I actually dropped this class halfway through the quarter, but I thought to provide some comments. I received a very very low score on my project 2 that would make it impossible for me to succeed in this class. because I missed three hyphens. That's probably due to my own issue, but I thought there's no need to make people like me who received low scores feel worse --- the following are from the email the professor sent us: it may not be because of a lack of understanding of C++, but something more fundamental: You ignored
repeated admonitions in the spec and in class to avoid specific foolish
mistakes, yet you made them anyway. Whatever your field of study is, you
must fix this characteristic about yourself. No employer would dare hire
someone who ignores repeated spoken and written directives: You'd pose a
risk to the safety of yourself and others if you ignore safety rules, a
risk to the financial health of the company if you ignore legal regulations,
and a drain on productivity if your ignoring specifications causes you or
others to devote more time later on to correct your mistakes.

this class has good material, and smallberg is an efficient professor
but i felt the grading and workload of this class was highly unnecessary. projects are heavily long and inconsiderate of time of students, and while i see how it lets practice with some concepts, it gets really repetitive (do i really need 5 classes for same style of objects)
i think the tests were nice and a much better measure of how well somebody understood the concept, especially with how some people "collaborate" too much, but tests are a level playing field. this class should grade more based on tests and reduce project workload.

If your correctness score is 60 or below, it may not be because of a lack
of understanding of C++, but something more fundamental: You chose to
ignore repeated admonitions in the spec and in class to avoid specific
foolish mistakes, yet you made them anyway. Whatever your field of study
is, you should work to fix whatever caused you to do this. No employer
would dare hire someone who ignores repeated spoken and written directives:
You'd pose a risk to the safety of yourself and others if you ignore safety
rules, a risk to the financial health of the company if you ignore legal
regulations, and a drain on productivity if your ignoring specifications
causes you or others to devote more time later on to correct your mistakes.

This class took up my whole quarter. The last half of the quarter the projects get crazy time consuming. It seemed like we were always doing a project or studying for an exam, there wasnt a time where I wasnt doing CS32. Smallberg definitely knows a lot about CS, but his lectures are filled with trivia about non-CS topics and him explaining what not to do. Whenever I went to lecture everyone was asleep or not paying attention and online shopping. We got behind in lecture, meaning for nearly all of the projects and homework assignments we were using topics that hadn't been talked about in class. Fortunately, Professor Nachenberg has slides that are extremely helpful, which is what my friends and I used to learn the material. There are LA workshops once a week usually which can be helpful depending on the LAs teaching. TA discussion section is also helpful (my TA taught us a lot clearer than the professor), but that depends on your TA. Be prepared to do a lot of self-study to get the concepts and have very little time to study for exams ( you usually have a project due the day before an exam). However, this is an extremely important class for CS so be sure to take it during a quarter where you can put all of your time into it!

Favorite project: Super Peach Sisters, hands down. It's so fun doing an actual graphical CS project for a change.

Although I came into this class having coding experience from AP CSA, the projects for this class were surprising difficult and time-consuming. If you don't have any coding experience at all, I wouldn't recommend this class since 10 weeks is a real short time to learn all the basics of coding and apply these coding concepts in graded projects. On the other hand though, tests were super easy. You get a cheat sheet but it is a pen-and-paper exam (not on the computer).

One pro of this class is definitely optional lectures. He just used lecture time as a recorded Q&A session, with the actual lectures being prerecorded and uploaded on Canvas. They're easy to understand in 2x, and tbh you'll still be fine even if you don't watch lectures at all, as long as you skim/read the textbook and do the projects diligently. Just note that the online interactive textbook was MANDATORY and a needless $70-80 for a 4-month subscription. At least it was a bit helpful.

Syllabus:
Projects (excluding zyBook assignments) 42% (there are 7 projects, about 6% each project)
zyBook assignments 7%
Responsibility assignments 1%
Midterm 1 7%
Midterm 2 13%
Final exam 30%

SMALLBERG is KING

CS32 as a whole is an entire different ballpark than CS31. I took CS31 in the Winter with a different professor and entering this class was very different and. much more difficult. First of all, his lectures are entirely asynchronous and he posts them on the days class is scheduled for, and also on those days he holds a Q&A session where you can ask him anything about the material/homework/project during the assigned lecture time. His lectures work as asynchronous because this way we won't fall behind on lectures, because I know for students who took this class before Covid, they were always like two lectures behind. I guess that is a plus, but personally, I learn better with in-class lectures. As a word of advice, I would recommend watching these lectures literally on 2x speed and if you are still a little lost, go to discussion. I found that I didn't learn as well from the lectures but the discussions helped a lot, which I think is because I had a TA who explained these difficult concepts in a very manageable way. Your TA does matter in this class, and if you decide the TA you have isn't presenting the material in a way you can learn, go to a different TA's discussion. I would also highly recommend going to the TA office hours. Even if I didn't really have questions, having an environment to work in where everyone was doing the same project made me more motivated to do the projects. Also, and this is very important, DO NOT WAIT TO DO THE PROJECTS. Our projects were usually due on Tuesdays and the next one releases THE SAME TUESDAY. I often was overwhelmed by the workload and didn't start the next project until the weekend since I worked so hard last minute to complete the previous project, and then I would find myself in a difficult cycle of being behind on the project. So GO TO OFFICE HOURS the week the project is assigned and AT LEAST get started on the project the week before it is due; your whole life will be much easier if you work on the project the week in advance. I got a surprisingly good grade in this class and I would say it was because I got really good grades on all of the projects and homework assignments and did about average on the exams. The first exam was in person and even though I got average on the exam (70%) I still felt way more prepared on this exam than the second exam, which was online. The second exam was simply 3 coding questions and introduced a topic none of us were familiar with yet (trees), but somehow was supposed to get since we knew recursion. The final was very different, since it was online and had no coding questions and instead tested on some sorting, but mostly entirely Big-O. Even though it was "multiple choice", every question had about 20-30 options, so you really had to know your stuff. Regardless, very difficult class, but work really hard on the projects and homework to get good grades on them, and do about average to maybe above average on the exams and I think you'll be good.

Extra:
-I felt like understanding linked lists was the big turning point for me in this class, because understanding how they worked built on many of the other data structures in this class. Also, recursion is going to be difficult, but do your best to understand it through all of the assigned practice, and LA worksheets because unfortunately, they also test pretty heavily on your knowledge of recursion.
-Project 3 is always making some sort of game and it mainly tests on recursion, inheritance, choice of data structures, along with just your ability to come up with solutions. You get two weeks on this project, but it takes lowkey forever, so definitely start it the first week it's assigned because you WILL have questions, and you will run into a lot of errors.

The jump between CS31 and CS32 is pretty big. I went into CS32 knowing it was a weeder class and I almost got weeded out. The first two projects are pretty manageable, but project 3 will literally ruin you so please start the day it is assigned. I spent nearly ten hours for like three days straight trying to get a FEW function completed. Do not slack in this class. My only real issue with the course is that the lectures can be quite boring and that the tests (at least the second midterm and final) were not easy to prepare for and only covered a few topics. It was hard because the final, for example, was almost entirely big-O, which only was covered in like a lecture and a half. Other than that, Smallberg is a nice guy and the class is just hard. Make sure to just start early and ask for help when you need it because the TAs and Smallberg will usually accommodate.

Professor Smallberg is a pretty good lecturer and is mostly clear on what he is expecting from students. While I did have some experience with C++, I was never the best at it so some parts of this class were rough. There is a bit of a learning curve when it comes to the projects as you have to meet 100% of the specifics in the spec if you want to even get a passing grade on some of the projects. The projects themselves vary in difficulty, with some being relatively easy while others are difficult and time consuming (Projects 3 and 5 for this quarter). While his demeanor seems harsh and abrasive over email, he is often open to questions both in class and during office hours. An issue that he has is that he often takes too long to grade assignments, so it is difficult to predict your grade in the class.