Review posted on Sat 09 Feb 2008
Course(s) Taken: CS 35L

Ok, technically, there's no prof for this course, and i've never seen eggert lecture.

But, he designs this class, and that's pretty much the worst part about it.
As someone said below, he cannot write specs. The specs he writes are extremely poor, and are very ambigous.
The TAs try (well, most of them), but there's very little that they can do. He doesn't post the lecture slides he has for unknown reasons.

We're just left to paddle the course on our own. And, worse, NO SOLUTIONS!
He recycles the assignments every year (go look at old class pages. they're all the same)

So, if you can't do an assignment, too bad, you'll never know how to. There's a good chance you'll never learn anything in this class.

If you find yourselves doing well in this class, you either have previous experience or thank your lucky stars, you've just landed a good TA.
If you're not, hope for a mirace and watch your GPA lose some of its hard-earned pts.

Review posted on Sun 24 Jun 2007
Course(s) Taken: CS111

Eggert's lectures are definitely not a waste of time and is probably his greatest strength. Unlike other professors, who simply throw information at you without explaining its importance, Eggert does a pretty good job at connecting the lectures to real life situations. In addition, he's interesting and is passionate with the subject of OS. His lectures are very thorough yet simple to understand, I never touched my book, and he is open to any question, even if it's beyond the scope of the class. His weakness, however, is the help outside the class. For the course, we were required to scribe every lecture and submit it to him. However, he didn't post any of the notes until the midnight before the final. Also, his projects are mostly run on a Linux platform, and he offers little help other than some website links (be prepared to be frustrated if you have never used Linux before). His exams are thorough, but open book and open notes so it wasn't impossible. The tests are pretty hard, but the curve was always around 50% so not to bad. My advice for you if you're taking this professor is to never miss a lecture, don't be needlessly intimidated by the projects, listen carefully and take good notes, and have an open mind.

Review posted on Mon 02 Oct 2006
Course(s) Taken: CS131

Prof Eggert is a very good lecturer. He is very knowledgable and makes the lectures interesting (maybe it is the subject itself that is interesting). But if you dont understand, he will spend time explaining to you. Dont expect much help with the homework from him though. His midterms and exams are very hard. The average is about 55-60 so dont beat up yourself too much. Attend all his lectures because the textbook does not cover as detail as he does. Also he expects you to learn about 6 programming languages which could be challenging.

Conclusion: Hes the man if you want an excellent lecturer. But if your looking for an easier time, choose another professor.

Review posted on Sat 25 Mar 2006
Course(s) Taken: CS131, CS130

Prof. Eggert is an underappreciated professor. He is relatively difficult compared to other professors at UCLA but everyone is in the same boat. That's why there's a curve.

CS131:
Pretty much every Sunday was taken over by programming. Looking back, every minute was worth it. After you get through Eggert's class, programmig/interview questions are a joke.

He follows the book and assigns ridiculous amounts of reading. Just go to lecture and do the projects and you won't have to read for the exams. Read your notes (if you have any) over once before the test so you have a general idea where topics are so you can reference them.

CS130:
Pretty straightforward. He again assigns ridiculous amounts of reading but quizzes you this time. Most of the questions are so open to interpretation so you can get away with your CS common sense (unless you have none). Choose a good project/team for your course project and you'll be golden. Also, leave a paper trail for everything.

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If you want an easy A, this isn't the professor to take. If you want to learn, Eggert is for you.

Review posted on Fri 14 Oct 2005
Course(s) Taken: CS131

I enjoyed programming in all of those languages, but the projects he gives are extremely poorly written. They truly are the worst project specs I have ever encountered for any class in my life. He defends this every day by saying 'In the real world, people who assign projects just tell the programmers what they want done. It doesn't necessarily mean that it will be clearly specified or possible for that matter.' True. but this is not good for our education.

For example: He gave us a project that confused every one of our tiny 15 person class. We asked him for test cases, examples, and clarifications on it immediately and said he would get to it. 4 days before it was due, he made some changes to it that helped just a little (TA still didn't have a solution because it was confusing). But the test cases he provided us were extremely incomplete, did not have solutions, and even had compile time errors in them, showing that he must not have run it himself... shoot. so lazy...

In programming classes it usually doesn't matter which professor you have since you learn most of everything on your own trying stuff out programming, but the projects he gave in CS131 just got to me a little.

Overall, he sure seems like a nice guy, but he's just too lazy to put the time into making good projects for students to learn from.

Review posted on Sun 28 Aug 2005
Course(s) Taken: CS130, CS131

I have great respect for Professor Eggert.

Misconceptions I would like to clear up:

1) Yes, professor Eggert throws a lot of material at you, but to do well on his projects and exams you only need to do the following:

a) Go to class. I found that the readings he required weren't that necessary in 131 if you did so. The book is great for clarification.

b) Write down everything he says, not just what he writes on the board. Half his exam questions come directly from the little "tangents" he went off in class, and are very useful during exams (which are open book and open notes. It is the notes that help you at this point)

c) To do well on the projects look at the programming links he provides, they often have similar smaller problems that altogether lead to most of the solution to the assignment.

d) Study the projects, because unlike most other professors and classes, professor Eggert tends to test us on what we have already practiced. I found the web links most useful for this.

e) Ask questions in class and outside. It often slows down the pace in class enough for everyone to understand the concepts well.

f) He is greatly flexible with office hours (I sometimes dropped by his office even at other times and he was always welcoming). If you show that you have thought out the problem well enough, he will nudge you in the right direction, which is very useful when you are stuck on an assignment.

Yes, his assignments are tough, but they prepared me well for work and interviews.

Also, professor Eggert is a great guy who loves teaching. He was never condescending or failed to answer any of my questions.
So, ASK HIM QUESTIONS!!!!!! It will make your life much easier.

AND DONT WORRY ABOUT THE DIFFICULTY OF THE COURSE. HE IS NOT TRYING TO FAIL US. He just expects everyone to put in their best, therefore his curve is quite amazing. In one of the classes I was sure I flunked the midterm but ended up with a B in the class.

Don't take him if you are afraid of hard work.

Please take him if you want to leave the university feeling like you learned something valueable.

Review posted on Sun 03 Jul 2005
Course(s) Taken: CS130, CS131

Professor Eggert's classes are hard but you learn a lot.

Exams come from Mostly lecture notes and discussions in class so pay attention. Also, some material from the book may be covered.

CS130: I found this class to be very open ended since we got to choose any one project we desired and worked in teams.
There was a lot of reading, but I learned a lot and found the class to be an overall medium complexity (as compared to all other classes in the CS department)

CS131: I found this course to be quite challenging, however professor Eggert was always willing to help, even outside of office hours. Even though the course took a lot of my time, I found it well worth it, especially in job interviews.

Overall, this professor loves to challenge his students and really is a nice guy and very helpful.

Review posted on Sat 25 Jun 2005
Course(s) Taken: 131

This class was one of the most challenging I have taken in my two years here, but it was also one of the most educational. As several people have noted, Eggert is a very knowledgeable person and is eager to elaborate on most topics in class if you're interested. This makes him a great professor for this class which covers a large number of programming topics quickly. To benefit most from his class, you should try to make it to all the lectures and plan to devote a lot of time to the projects.

He assigned 7 total projects in our quarter, of varying difficulty. The midterm and final were both very tough -- the average on the midterm was around 50%. The best way to prepare is to review lecture notes and the homework assignments because almost all of his questions elaborated either on topics from lecture or features from the projects.

I would recommend Eggert, but if you take several other difficult classes during the same quarter as this class, you will probably have a hard time unless you are some kind of programming wizard.

Review posted on Thu 24 Mar 2005
Course(s) Taken: CS131

His lectures are very boring and the exams are very hard and have nothing to do with what he talk about in class or what is in the book. So no matter how hard you study you would not do well in the exam. Infact when I took the CS131 with him the average on the midterm was 40. I got a D in the class. Then I repeate the class but the scond time I took the class with professor He and got a B with him. A big difference. So do not take any class with him and avoid him at all costs. He will mess up your GPA. If you have to take CS131, take it with professor He. He is a lot better.

Review posted on Mon 04 Oct 2004
Course(s) Taken: 111 and 131

His projects are extremely difficult. Plus you don't get much time to do them. If you can handle stress, you'll do decent in his class, because of his generous grading policy. Both times I took him, I received a grade a little bit higher than I was expecting.