Advice: just don't take this class with her.

not helpful, rude and unfriendly on piazza, 15 min quizzes with 8 questions including math, etc. idk how her curve will be but its not worth it regardless

Just ask people who took this class my quarter. It was not a fun time.

Great professor. Makes the subject extremely interesting, and tests are fair but difficult. You will leave the class with a solid understanding of networking. The second project is time-consuming, but clarifies important concepts.

Overall professor Zhang is a better lecturer than most professors. She's to the point, but also not too fast. She also drops small stories of her time at Xerox Parc and it's insane she was at the center of networking and computer research. Project 2 was the worst because the TAs kept making mistakes and changes to the example program and it kept confusing everyone.

The professor is very knowledgeable and loves to answer every question in the class. The course helps you learn something really useful and interesting. However, the exams and projects are not very easy and you need to study really hard and understand every detailed concepts to perform well in this class.

Zhang has to be one of the worst professors I’ve ever taken. She is terribly disorganized, and generally quite useless. The homework’s, tests and projects aren’t too bad in and of themselves l, however Zhang manages to make them confusing. I enjoyed the material of the class however I’d strongly recommend not to take this Professor

This class is hard. Do take time going to class and read the book if you can. If you have anything unclear, do not hesitate to ask TA or professor for help. You must be crystal clear of every concept before final since final is hard.

Not sure what Lixa Zhang the other reviewers took, but I highly DONT recommend her. Lectures were the most boring I have ever had in a CS class, and the projects were awful.

Shout out to Ilya Moiseenko, the second worst TA I've had: the projects were copied and pasted from other schools, but wherever the spec was modified, he managed to fuck it up and write directions that only worked on his computer.

Got my grade back and I got an A. Great professor in retrospect.

Pros:

Good lecturer, obviously knows her stuff and can explain a lot of things

Excellent homework, takes a short period of time (unlike some teachers that assign homework that takes FOREVER) but really checks to see if you understand the material.

Grades are fair

Encourages you to work hard. You HAVE to read the book and really understand networking and the class if you want to do well.

Cons:

Projects are pretty epic. Haven't spent that much time on a project class since 111. Especially the second project. Make sure you know your forks and mutexes before you go into this class or you are up a creek, no paddle, and lots of sharks.

Recommendation:

Yes! Take her, you will learn a ton about networking. Just be committed to the class.

Tips:

Understand how TCP SYN/ACK works, seq, ack numbers, flags. How DNS works, the differences between the protocols, and just overall networking ideas like how switches operate at the ethernet/frame/link-level and how that differs from how routers work via IP addresses.

Start early on the projects.

Read the book.