Daniel Rubenstein

Professor Rubenstein is pretty good at teaching and most lectures he recaps what he taught previously so you end up learning everything twice. He is also really funny and personable. HWs are pretty chill and reflective of the exams. Exams not too bad also he gives a lot of time and they are open book. NOTE: he stops recording his lectures when attendance gets low so keep that in mind. I learned the second half of the class 3 days before the exam and got median so very cramable. He curves median to a B so if you want to do well you need to be significantly above median. Also doesnt release grade cutoffs.

It's very rare to find a professor that genuinely cares about their students, but Dan Rubenstein is one of them. He might not be the best lecturer I've ever had (more specifics on that later), but he is undoubtedly one of the most helpful and caring professors I've had at Columbia. LECTURES: Like I said, objectively speaking, Rubenstein isn't the best lecturer I've had, but by no means is he a "bad" lecturer. Really, his biggest problem is that he needs to ditch the slides a bit. Instead of going through examples on a powerpoint, he'd be better off going through them on the board. It can get messy that way (with all the circuits and whatnot), but to combat that he could just post the examples on courseworks for reference. The occasional times he did problems on the board, I found them to make so much more sense than following along with the slides, and that's because, at the end of the day, he's actually good at explaining concepts in the course. With that said, see the Office Hours section for why you should go to them because they are/were super helpful. To elaborate more on him as a lecturer, he does NOT read straight from the slides. He glances at them before speaking to remind himself what's on the slide, but he doesn't read straight from them. In fact, I think he blatantly avoids doing so because he knows that wouldn't be very helpful. Also, his analogies and stories are…

Rubenstein definitely takes these reviews seriously, and has improved dramatically. Don't worry about his old, negative culpa reviews, because the he is nothing like that. He is one of the best professors I have had at Columbia in CS. After having taken both Fundamentals and Networks with him, I highly recommend him. His lectures are spread between writing on the board and going over lecture slides that the textbook made. Both are pretty good, but when he writes on the board, he can go really fast. If you don't want to fall behind in class when he's writing on the board, don't copy everything down (though I did, and I often got lost). Listen though and ask questions. The textbook might serve as a good resource. I referred to it several times, but you could probably get away with just using Wikipedia. There's no assigned reading but he does cover nearly everything in the textbook (and more). Homeworks are reasonable. The first two programs are the hardest, but after that they just get easier (and even easier still). Do yourself a favor and do them in Java, trying to do the noble thing and programming in C just won't cut it. The first program will take 40+ hours in C, or 10 hours in Java. Your choice. You have plenty of time for the programs. The separate theory homeworks are assigned with only 1 week to do them (sometimes concurrently with the programs), so if you don't start e…

My worst academic experience. Pay 200% attention during lectures if you are taking his class since nothing he teaches in lectures will be found in the textbooks. Never buy the textbook he assigned since I have never used it once. Professor Rubenstein seems to be a very smart person and he gets annoyed with questions. Don't take his class if you have problems getting up. He always has 9:00am classes, hws are due at the beginning of the class and LATE assignments are never accepted, even if you arrive 30 seconds after the lecture has started. Homeworks are very very difficult, so are exams. you are doing really well if you get above 70% in HWs. Midterms and final scores usually averaged around ~ 40%.

I was really nervous for this class bc of what I've heard, but I ended up doing well. I think it's just a superrrr high effort class that absolutely requires you to stay on top of the content or else you'll immediately fall behind. Attending every single lecture is important, especially after the midterm because pretty much all that content depends on each other. Also understanding / going through the HW with your TA can be good. The content can be kind of interest, but the fact that it's so easy to fall behind and this is wayy more of an EE than a CS class is what puts a lot of people behind.

Prof. Rubenstein is really nice person. He tries to make everything clear to you and put lot of emphasis on concepts. He prefers to write everything on board rather than using slides. His way of teaching may or may not be preferred by students. Its depend on students. Like many students including me were comfortable with board. Prof. Dan tries hard to make you fundamental clear and theoretically sound. If you attend his lecture regularly, understanding concepts of CN will not be problem for you. The only thing that was that not much time was spent on practical and programming. You yourself has to learn socket programming. If you are doing it first time then it may take some time. Overall a very good class. You will really learn a lot especially if you are new or little knowledge about Networks.

Professor Rubenstein tries to do a good job, but in the end his attempt at teaching networking is not very good. There are a few ways he can improve this class. First of all, he teaches the class from a very theoretical point of view. Considering this course is described as an “Introduction to computer networks, he needs to focus less on the theory. The theory he teaches is excessive to the point that it’s hard for me to follow how the theory relates to networking in real life. I don’t have a problem with theory, but first I’d like to learn something practical so that I know how to apply the theory. Prof. Rubenstein clearly states that he does not follow the book. I understand that many professors do not follow the book because they need to present material that relates more closely to the course. Unfortunately, in this situation, it’s a big mistake. Based on the course description, the material in the book is better than what Prof. Rubenstein teaches. Compared to other classes, Prof. Rubenstein also puts a lot of weight on the mid-term and final. Based on the amount of effort I’ve had to put in to the homework and programming assignments, I think the assignments should be a larger factor in the overall grade. He barely teaches anything in class on how to do the programming assignments. This leaves students with a lot of work although it only counts for a small portion of the…

I think that Prof Rubenstein makes his slides with the sole aim of using them for presentations in class. That's very reasonable in theory, considering that slides *are* just meant to be used as visual aids for teaching. Rubenstein also accepts a lot of questions face to face and sometimes asks people to tell him if they're grasping what he's shared so far. If you're attending lectures in person and have the courage to participate, you might end up leaving with a pretty good understanding of Fundies. However, that's just not how a lot of people work. A lot of people skip lectures, a lot of people attend lectures without really focusing on what's going on, and a lot of people try to pay attention, but don't really understand the material. In situations like these, it can be very helpful to have a clearly organized version of the course's content. Clear, structured slides or notes can be really beneficial in allowing people to learn the content better. They can even encourage students to go for lectures again after using the slides to catch up. Unfortunately, I found myself unable to do so in this class. After I skipped a few lectures, each lecture became so incomprehensible that attending them didn't improve my understanding. My friend was telling me that Rubenstein would notice errors in his slides while presenting them, which probably shows just how extensive and complicated…

First of all, Rubenstein is a little insecure. At least that's the first impression he gave to me, and I write this knowing full well that he's going to read this review. In the introductory lecture, he spent a full five minutes explaining why the reviews of him that were posted on CULPA are unfair. While I've heard professors respond to CULPA reviews before, I've never seen anyone get so defensive about one. It leaves you with the impression that he feels like he's got something to prove, which is unfortunate since he's not a bad teacher. Unfortunately, for all the time he spent preparing his defense of his CULPA reviews, he never really seemed to spend enough time preparing to teach the course. The fact that he doesn't like any of the books out there isn't by itself a problem, but he needs to understand that there are people who like to be able to use books as a reference, to supplement lectures. The fact that he didn't decide whether to teach the course top down or bottom up until the second lecture meant that he couldn't recommend a book that covers the material in the same order that he would. This meant that those of us who tried to use the book he suggested to help with the early material were stuck with references to things that wouldn't be covered until the end of the course. How difficult would it have been for him to take the time to make that decision just a few da…

His class put me through hell. His exams require a grasp of the material that his class genuinely does not prepare you for. I studied more than I have ever studied for a class before, genuinely felt really good about and failed both the midterm and final. His questions are so convolutedly written and are just so hard to think of an answer I cant even explain it. To make matters worse he is such a harsh grader its insane. Spend an hour writing an answer on the midterm for him to just give me all zeros. Like not asking for a bunch of credit but for a class where the problems are so difficult you would think he can be a nice guy and give some better partial grading. That grading is reflected in the averages since the midterm was a 62. Idk how a professor doesnt look at that and see an issue with their approach to teaching. Hilarious that he just shrugs and says grades aren't everything. Anyways take Martha instead and save yourself the trauma he causes. Unfortunate because this class from a learning perspective was great but the exams are just straight nightmares.