Grading is easy but holy shit the professor is all over the place and disorganized. Also has the most confusing course reader ever.

Super easy class, but mandatory textbook!

Selling DYNAMIC BIOSYTEM MODELING & SIMULATION METHODOLOGY - THIRD EDITION Brand New

Text ********** to purchase!

The professor is a really nice guy and tries very hard, but this was probably the worst class experience I've had as a CS Major. The material isn't bad, but the class organization, course materials, and teaching is so bad that it doesn't really matter. It is a massive headache, and I would recommend taking any other elective instead.

The biggest issue in this class is the course materials, all the other problems kind of stem from the fact that the textbook/slides suck so much that no one knows whats going on. Organization is absolutely abysmal, there are constant mistakes and contradictions. You will not know the correct answer, or even really know where to begin oftentimes, because so many questions are incredibly vague, broad, or flat out incorrect, and the course material is useless. LA's will also not be able to help you, they are equally confused and often give conflicting information. Course reader and slides are unbelievably terrible and make it insanely hard to learn what should be easy material. Also, if you're like me they will make u incredibly angry. They're so bad the LA's are often as confused as students, and as a result often give blatantly incorrect information. Also, you get 2 midterms and a final, don't fall for the no exams thing. To give credit where it's due, grading of tests is quite generous, labs aren't bad and can be pretty interesting, and the professor is genuinely a good guy who will try to help you (but made terrible teaching material ). TA Khanh is a godsend. Also you don't have to code and none of the material is fundmanetally difficult.

Homework is pretty annoying since there are zero good sources to learn the information (google isn't really helpful since he tests on his own textbook which differs from standard sources), and they are graded quite strictly on correctness. Content might be easy in theory but the amount of time and effort I had to put into sorting out all the mass confusion, mistakes, contradictions, and bad information made this class more of a pain than CS 111, M151B, 33, (insert worst class you took here), etc etc .

All in all the professor is a great guy, and he does try really hard to make the class interesting and relatable. But, he uses his own textbook (which is horrible), and his own slides (which are copied directly from the textbook) which makes it incredibly hard to learn or enjoy the material. I think this class could be okay and quite interesting if he used an external textbook, and maybe put his own spin on it through the slides. But, in its current state, there is zero reason to take this class. Unless you hear something has drastically changed with the course material and organization, skip this class.

Professor is incredibly disorganized, and bullies students to buy the textbook with 1-day Amazon shipping. Not accommodating of circumstances, and says mildly offensive things. Really "classic" engineering boomer professor.

Homework is full of misprints and vagueness (but no extensions for the misprints!) and TAs seem to be confused as well. Also, collaboration outside of Piazza isn't allowed (i.e. you're not allowed to talk to friends about how confusing the HW is), and the professor will constantly threaten to get everyone for academic dishonesty.

Don't take unless you want a headache that lasts 10 weeks. At least exams 1 and 2 were fair, 3 was nothing like the HW or worksheets.

I just dropped this class before second week and I have my textbook brought already. It's new (I only used it for a week). If anyone wants the textbook (the newest version written in December 2019), email me: *************.

Overall a pretty easy class for upper division CS. Mostly about simulink and you don't do any coding at all. Course reader is needed for homework questions but you can share with a classmate. Professor is nice, but can be disorganized/ambiguous at times. Would recommend if you're looking for a chill class and don't mind going to office hours occasionally to get clarifications on homework and stuff.