CSOR W4231

Extremely heavy workload. 7 massive homework assignments worth 30% of the grade, and a take home midterm and in class final each worth 35% of the grade.

This was definitely one of the best, most rewarding classes I've taken at Columbia. While the huge size of the class was definitely not optimal, Stein has mastered the art of teaching a large class. The class definitely covers a lot of dense material, but the instructor did a great job picking out the important ideas without getting bogged down and trying to cover every last line of the textbook. He's without question one of the best lecturers I've had at this school. I know that often taking a class from the author of the textbook can mean that lecture notes seem like copies of the textbook, but that is not the case in this class. I found his presentation a bit friendlier and more streamlines than the book, and he was also quite funny and brought great energy to the class. The book could be terse, but it was definitely helpful to refer to after lectures for more details. As people have mentioned previously, the workload is intense. Each of the seven homework assignments are incredibly long. I don't think I've ever spent so much time on homework assignments for a class. I learned a ton from completing them, but they definitely could've been a bit shorter without compromising much value. With that in mind, this is definitely not a class to undertake lightly. The exams were much more straightforward than the assignments, and if you put a lot of effort into the assignments, it wo…