I initially thought Meka would be a pretty boring lecturer based on the first class but I was happily surprised. The lectures ended up being really interesting and it was easy to tell that he was passionate about what he was teaching. His tests were fair and he provided 3 yrs of practice exams and additional hw problems which were very helpful for the exams (many problems were similar to the practice). There were 3 non-cumulative exams (instead of a midterm and a final) so if you didn't do well on one of them you could still make it up on the next ones. HW was manageable and lectures were recorded. The content was occasionally dense but it's a theory class so that's to be expected. Overall, Meka was a great prof to take this class with.

Meka is a great professor. 181 is definitely a hard class but somehow Meka made this class extremely enjoyable. His OHs are great and he explains everything really well. For the midterms and final, the best way to study is literally just going to his OH and do the practice problems with him. Or just simply be there and listen to what other people are asking. The 1 hr OH is somehow the most productive studying sesh ever.

Super interesting class, Meka is a great lecturer and really good about answering questions. The homeworks are pretty difficult and are mostly graded on completion, but definitely manageable. We had two midterms and one final, all non-cumulative. He's pretty lenient on grading for these-- I basically skipped a question and still got one point for "attempting" it. Overall, would definitely recommend taking this class with Prof. Meka.

Great professor, hard exams but extremely generous grading scheme. Would take him again.

This is one of my absolute favorite classes I’ve taken at my time here at UCLA. Don’t get me wrong - the material is very, very hard and I’m a very, very below-average student. But Meka teaches in a way that is very well-structured and thorough. Being remote this quarter was a challenge for all my professors, but he provided very clear (if a bit hard to read) notes, reasonable homework and tests, and very well-written and fast answers on campuswire.

This is such a great class. Contrary to the official course title, the main focus of the class is not finite automata. Meka has revised the curriculum to talk about "theory of computation" as a whole, and some of the ideas/ theorems we discussed were honestly mindblowing. The textbook is very modern and completely free online.

There are two midterms and a final. I personally found the exams to get progressively more difficult, although that's probably due to the nature of the material. Overall, they are fair. Make sure to study the class notes, as there are always a few questions that basically require you to recite key ideas. One final note: the exams are timed over Zoom, so I imagine they would be similar to in-person

Excellent class and excellent professor.

Prof Meka adapted well to teaching in a covid remote learning environment, his live zoom lectures were generally well prepared and engaging. Exams and homeworks were challenging but fair, and the questions generally posed on them were interesting.

Overall I can say I learned a lot this quarter from him and recommend him and this class.