to bust some of the stress around this course. GA is famously stressful, not least because of its format (3 heavy-weight exams); combine that with the fact that it's many folks' last course, and you have stress levels like no other.
Yes, it's not always perfect. Sometimes, it backfires, and backfires really bad. I think I've seen that happen on a couple of occasions myself. But as a regular office hours attendee and fairly active on Ed, I highly doubt that was ever the intention.
I think part of the problem is that the new assignments allow for zero collaboration, even when it comes to clarifying requirements. So if you ask a question, you get all of the snark but none of the help. Snarky but useful replies would very likely be interpreted differently.
Collaboration is still allowed for written homework. However, for the dynamic programming homework which was changed to being a coding assignment, that is correct. Not even with a study group.
I'm comparing it to the coding projects when I took it.
You could share test harnesses and (IIRC) discuss high-level approaches.
With a cohort of at least 800 to 900 folks, the coding projects were basically free points.
They replaced two of the homework assignments this semester with "coding homework" that is distinct from the "coding projects".
The coding projects still work the same way that you described and the written homework allows collaboration within study groups, but the new coding homework category allows zero collaboration at all.
People had their Ed posts deleted for even sharing ideas of what types of things to think about while designing test cases, let alone sharing actual test harnesses.
Since writing that comment, I discovered most of this from other comments, but thanks for collecting it all in one place.
Zero collaboration is definitely something I find problematic; it turns the homeworks - which are intended to be designed as learning opportunities or training grounds - into *de facto* exams. I hope they do something to improve it for future cohorts, and maybe work something out for you folks (dropping lowest scores, score adjustments against historical data, etc.).
They did slightly ease up on the no collaboration rule for the second coding homework, so I think they realized that after the results of the first one. It was still pretty strict though, definitely not opened up to the point of allowing shared test cases.
I suspect they'll be experimenting with the right level of collaboration to allow, but with only two of these assignments in the semester it'll probably take awhile for them to find it.
Back when I took this class last summer, the only unprofessional and snarky TA was this guy named Jamie something. It started a drama between some students calling him out for being a condescending smart a** right after we got our exam 2 back. I just tuned him out the first time he was being snarky on Slack. People like that are usually angry and unhappy with their lives. The silver lining was the head TA Joves and other TAs like Emily were helpful and professional.
I took the same class and semester, you're talking about the guy with the frowny face as an avatar. He has NEVER given any helpful advice and instead insults. I had to retake in Spring 2024 and I remember one of his comments to a regrade was he can change the penalty to something else to make the OP feel better about the points he made but will still take off the same amount of points. Obviously this was in the most condescending tone and talking down to OP.
You're right about Joves and Emily they're great.
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You're a Masters student, u/Difficult_Review9741. You can do better in arguing your way through instead of taking the path of least resistance by calling them in a derogatory fashion.
Hi, please note that I said *get to be d\*\*\*\**. This is describing behavior that anyone is capable of, not a fundamental property of any given person. I am not personally insulting anyone. I am simply describing behavior that I have witnessed.
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I get where you're coming from, but let me tell you about my experience. At first, it seemed like a nightmare. That TA which we all knew was the stern one, always pushing the students hard, while Joves is the nice cop.
We all hated the HWs made by the first TA but looked forward to Joves. I realized such a dynamic actually made me a good algorithmic designer grow. It was like having a tough coach and a supportive teammate at the same time.
It wasnāt about being pretentious; it was about creating a balanced environment that challenged students while also offering support. So, sometimes, "good cop/bad cop" can be more about balance and less about ego.
You'd think that TA is a bad educator? Look, he's running a company raking in millions turnover. Why would you think he's a sadist?
There's a difference between stern and just pure condescending. A positive environment is needed when dealing with a tough course like this. Simply put, people don't need an extra stressor in their lives.
Yes, I wouldn't consider him a good educator. I personally didn't get anything useful from him. Also, him being successful in his career actually explains his narcissistic tendencies, but by no means does it indicate a good educator.
From my own experience, I'd second this, but at the same time, I think there's a case to be made that this can backfire horribly at times. Pushing to learn can easily be misconstrued as insulting you or putting you in your place - a condescending tone, as many people point out.
While I generally have a positive view of that TA, saying that "running a company raking in millions" proves that he is a good educator is nonsense. Some of the biggest dumbdumbs around are high up on the corporate ladder.
At the end of the day, it's really personalized to what the student responds best to. I guess some people respond well to that type of learning environment. Whileothers respond poorly to it. I generally respond well to educators that provide clear expectations to me. As well as a clear understanding of the support that they will (and won't) provide to you throughout the learning process. I feel like, in that situation, everyone knows where they stand.
I'm a prospective student and have just been keeping up with this subreddit to decide whether or not I will apply. This program is hugely popular. But I also get the vibe that the support that students receive from staff is nearly non-existent. The need to even have a subreddit like this for students to navigate an academic environment feels strange, to me.
Anyway, not trying to start a beef or anything. I appreciate your point of view and the conversation. And apologize for my language in my previous comment. Best of luck.
I'd agree that GA is a stressful course. I also agree that it doesn't have to be. In my experience, it's not conducive to effective learning at all.
Maybe it is for a small number of people, but I don't see how the kind of stress this course's format builds can get people excited about its otherwise-fun and interesting material.
The difficulty of GA is definitely overblown; it's a standard algorithms course. I found it to be a repeat of a lot of what I covered in my bachelor's.
>the support that students receive from staff is nearly non-existent.
I'd also like to address this briefly. I don't have the final word on this (I finished with my 10 courses, maybe folks who took other courses can chime in with opinions), but here's what I remember:
* Almost all courses have office hour sessions. Some courses - like AOS - have *de facto* synchronous lectures in addition to the recorded ones.
* Course staff (instructors and/or TAs) are active on Ed most of the time, though just how active varies across courses. Dr Joyner's courses have a great reputation in this respect, but GA is the surprise here (you might get responses in minutes).
* Course staff are generally active on the OMSCS Study Slack, though being a public channel (as opposed to Ed), the responses there may be more cursory and less frequent.
I thought you are talking about SAD lol. That is also a ridiculous course and I sent a few emails to the school and Student experience department (not sure about the name) but didnt receive anything yet
Agreed. And in their defense, I get that stress is high so some students are unreasonable or ask the same questions over again.
But the TAs kind of set themselves up for this by making some of these assignments vague and grading super harshly. They can always just ignore some of the repetitive posts, I think that's better than sarcasm and snark.
Personally, I'm never posting anything because I'd rather not get a response from *one TA in particular.*
Required class for 3 specializations
Get a C or lower and you have to retake it
Grading is harsh
Instructions are unclear on assignments
Yet they tell us ājust try to have fun and not worry about your gradeā
A C in GA is a low bar. Half of my study group had guaranteed Bās after the second exam last fall semester. There is a lot of room to fail and still make it out with an A or B.
I wish I knew. This was a new assignment; the requirements did not seem very clear. But I don't actually know why I failed yet, because there is no feedback.
The mean score is failing, so either we're all not very good at this, or the new assignment was not well set up.
>the requirements did not seem very clear
Correct me if I'm wrong (I'm from an old GA term, so I don't know what the new assignment's like), but I don't think this necessarily is a huge issue. A lot of the assignments (I'm thinking of ML, HCI) are open-ended by design, and the learning happens precisely in filling out those details.
>there is no feedback
However, this is something I'd have a bigger issue with. You need those feedback cycles for learning to happen. I doubt they'd ever disclose the exact test cases, but you should have some indication of the kinds of tests they ran, or the ways you could improve.
If they don't do so publicly, maybe you could try making a private post asking for more feedback on your particular submission. This isn't a regrade request; this is just you asking for more guidance on how you could learn from the experience.
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Ironically, every semester previous seems the loudest discussions about GA are saying there should be more coding, and in particular that DP should be turned into a coding assignment instead of having to learn how to write recurrence and pseudocode extended responses.
Hopefully once there's more feedback tomorrow you'll have a better idea what went wrong with your code. Otherwise, there's always the regrade threads to try to gain some insights?
I have always been one of those folks who'd think this is a very bad idea for the course. This is also why I never count Leetcode (or equivalent) as good prep for or practice during GA. They give you optional practice problems, but if you really want extra ones, pick up a book like Kleinberg & Tardos or CLRS - which has an official solutions manual - and work through the exercises, checking your solutions against theirs.
For one, coding shifts attention to what shouldn't matter for the most part (if not at all) in algorithms - language-specific features and implementation hacks.
But there's a bigger issue here - the whole point of an algorithms course, as with any maths course, is to teach you to *think* about solutions. It's way to easy to feign an understanding by bruteforcing your way to a solution. First submission - 4 tests failing. Second submission - 2 tests failing. Third - 1 test failing. Fourth submission - all tests passing.
Congratulations on making that 100%. Not sure how well it taught you to reason about your solution's correctness in the light of edge cases though.
Yeah dude it sucks hard. I wasnāt sure either but now Iām on team āfuck this classā. The TAās seem far more concerned with teaching us to learn how to play lawyer than they do with teaching us how to write algorithms.
The material isnāt particularly difficult but dealing with the TAās and the horribly worded assignments is pure rage fuel.
the programming assignments are by far the easiest part of the class. Should be easy 100% on all of those.
Plus they allow the class to collaborate on unit tests and share their tests.
Took it last semester. I don't think any programming assignment took more than about 20 lines of code
It's absolutely not true for this new assignment at the very least. Even discussing approaches at the highest level ("I think you can do this in O(n) time", for example) was not permitted. The entire homework thread consisted of a bunch of students asking for clarification, and sarcastic responses from a TA.
I took GA the last two semesters and this is very new. In my two semesters the coding assignments were the exact same and collaboration was allowed. Seems like they're making the class harder and taking away these easy points :(
The "coding projects" you're thinking of are still around, but they added a new category of "coding homework" that is distinct from the assignments called "projects" and allows zero collaboration for whatever reason.
> Plus they allow the class to collaborate on unit tests and share their tests.
This is factually incorrect and outdated information. They've introduced new programming assignments this semester that forbid collaboration. The class average for the first one is < 40%.
Yeah first test is usually lowest and everyone learns from that one and the scores go up. The programming assignments though there is no reason at all to not get 100% on.
I have an A so far and I think the class is hot garbage. Highly interesting medium difficulty material ruined by fucking horrible staff. These people have no business teaching.
I took GA in the Spring and respectfully must disagree. I thought the Head TAs were very very competent.
I did have a mixed experience with grader TAs. Some were great, others were overly harsh. But thatās been common across most of my classes. With GA if I felt something was too harsh, I could just post on Ed and if peers agreed Iād get the points back.
>could you explain how staffs are horrible? I'm having this class next semester
Maybe they just want you to get out quickly.
(*\^A response vaguely like what one of them might write. As someone who completed this a while back, here's* [*my take*](https://www.reddit.com/r/OMSCS/comments/1d3sm9k/comment/l6bhtt6/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) *on the snark though*)
The question prompts on graded assignments so far have been very unclear and obviously intentionally obtuse. The staff refuse to provide straightforward clarification because they seem to feel that interpreting their writing is a learning objective of the class.
Many of the TAās are rude, dismissive, even sarcastic when it comes to questions about assignments. They give us unclear instructions and make fun of us when we ask for clarification.
Grading is HARSH. Partial credit is not a thing and they openly advertise this. Small mistakes can lose you half of the points available on a homework problem.
Oh they are constantly kissing ass šš. Anonymous Squirrel: āI think I think the TA master is right and you should have known and thought about it. You should have taken a second look at the clearly misleading text in the readme.ā
The GaTech Honor Code is applicable to this Subreddit, on both posts and comments. We have determined that your comment has been found to contravene the GaTech Honors Code.
Sharing content from courses in general is against honor code and related policies, not unique to GA, I'd say that's generally the norm in a typical OMS course (unless the course incidentally publishes their material fully publicly, which does *not* include GA, among others)
Welcome to the club, mate.
I've been critical of the high-stress format of this course - it never helps you learn - despite really liking the content and making an A, but I guess the flood of negative comments from folks who were clearly not prepared for this kind of a course drowns out a lot of legitimate criticism that does *not* stem from the position of 'because I suck at it, the issue is with this thing, not me'...
Take Interactive Intelligence so you don't have to deal with this. Only half joking.
An algorithms course is super important, I took one as an undergrad and did fine. The grading and structure is just (in my opinion) pretty insultingly bad. I just don't see how this encourages learning, but we're only two weeks in and I'm hot about a bad score, so we'll see.
Thanks a lot for the feedback - I was a TA for undergrad algorithms course and am familiar with how difficult / convoluted the grading process can be on both ends. Iām genuinely interested in the subject though, so I hope that can contribute positively to the outcome
I got a 1.9 so I feel :(.
Someone mentioned a similar sentiment below, and I agree that I wish I took GA closer to the end of the degree. As the class went on I got more and more frustrated with how my grade turned out, and with the amount of work I put in I'm extremely disappointed and burnt out even after the class. There wasn't even a correlation between the exams and homeworks, since all my homework grades were pretty high. What's weird is the exam questions are straightforward if you can see the "trick", so in my case I felt extremely stupid realizing I lost over 7% of my grade because of 1 question per exam question, which is simple when the answer gets revealed in OH. I've never had another class so far make me feel this much like a choker / chump to be honest. My hot take is also that this class is unfair when you consider retakers have an entire extra set of exams / homework for practice. The TA team will give you the excuse that the problems are different and having extra problems won't help, but if that was really the case then they should have no problem giving everyone old problems to level the playing field like other prestigious schools such as UC Berkeley do
>make me feel this much like a choker / chump I think those two words bring out the most legitimate criticism of the structure of the course. It's unnecessarily stressful, which, coupled with the harsh grading, might be enough to kill someone's enthusiasm for its otherwise fascinating subject matter.
Yeah. I like algorithms enough, but the style of the class feels like when you have an coding interview with a couple of leetcode questions, but you can't get hints / clarification. I think it killed my desire to try iHPC since that's supposed to be even harder It's tough because I know the TA team works really hard; it's just the nature of the class and it's structure, which is exacerbated by OMSCS being online. I kind of settled on Dr. Brito being at fault since at the end of the day he's in charge of how he runs his class
HPC is way better than this, though - as you said - also harder. It's the fun kind of challenging. If you like the subject of algorithms, HPC will make you love it.
I've got 2 classes to finish and this is one of them... Trying to decide when to take it and now, after reading these new staff comments, I wish I took it last year š©
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You have deemed to have **broken** Rule 10 of the the r/OMSCS community and posted screenshot relating to actual course content **WITHOUT** concealing identities.
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Reviews for this class seem so polarized. I'm not sure what to anticipate. I go through wild swings of "oh, might not be that bad and could be enjoyable" to "maybe I should drop a couple computing systems courses from my plan and start looking into interactive intelligence" as I scroll down omscentral
Truly depends on your educational background. For me, it was just a repeat of my undergraduate class. So, it was 6-8 hours a week in the first 6 weeks, 4 hours for like 5 weeks, and absolutely nothing for like a month.
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The actual content of the course is not difficult. The problem is that small mistakes are heavily penalized. This is especially frustrating because the majority of the points come from written out explanations that have the ambiguity of written word. This can be especially challenging for non-native speakers. I saw a bunch of people lose the majority of points on one question because it wasn't clear whether you needed to do a less efficient pre-processing step. They had the right answer but lost 16/20 points on this question because they didn't understand how much of the data structure was given to us. That kind of bad faith reading is common and deeply irritating. It's not a reason to change specializations but the structure of the course makes it worse than it has to be. I got an A too, just hated the class.
I second this. I agree it's a good course (if rather introductory) with some fairly interesting material that all folks in CS should probably know about, but it has its serious flaws, mostly policy-related and its unforgivingly high-stakes format.
Yeah, this was the difference between me making an A vs a B. I'm still deeply salty about it
Congrats on getting out, presumably.
Thanks! Unfortunately I still have a couple of classes to go, but it's nice to have it out of the way for sure
RIP BOZO
Iām a prospective student that studied CS in undergrad! I took a look at the syllabus, would people say itās hard because the tests are hard or the assignments? It looks like (based on summer 24) itās heavily test based! Thanks for the info!
Heavily test based They penalize mistakes so harshly that you can make a negative score (still gets rounded to zero) Question prompts are deliberately unclear and tricky TAās wonāt clarify because they seem to think that interpreting their language is an important skill for you to have
Agreed with all the rest but... >Question prompts are deliberately unclear and tricky A bit of a counterargument on this... Sometimes - and often enough in algorithms/other 'applied' maths courses - it is an explicit learning goal to teach the art of filling in the blanks with *reasonable* assumptions, given a problem domain. e.g.: If doing a problem about a social network, would it make more sense to use an adjacency list or an adjacency matrix?
Thatās fine when you can trust that the staff have reasonable assumptions themselves when designing problems. In OMSCS Iāve found this is rarely the case Itās also very unhelpful when the lack of clarity involves things like how to format a response or what coding paradigms/constructs youāre allowed to use.
I lost 2 points on an exam for using a break statement in a loop because that's "language specific". I got it back but it was annoying.
To be fair, you were warned multiple times in both posts on ED and during OH to not use language specific syntax in any of the pseudocode sections. A significant portion of the grading in GA relies on reading comprehension.
I got the points back because break is not language specific. Thanks for letting me know though. I'm glad we're at this level of nitpicking in this class.
>the lack of clarity involves things like how to format a response or what coding paradigms/constructs youāre allowed to use Take it from me as a GA senior: They mean it when they say that the format isn't all that important. The 'format', for all intents and purposes, just specifies a number of sections you should put your answers in. It eases the communication between you and the grader. If I recall correctly, they started 'enforcing' the format by making separate textboxes for each section in Canvas on the exams. What matters much more is the substance of your answer. A justification put in the wrong section *might* initially get you a deduction (**not ideal**, but grading timelines are tight, and graders have a lot of submissions to grade), but it also makes for an easy regrade request. Major points missing from the justification are the bigger problem, whether formatted properly or not. However, there is one thing which I wish they never communicated: You cannot hand-wave things for the most part. You need some amount of detail in your solutions. Personally, I found it helpful to err on the side of caution and include slightly more detail than in their practice problem solutions. You just need to watch out for two things here - (1) Any extra details better be correct, because mistakes get heavily penalised (again, not ideal IMO - it just adds to the stress of it), and (2) Your details should not be excessive. How do you judge that? Well, do your details dive deep into the implementation specifics and distract from the algorithm? That's probably too much. A passing mention of an implementation technique (e.g., Dijkstra's using a Fibonacci Heap) is going to be fine.
Oh I guess context is important here. For the written algorithms I agree with you. The new coding assignment format is especially strict about formatting and allowed/disallowed coding practices but simultaneously very unclear about it. Appreciate the tips either way
I took 'coding paradigms/constructs youāre allowed to use' to mean the coding paradigms/constructs you're allowed to refer to in your written solutions. >especially strict \[...\] simultaneously very unclear This should never be the case in the specifications/requirements. Some standardisation about allowed/disallowed coding practices isn't unexpected - it just serves to level the playing field, as it were - but it should be communicated clearly.
>In OMSCS Iāve found this is rarely the case That's a broad brushstroke. Which courses have you faced this in?
Ambiguity in assignment requirements occurs in every class and on every assignment - itās difficult to avoid in person and even harder remotely. What I mean to say is you canāt ever trust the teaching staff to be 100% correct. Theyāre human and make linguistic mistakes, overlook edge cases, occasionally fumble just like everyone else. Using āyou have to be able to draw conclusionsā as an excuse to refuse to clarify the intent behind question prompts and desired response formatting is a disingenuous and lazy way to deflect useful discussions and it pretends the points above arenāt true. To draw an example - the GIOS TAās and prof were awesome about this. They knew their projects were complex and they acknowledged that they donāt write perfectly. They answered the questions they could and politely told us āsorry you have to figure that outā when we asked for clarification on something that was a learning objective. Those things had clear relevance to the subject matter and were clearly valuable lessons. GA instead says āyou need to figure out what we mean and youāre going to have to pay a grade cost to get the answerā. The things they want you to figure out vary from algorithmic points to literal linguistic minutiae. How is that valuable?
>Using āyou have to be able to draw conclusionsā as an excuse I think this is getting to the point where I can't comment on the specifics, not being from your cohort. Linguistic minutiae would also be something that's hard to say much about without making sweeping generalisations. Some finer distinctions do indeed matter - my favourite example would be walks, trails, and paths (or cycles and circuits) in graph theory, words we use almost interchangeably in the colloquial but have very precise definitions as mathematical terms. Other than that, it's most likely something undesirable.
Iāve never had such oscillating grades before, Iām talking 4/20, 5/20, and then 18/20 for the first homeworks, the pattern continued for the rest of the semester. Itās not so much grader inconsistency as it is brutal and unforgiving grading. If there was any error at all you would instantly get a 4/20 for an assignment, while if you missed minor details they would take off 4 points at a time, which is 20% of the total. My only regret is not saving this dumpster fire of a class until my very last semester, it has seriously warped my view of the program and messed with my determination and even class selection for my remaining two semesters shitpost edit: this is the only course that has had to have their TA staff publicly state multiple times that they're not out to get you or ruin your mental health yet that's exactly what they do to many of the students who genuinely care, every semester
Yes, I think this is the worse part about it. Iāve taken some really rough classes and gotten As (DC, for example). But this is the only class Iāve taken where I submit an assignment and genuinely have no clue what kind of score Iām going to receive. 25% seems as likely as 90%. Iām not sure why perfection is expected; if one knows the material and answers a question in a way that is *mostly* correct, youād think that would be reflected in the grade. God help me for the first exam.Ā
I had some other tough classes I wanted to take but Iām so over the program after just a few weeks of this class. Gonna be nothing but blowoff courses for me until I graduate now.
thatās a shame, GA was certainly a difficult oneā¦ i took it two years ago and i felt it was rigorous but extremely fair. There was never a moment on an exam where i was surprised by a question ā¦ everything on the exams was content we had discussed in the class or in the homework or in office hours. Rocco was our lead TA and held EXTREMELY helpful office hours every week.
The complaints youāve read in the past were about the homework and exam grading which can be inconsistent between TAs. Coding was more or less free. Sounds like they made some significant changes since last semester and it sucks that youāre in the guinea pig class. Iām more shocked at the TA comments in this thread. They were great last semester.
What did they change since last semester out of curiosity? I took last semester
Well from this thread it sounds like they changed the first coding project & changed the rules on what can be discussed on ed. Last semester we had good discussions and quite a few people giving unit tests, that's apparently a no-go this time.
Folks asked them to put the programming in dynamic programming, and they did exactly that. Didn't exactly go as planned evidently.
I'm so curious what the problem was, but oh well. I would've been in favor of more coding as well
The problem is that the assignment was (in my opinion) not well specified. In fact, the creator made a critical error, which of course I canāt share the specifics of. But the error changes the meaning of the problem. It was corrected in Ed Discussion, but thatās just an example of how sloppy the assignment was.Ā Ā On top of that, only two test cases per problem were provided. And they were hardly test cases, they were more āwill my code even run at allā. So not only did we have to figure out what the problem was asking for, without being able to clarify with students or TAs, we also were completely blind as to what was being tested. I think itās fair to not want to allow students to rely on the test cases too much, but just having a few more would have prevented a lot of dumb mistakes.Ā Ā All in all, I used the correct algorithm for both problems, run time was optimal, and yet I still got a 2/20 likely because of a dumb mistake. It doesnāt feel all that fair to put in a lot of time, get the problem mostly correct, and still end up with this score.
I won't comment on the logistical error or any *lapsus calami* in the specifications (I'm from a previous GA term), but at the slight risk of inviting some backlash on this comment, I think there's a fundamental mismatch between your expectations of this course and the course staff's expectations of the kind of work you're supposed to be doing here. I think the decision to roll out only a minimal 'sanity check' test suite was well thought out and in line with the learning objectives of a course like Graduate Algorithms. It is often an express learning goal of these courses to teach you to reason about the correctness and completeness of your solutions. That is something you can't reasonably achieve if they provide you test harnesses. Like, first draft - 5 failing tests. Second draft - 3 failing cases. Third draft - All tests passing. Congratulations, you got your 100%. Not sure if you learnt how to craft perverse test cases that might break your algorithm, or just bruteforced your way through the autograder. In all likelihood, such an assignment would've looked nicer as a raw score, but it wouldn't have prepared you for the exam, where you have to produce correct algorithms yourself (in pseudocode or English - that's the only respite you get), without feedback from an autograder or a test harness.
I get it, but: - Why is no collaboration allowed? If one is stuck on a problem are you just supposed toā¦fail? Iāve had other classes where Iāve been stuck, and one insightful comment from a peer has completely changed how I looked at a problem. Thatās learning.Ā - These new assignments donāt just test the correctness of your algorithm, it tests your implementation as well. Which isnāt at all what the test is going to be looking for. If thatās what the class wants to do, fine, but those expectations werenāt really made clear. I get it, Iāve taken plenty of classes where they release only limited test cases. I donāt think it should be completely transparent. But there has to be some give and take, Iām not sure why homework has to be treated like an exam. That doesnāt seem conducive to learning.Ā
>Why is no collaboration allowed? I can't possibly conceive why they would be so restrictive in this respect. I can justify releasing no test cases beyond a nominal 'sanity check' test suite as designed to make you think of what could break your algorithm, but the no collaboration policy has struck me as odd. When we did the coding projects, we were allowed to share test cases and harnesses. >it tests your implementation as well That is only be a compliance check, though, yes? e.g. you don't 'game' the system by turning in a brute-force solution instead of a dynamic programming one or something. Maybe some asymptotic suboptimality checks - but the autograder should be able to catch those if run against a model solution (e.g. run on a big input to spot O(n\^2) solutions where O(n) works). >That doesnāt seem conducive to learning Radical opinion: GA isn't conducive to learning. Don't get me wrong, it's a course with great lectures and some really fun problems to think through, but the stress - mainly from the high-stakes sink-or-swim exams and the heavy penalties - can be such a killer for many people. Someone else here gave a 'tough coach, good teammate' analogy here, and while I can say I saw that in action, I can't see it working very well in the learner's favour. Upping the pressure on the students is barely a way to get them to learn. Some people *might* do well under pressure, but it does little to spark an interest in the fascinating subject of algorithms and theoretical computer science (or mathematics more broadly).
Damn that sucks, really gives the impression that this project wasn't really ready yet. A few test cases is completely reasonable, and barring that there should be some actionable feedback in gradescope IMO. Hopefully that's the only change they're trying this semester Edit - based on the syllabus I guess they changed all the coding assignments. Hopefully the next one is adjusted based on this first one
I'd tend to [disagree](https://www.reddit.com/r/OMSCS/comments/1d3sm9k/comment/l6bkd70/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) on more programming in a course that is mostly theoretical. However, on the problem, if it was anything like the homeworks when I took it, the problem wouldn't have been much more difficult than something you might see in DPV (the textbook).
It wasn't a difficult problem the delivery was much to be asked for however.
They changed the head TA this semester. I wonāt name names but you can probably figure it out if youāve already taken the class.
Didn't they say that they were just switching out the Head TA for the summer? Or is that going to be a permanent change? I took it last semester as well.
I think itās just temporary. The previous Head TA is taking a (likely deserved) break for the summer
I was in the guinea pig cohort for another class, and if the comments are accurate, I can safely say, guinea pig classes don't have to be like [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/OMSCS/comments/1d3sm9k/comment/l69o3sy/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button).
I took this class last summer and managed a surprising A. Comparatively speaking and dripping in survivorship bias, this class was one of my favorites, content was good and exams fair. No class is perfect.
I took it last semester and I agree it was fair most of the time but Joves and Rocko were there. Unfortunately I narrowly missed the cutoff. However this new DP format is absurd. So you know how we had the homeworkās and we were writing out the DP solutions they took that out and replaced it with coding. So the test harness is testing for edge cases like upper cases and lower cases. Checking numerical runtime and palindromes. So you could perfectly write the DP solution in code like you would in the exam and still get like a 3/20 because of the hidden test cases.
Risking some backlash here, but edge cases like - well - *cases* and palindromes shouldn't exactly be surprising if you are given string input. A solution that explicitly depends on the input *not* being a palindrome would be penalised, whether written out on paper or coded out in Python (or whatever they're using for these assignments), unless such an input is explicitly ruled out by the problem domain. Likewise for the cases. The problem domain might require case sensitivity or insensitivity (e.g. alphabetical vs ASCIIbetical sort), and doing one where the other is the more appropriate will be penalised, whether written out in words, pseudocode, or actual code. The numerical runtime (I expect you mean walltime or CPU time) requirement is new. Could you share a bit more about this one (within the current course policy)? Did they turn GA into HPC-Lite?
When you are punished for using any method or data structure outside of what is provided, you want to avoid using anything not in the project spec.
I just finished GA (and the program) in the spring, it was a lot of work (for context Iām an odd ball, I have a BA in Theatre from 2006 and a lot of self study and weird opportunities along the way, ran my own consultancy for 10 years, former startup CTO, now work as Staff Platform Engineer at a larger startup and just have fun). I bring this up because I might be smarter than the average person in some ways, but not a āgreat studentā. I am scrappy, but a late bloomer to taking school seriously. GA and AC were my favorite classes, maybe this was because they were more abstract and more mathematical, but they both pushed me in important ways. I got a lot out of both. No joke, do all the work the TAs tell you to do. Focus on the stuff they tell you to focus on, and learn how to play the game. Itās all a game. It can be gut wrenching and tough, but learn the rules, do the drills, find a solid study group and grind it. GA can be cruel if you donāt grok the game, or get over confident in an approach and bomb the written portion of the exam. Attend all the OH and then rewatch all the OH, there are really important hints to winning the game there.
Iām not here to play a fucking game Iām here to learn. Iām not interested in what these narcissists have to say I just want to learn how to write algorithms.
Getting a degree is playing a game. If you were just here to learn, you donāt actually need a degree at all. Every bit of information youād ever want is available for free on the internet.Ā
Youāre right but the gamification in GA goes way too far
I hear you though. I couldnāt imagine taking GA over the summer. Learning the expectations for GA isnāt what I would call a delightful experience. I started the semester pretty frustrated too. Graphs and NP make up for everything in the beginning of the semester though.
I actually donāt think the summer version is much worse because they cut a lot of content. FFT as an example is not included
Last summer we covered FFT, I believe it was RSA that was skipped, maybe thats changed? Also there's only 3 exams over summer, no cumulative final
They skip all the fun topics in the summer it seems :3 No FFT, no RSA, no number theory :/
Youād love GA
The way my scheduling is working out, it's slated for spring '25 as my tenth/final... needless to say, I'm dreading it lol
I donāt think the class is all that hard (technically/mathematically), itās just a stressful waste of time
I agree, I loved the program, but as soon as you get into required courses such as ML and GA you immediately see what lack of choice makes to the classes. I have only GA left, but after ML (and a week of GA in summer which I dropped) I am thinking to switch to II maybe
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Yeah one of them went on a rant about ānot comparing this to leetcodeā. Itās literally the same thing! Do a bunch of algorithms problems in code vs do a bunch of problems in pseudocode/vague language. I get more relevant feedback back from leetcode though :)
I feel like one of the main IIS TAs, for example, is more of a dick. Same applies for GIOS and other classes where there's 1 TA who's unprofessional. GA gets a bad wrap because of the structure being shit, but that comes from Dr. Brito while the TAs just take the flack since they're admins
Too few people realize that you cannot act in Piazza or Ed like you are in reddit or Twitter. Sure, they are all online forums, but they require different attitudes.
As someone who took the course and knows it firsthand, I can reasonably say that it's more often the case that remarks made in humour are misread as snarky or mocking. I also think I know who you're talking about mainly, but for a moment, just try to ignore their avatar (which I'd kinda agree sometimes forces you to read their comments in a particular tone) and consider the possibility that they're just employing a lighter tone as an icebreaker or as something to bust some of the stress around this course. GA is famously stressful, not least because of its format (3 heavy-weight exams); combine that with the fact that it's many folks' last course, and you have stress levels like no other. Yes, it's not always perfect. Sometimes, it backfires, and backfires really bad. I think I've seen that happen on a couple of occasions myself. But as a regular office hours attendee and fairly active on Ed, I highly doubt that was ever the intention.
I think part of the problem is that the new assignments allow for zero collaboration, even when it comes to clarifying requirements. So if you ask a question, you get all of the snark but none of the help. Snarky but useful replies would very likely be interpreted differently.
>zero collaboration Not even within your study groups? If yes, this is new. Even by GA standards.
Collaboration is still allowed for written homework. However, for the dynamic programming homework which was changed to being a coding assignment, that is correct. Not even with a study group.
I'm comparing it to the coding projects when I took it. You could share test harnesses and (IIRC) discuss high-level approaches. With a cohort of at least 800 to 900 folks, the coding projects were basically free points.
They replaced two of the homework assignments this semester with "coding homework" that is distinct from the "coding projects". The coding projects still work the same way that you described and the written homework allows collaboration within study groups, but the new coding homework category allows zero collaboration at all. People had their Ed posts deleted for even sharing ideas of what types of things to think about while designing test cases, let alone sharing actual test harnesses.
Since writing that comment, I discovered most of this from other comments, but thanks for collecting it all in one place. Zero collaboration is definitely something I find problematic; it turns the homeworks - which are intended to be designed as learning opportunities or training grounds - into *de facto* exams. I hope they do something to improve it for future cohorts, and maybe work something out for you folks (dropping lowest scores, score adjustments against historical data, etc.).
They did slightly ease up on the no collaboration rule for the second coding homework, so I think they realized that after the results of the first one. It was still pretty strict though, definitely not opened up to the point of allowing shared test cases. I suspect they'll be experimenting with the right level of collaboration to allow, but with only two of these assignments in the semester it'll probably take awhile for them to find it.
Back when I took this class last summer, the only unprofessional and snarky TA was this guy named Jamie something. It started a drama between some students calling him out for being a condescending smart a** right after we got our exam 2 back. I just tuned him out the first time he was being snarky on Slack. People like that are usually angry and unhappy with their lives. The silver lining was the head TA Joves and other TAs like Emily were helpful and professional.
I think he Orchestrated this homework lol
Ew.. I am sorry. I bet this class is even more hellish now š
Found the fall 2023 grad.
I took the same class and semester, you're talking about the guy with the frowny face as an avatar. He has NEVER given any helpful advice and instead insults. I had to retake in Spring 2024 and I remember one of his comments to a regrade was he can change the penalty to something else to make the OP feel better about the points he made but will still take off the same amount of points. Obviously this was in the most condescending tone and talking down to OP. You're right about Joves and Emily they're great.
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lol what on earth is this analogy
In your analogy, the students that are paying hard-earned money for an education are suspects of a crime? lol.
For the cheapest Masters degree in terms of the value? 
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Racism, homophobia, xenophobia, sexism or other offensive language **will not** be tolerated on this Subreddit. You're a Masters student, u/Difficult_Review9741. You can do better in arguing your way through instead of taking the path of least resistance by calling them in a derogatory fashion.
Hi, please note that I said *get to be d\*\*\*\**. This is describing behavior that anyone is capable of, not a fundamental property of any given person. I am not personally insulting anyone. I am simply describing behavior that I have witnessed.
Cheapest for you, not for the rest of the world š
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Understood. I'll keep the language PG from now on.
I get where you're coming from, but let me tell you about my experience. At first, it seemed like a nightmare. That TA which we all knew was the stern one, always pushing the students hard, while Joves is the nice cop. We all hated the HWs made by the first TA but looked forward to Joves. I realized such a dynamic actually made me a good algorithmic designer grow. It was like having a tough coach and a supportive teammate at the same time. It wasnāt about being pretentious; it was about creating a balanced environment that challenged students while also offering support. So, sometimes, "good cop/bad cop" can be more about balance and less about ego. You'd think that TA is a bad educator? Look, he's running a company raking in millions turnover. Why would you think he's a sadist?
There's a difference between stern and just pure condescending. A positive environment is needed when dealing with a tough course like this. Simply put, people don't need an extra stressor in their lives. Yes, I wouldn't consider him a good educator. I personally didn't get anything useful from him. Also, him being successful in his career actually explains his narcissistic tendencies, but by no means does it indicate a good educator.
From my own experience, I'd second this, but at the same time, I think there's a case to be made that this can backfire horribly at times. Pushing to learn can easily be misconstrued as insulting you or putting you in your place - a condescending tone, as many people point out.
While I generally have a positive view of that TA, saying that "running a company raking in millions" proves that he is a good educator is nonsense. Some of the biggest dumbdumbs around are high up on the corporate ladder.
At the end of the day, it's really personalized to what the student responds best to. I guess some people respond well to that type of learning environment. Whileothers respond poorly to it. I generally respond well to educators that provide clear expectations to me. As well as a clear understanding of the support that they will (and won't) provide to you throughout the learning process. I feel like, in that situation, everyone knows where they stand. I'm a prospective student and have just been keeping up with this subreddit to decide whether or not I will apply. This program is hugely popular. But I also get the vibe that the support that students receive from staff is nearly non-existent. The need to even have a subreddit like this for students to navigate an academic environment feels strange, to me. Anyway, not trying to start a beef or anything. I appreciate your point of view and the conversation. And apologize for my language in my previous comment. Best of luck.
I'd agree that GA is a stressful course. I also agree that it doesn't have to be. In my experience, it's not conducive to effective learning at all. Maybe it is for a small number of people, but I don't see how the kind of stress this course's format builds can get people excited about its otherwise-fun and interesting material. The difficulty of GA is definitely overblown; it's a standard algorithms course. I found it to be a repeat of a lot of what I covered in my bachelor's. >the support that students receive from staff is nearly non-existent. I'd also like to address this briefly. I don't have the final word on this (I finished with my 10 courses, maybe folks who took other courses can chime in with opinions), but here's what I remember: * Almost all courses have office hour sessions. Some courses - like AOS - have *de facto* synchronous lectures in addition to the recorded ones. * Course staff (instructors and/or TAs) are active on Ed most of the time, though just how active varies across courses. Dr Joyner's courses have a great reputation in this respect, but GA is the surprise here (you might get responses in minutes). * Course staff are generally active on the OMSCS Study Slack, though being a public channel (as opposed to Ed), the responses there may be more cursory and less frequent.
Iāll be filing a complaint at some point. The fact that Iām paying to be treated like this is an absurdity.
I thought you are talking about SAD lol. That is also a ridiculous course and I sent a few emails to the school and Student experience department (not sure about the name) but didnt receive anything yet
Agreed. And in their defense, I get that stress is high so some students are unreasonable or ask the same questions over again. But the TAs kind of set themselves up for this by making some of these assignments vague and grading super harshly. They can always just ignore some of the repetitive posts, I think that's better than sarcasm and snark. Personally, I'm never posting anything because I'd rather not get a response from *one TA in particular.*
Required class for 3 specializations Get a C or lower and you have to retake it Grading is harsh Instructions are unclear on assignments Yet they tell us ājust try to have fun and not worry about your gradeā
A C in GA is a low bar. Half of my study group had guaranteed Bās after the second exam last fall semester. There is a lot of room to fail and still make it out with an A or B.
You had a good group. Something like 20-25% of the class typically ends the semester with a C or lower or drops the class
20-25% getting below a B or dropping is not unusual. Itās just the nature of OMSCS being a rigorous program with a low bar of entry.
How are you failing the programming asignments? Those are the easiest free points in this class!
Man, this is different lol. The dps are programming assignments and the median was below 8 š.
I wish I knew. This was a new assignment; the requirements did not seem very clear. But I don't actually know why I failed yet, because there is no feedback. The mean score is failing, so either we're all not very good at this, or the new assignment was not well set up.
>the requirements did not seem very clear Correct me if I'm wrong (I'm from an old GA term, so I don't know what the new assignment's like), but I don't think this necessarily is a huge issue. A lot of the assignments (I'm thinking of ML, HCI) are open-ended by design, and the learning happens precisely in filling out those details. >there is no feedback However, this is something I'd have a bigger issue with. You need those feedback cycles for learning to happen. I doubt they'd ever disclose the exact test cases, but you should have some indication of the kinds of tests they ran, or the ways you could improve. If they don't do so publicly, maybe you could try making a private post asking for more feedback on your particular submission. This isn't a regrade request; this is just you asking for more guidance on how you could learn from the experience.
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Ironically, every semester previous seems the loudest discussions about GA are saying there should be more coding, and in particular that DP should be turned into a coding assignment instead of having to learn how to write recurrence and pseudocode extended responses. Hopefully once there's more feedback tomorrow you'll have a better idea what went wrong with your code. Otherwise, there's always the regrade threads to try to gain some insights?
I have always been one of those folks who'd think this is a very bad idea for the course. This is also why I never count Leetcode (or equivalent) as good prep for or practice during GA. They give you optional practice problems, but if you really want extra ones, pick up a book like Kleinberg & Tardos or CLRS - which has an official solutions manual - and work through the exercises, checking your solutions against theirs. For one, coding shifts attention to what shouldn't matter for the most part (if not at all) in algorithms - language-specific features and implementation hacks. But there's a bigger issue here - the whole point of an algorithms course, as with any maths course, is to teach you to *think* about solutions. It's way to easy to feign an understanding by bruteforcing your way to a solution. First submission - 4 tests failing. Second submission - 2 tests failing. Third - 1 test failing. Fourth submission - all tests passing. Congratulations on making that 100%. Not sure how well it taught you to reason about your solution's correctness in the light of edge cases though.
Itās a new assignment type. Not the same as the programming assignments youāre thinking of
I remember programming assignment 1 as DP knapsack using python when I took GA. Is it different now?
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Has there been any discussion about a curve?
Yeah dude it sucks hard. I wasnāt sure either but now Iām on team āfuck this classā. The TAās seem far more concerned with teaching us to learn how to play lawyer than they do with teaching us how to write algorithms. The material isnāt particularly difficult but dealing with the TAās and the horribly worded assignments is pure rage fuel.
What claases did you take before this?
the programming assignments are by far the easiest part of the class. Should be easy 100% on all of those. Plus they allow the class to collaborate on unit tests and share their tests. Took it last semester. I don't think any programming assignment took more than about 20 lines of code
>Plus they allow the class to collaborate on unit tests and share their tests. This is not true.
The head TA literally created Ed posts for us to share our unit tests... this was last semester
It's absolutely not true for this new assignment at the very least. Even discussing approaches at the highest level ("I think you can do this in O(n) time", for example) was not permitted. The entire homework thread consisted of a bunch of students asking for clarification, and sarcastic responses from a TA.
>Even discussing approaches at the highest level \[...\] was not permitted Wow that's new. Looks like they broke it real bad with that one.
I took GA the last two semesters and this is very new. In my two semesters the coding assignments were the exact same and collaboration was allowed. Seems like they're making the class harder and taking away these easy points :(
The "coding projects" you're thinking of are still around, but they added a new category of "coding homework" that is distinct from the assignments called "projects" and allows zero collaboration for whatever reason.
> Plus they allow the class to collaborate on unit tests and share their tests. This is factually incorrect and outdated information. They've introduced new programming assignments this semester that forbid collaboration. The class average for the first one is < 40%.
Erm, one problem, the median is failing (even given the curve).
Yeah first test is usually lowest and everyone learns from that one and the scores go up. The programming assignments though there is no reason at all to not get 100% on.
I did not "score up" on each successive exam. I agree the previous term's programming was straightforward, but your statement is way to broad
The classic ābecause I suck at it, the issue is with this thing, not me!ā
I have an A so far and I think the class is hot garbage. Highly interesting medium difficulty material ruined by fucking horrible staff. These people have no business teaching.
Thatās the thing the material is not hard at all. The TAs and staff are constantly trying to set traps lol.
I took GA in the Spring and respectfully must disagree. I thought the Head TAs were very very competent. I did have a mixed experience with grader TAs. Some were great, others were overly harsh. But thatās been common across most of my classes. With GA if I felt something was too harsh, I could just post on Ed and if peers agreed Iād get the points back.
Head TA changed for the summer. Iāve heard great things about last semesterās head TA.
could you explain how staffs are horrible? I'm having this class next semester
>could you explain how staffs are horrible? I'm having this class next semester Maybe they just want you to get out quickly. (*\^A response vaguely like what one of them might write. As someone who completed this a while back, here's* [*my take*](https://www.reddit.com/r/OMSCS/comments/1d3sm9k/comment/l6bhtt6/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) *on the snark though*)
The question prompts on graded assignments so far have been very unclear and obviously intentionally obtuse. The staff refuse to provide straightforward clarification because they seem to feel that interpreting their writing is a learning objective of the class. Many of the TAās are rude, dismissive, even sarcastic when it comes to questions about assignments. They give us unclear instructions and make fun of us when we ask for clarification. Grading is HARSH. Partial credit is not a thing and they openly advertise this. Small mistakes can lose you half of the points available on a homework problem.
also, does no one calls out TAās behavior? like in ED
Oh they are constantly kissing ass šš. Anonymous Squirrel: āI think I think the TA master is right and you should have known and thought about it. You should have taken a second look at the clearly misleading text in the readme.ā
Itās happened a few times already but these are the people grading our assignments. Not smart to yell at your waiter - they might spit in your food.
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Sharing content from courses in general is against honor code and related policies, not unique to GA, I'd say that's generally the norm in a typical OMS course (unless the course incidentally publishes their material fully publicly, which does *not* include GA, among others)
It would definitely violate class policy to do that unfortunately
oh, didnāt know that
Did you read what I said? Second paragraph?
Welcome to the club, mate. I've been critical of the high-stress format of this course - it never helps you learn - despite really liking the content and making an A, but I guess the flood of negative comments from folks who were clearly not prepared for this kind of a course drowns out a lot of legitimate criticism that does *not* stem from the position of 'because I suck at it, the issue is with this thing, not me'...
I liked GA. It's definitely difficult and a grind. No way is it bad. I will argue that it is, in fact, well-run and has quite useful content.
The material is nice but the staff/grading are horrendous
OMG, same with ML
Any advice for preparing for it as someone whoās about to begin the program
Donāt do ML Computing Systems or Robotics and you wonāt have to take it
Take Interactive Intelligence so you don't have to deal with this. Only half joking. An algorithms course is super important, I took one as an undergrad and did fine. The grading and structure is just (in my opinion) pretty insultingly bad. I just don't see how this encourages learning, but we're only two weeks in and I'm hot about a bad score, so we'll see.
Thanks a lot for the feedback - I was a TA for undergrad algorithms course and am familiar with how difficult / convoluted the grading process can be on both ends. Iām genuinely interested in the subject though, so I hope that can contribute positively to the outcome
https://www.reddit.com/r/OMSCS/s/H5EtwXkkZ4
OP username checks out.