Clifford Stein

This guy is legitimately awful. Run. He doesn't really teach at all, he just stands at the front of the classroom fumbling around for an hour and fifteen minutes trying to make really lame jokes. The only thing I learned in this class is how to use a plug-in for google docs to use ChatGPT in it because even though he says on his syllabus that you can google things during exams, he fully lied, and we could not, so I used said plug-in to answer all my questions. From what I've heard from other sections, you could fully google things and use ChatGPT, so maybe go for them.

Prof Stein is a genius. He is witty, has pretty good lecture slides, and explains them in a very thorough manner. This course was taught 'alongside' Prof Andoni's Analysis of Algorithms 1 course, and twice this semester Prof Stein couldn't teach and he had Andoni fill in with his own slides. After experiencing both professors, I can confidently say that Stein is much more concise, thorough, and more familiar with the material. I mean, he is a co-author of the textbook... As far as workload, there were 6 problem sets with the lowest one dropped. These took a substantial amount of time if you actually go through the process of thinking and devising/modifying algorithms to solve them (the alternative is to google them and either find the solution posted or something similar that you can pull off as a sort-of answer). Two midterms for 25% each, and one final for 35%. First midterm I did terribly, second I did average, and final I also scored average. On the homeworks, I started off scoring 2 SD's below median, and slowly worked my way up to the median/above. Constant and steady improvement is definitely key, as I walked away with a B. The material is challenging, but office hours are helpful. Reading the textbook is a must... especially if you miss class, you have everything you need to know in the textbook. Stein follows it perfectly, and it is written in the same language he tea…

Not the most exciting class but Stein was great at explaining everything and making the class pretty engaging. The materail in the real world is hard (most problems are unsolved) but the class wasn't. Workload was pretty low - weekly problem sets were easily graded though not always easy. The midterm and final were just like the practice tests and both allowed cheat sheets so no memorization was necessary. The projects was pretty open ended - some required coding, some just analyzed a scheduling problem. Most people in the lass are second semester seniors so it definitely isn't a huge burden.

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…

Great professor but definitely not the easiest course. He's very structured and organized, so that's a plus. But be prepared to study! The class begins easy, and the stuff appears intuitive, but then picks up the pace pretty quick and gets pretty complex. Lectures consist of both ppt presentations and stuff he does on the blackboard. The textbook is pretty helpful and combined with his lectures, you're never at a loss for material to study.

Okay, Cliff Stein is by far one of the clearest and most concise professors in the IEOR department. The formula for success in this class (and in Integer Programming) is simple: go to class, take notes, do the homework. After reading the other reviews for Stein, I can see that CLEARLY this is too much for a professor to ask of his students. Oh wait, aren't these the BARE minimum class expectations? Yea, that's what I thought. It may be possible that Cliff just works better with a smaller class. For Integer Programming, we even had snack time. In any case, Stein's a great guy. He always responds to emails and is willing to talk to you during office hours. The head TA, Shiqian, is really helpful as well.

6 Homeworks, 1 Semester project, 1 midterm, 1 final

One of the best classes I've taken at Columbia. Stein is a clear lecturer, and made all of the (already exciting) topics even better. The homeworks were excellent. They were long and arduous, but you had sufficient time (two weeks) and plenty of office hours. I really learned a lot through the homeworks, and they prepared me really well for the midterm/final. It's a huge class, so be prepared for other people to cheat, make noise, grumble, etc. Ignore it, and take the class anyways, because it's worth it.

Cliff’s class was overall a solid, low workload course. While I don’t find Production Scheduling an inherently exciting topic, I think Cliff did a good job of trying to keep everyone engaged. Throughout the class you simply look at different scenarios and consider the best ways to schedule things to meet certain objectives. The provided textbook is quite awful, and Cliff’s slides are quite bare, so you will definitely want to go to class.He mostly uses the white board in class, and uses the slides just to remind himself of the example he is about to work through. That being said, he is good at providing the intuition of how to approach the various problems, and is surprisingly good at providing a silly metaphor to help you think through the logic (e.g: “if we are running a race, and you are both faster and start closer to the finish line, it is obvious who will win”). He is also very aware that this class in in senior spring for most students, so he spent some time talking about job stuff, Columbia’s basketball team, etc. His exams aren’t super difficult, but they also are not boringly algorithmic. He isn’t just going to give you a type of problem you have seen and ask you to apply the algorithm found in class. That might be part of the problem but then he might modify an assumption or ask a more conceptual question, so you will have to synthesize learning from other algorithm…

First off I enjoyed the course and think Prof. Stein is an excellent teacher. His lectures do a good job of explaining some very dense material and he also is engaging and manages to keep a relatively light tone despite the large class size. He seems well prepared and obviously is a master of the material. Sometimes when you take a course where the teacher is also the textbook author you might as well just stay home and read the book; however with this class Prof. Stein manages to add a lot of value despite covering mostly similar material to the book. The book itself is pretty good too although occasionally too terse. The material itself is critical to any advanced CS study - either research or advanced development - and so I would recommend it to anyone looking at or already in grad school or who wants to get a highly competitive job at a top company. That said, if all you want to do is get a decent entry level CS job this material is more challenging than what you need to know. Speaking of challenging material the class is VERY hard. Primarily this is due to the HW. With one or two exceptions each of the seven problem sets is extremely long and difficult. And (as has been pointed out) cheating is rampant. If you want to get the mean or better without cheating be prepared to invest at least twenty hours on each HW. I actually thought the midterm was great. Since the question…