Luis Gravano

I really enjoyed the class and Prof. Gravano was really kind. Compared to the experiences of some of my other friends who took the class with other professors, I definitely think this class was really organized. The second half of the course was a bit difficult but it wasn't too bad.

Professor Gravano is a fantastic professor. He makes the material very digestible, and everything is taught clearly with easy-to-follow slides. Ed posts are answered in a timely manner, and he always answered e-mails I sent with additional questions about assignments or the lectures. (He assigns papers and textbook chapters as additional readings, but no extra knowledge is required beyond what is directly taught in class.) Professor Gravano is also obviously a very nice and friendly guy. I personally find that it makes a big difference in class when you can tell the professor is rooting for you and wants you to do well. Overall, I found the concepts to be very relevant and interesting, and I really enjoyed the material. This is a must take if you are even remotely interested in the topic (and maybe even if you aren't).

Professor Gravano is overall a great Professor. In this class, you will learn mostly about SQL databases. You will learn how to design a proper database schema which enforces integrity constraints, how to implement this schema using PostgreSQL, and how to use and interact with a database server. These are all very useful for people who want to go into software engineering There are also some more niche topics covered (e.g. how database locks work to ensure atomic transactions) which are not as practical, but still very helpful.

His lectures are one of the clearest ones at the Columbia CS department. Workload and lecture coverage are pretty light; yet, you learn a lot of things. He is the kind of professor who explains difficult concepts in an easy-to-digest way. Highly recommend.

Really excellent overall professor: clear, well organized, understanding. If you're interested in DB he is a great choice of prof

I took this class during the COVID19 pandemic (Spring 2020). He is obviously a master of the subject and his lectures are clear but they are incredibly boring, there are 3 homeworks and all of them are long but easy. Because of the pandemic, our midterm was pushed continuously until Gravano decided to just cancel the midterm (at the time midterm was 20%, final 30%, hw 50%) and make the grading distribution as follows: final 50%, homework 50%, which is horrible because a single day's performance can decide if you fail this class or not. After a Piazza post and numerous students agreeing that making the final 50% is too much, Gravano graciously(!) changed the distribution of the final to 40% instead of 50%.... Also, there are a lot of grad students in this class and the homework averages were 9.5-10 out of 10 every time even in the pandemic, so make sure you keep up with the homework and follow all of his instructions.

Professor Gravano is an excellent lecturer. His lectures are very clear, and he does a good job of answering questions. He is also very friendly and helpful during office hours and maintains an active presence on Piazza. The only thing I didn't really enjoy was that he recycled some of the old databases lecture slides, which are sometimes unclear (his own lectures are much more helpful). Definitely show up to class, since the textbook, while helpful, contains more than you need to know and the slides are not very helpful on their own. Also, he offers homework and project grace late days which, while helpful, were not always allowed to be used on certain homework and project parts, which kind of defeats the purpose in some way. Despite my nitpicking, Gravano is still a great professor!

Solid and enjoyable class. The course essentially surveys different areas of database systems (e.g. information retrieval, OLAP systems, data mining etc), beyond the relational paradigm that is covered in 4111. We typically spent 1-2 lectures on each topic. While that meant we weren't necessarily able to go into too much depth, Prof Gravano does a great job explaining everything and I personally felt like I got a lot out of the class. Professor Gravano is really nice, in addition to being a great lecturer. The readings were helpful, but his lectures are really clear and I found them to be most helpful for learning the material. He was very responsive on Piazza too which is always helpful. He seems to care about his students, and did a good job answering questions in class. Overall, highly recommended course.

The material is easy. The teacher is acceptable. But be aware: your grades will depend a lot on how CAREFUL you are in following the instructions of homeworks/exams.

This is an acceptable course, but I have mixed feelings about it. Let's establish some baseline. Dr. Gravano is undoubtedly a capable lecturer, able to explain concepts lucidly. He occasionally told jokes that made the classroom laugh (sometimes). I'm pretty certain he genuinely cares for his students. You will almost certainly learn a lot of new and useful stuff while taking this course. Overall, the course was planned and executed well. If you are on the NLP or ML track – or you have a strong interest in search engines or big data, you should certainly take this course. This course definitely falls squarely in that domain (I mean hey, the free textbook was on the NLP part of Stanford's website...). I suspect the facts you will learn will be very relevant to you. However, if you are on the software track taking this course just because it has good reviews and fulfills a requirement, I'd suggest giving other courses stronger consideration. I don't exactly regret taking this class, but I think I could have chosen better. Dr. Gravano curves the median to a B+ or A-. You may be thinking “Sure, I'll just score above average! but in a 90 something class full of smart people and easy assignments and tests, this is tricky to do – and there is a good component of luck involved. The two tests which comprise 50% of your grade are themselves comprised of about 40% (each) true false quest…