Nowatzki is a pretty engaging and relatable dude (more on that later), but his lectures were hard for me to follow, since the slides don't exactly make sense on their own and he talks pretty fast. Because of this, I suggest doing a quick look through the slides right before lecture. Also, I would not rely only on the slides when doing test review. I highly recommend taking notes during class because Nowatzki sometimes has review questions on his slides that he doesn't put the answer to on the slide. He also does a lot of explaining on each slide that you won't remember unless you take notes. Otherwise, I would recommend reading the textbook or finding alternative resources.

His exams are really hard. There's multiple choice questions with multiple correct answers, and you don't get any points unless all the correct answers for one question are all checked.

He's also a troll and his exams will make you wonder why the heck he made you answer this. He also trolls the class Piazza page with memes and funny student answers from the final.

CS 33 itself is not an easy class. But taking it with Tony makes my life a little easier. I don't think there is a better professor for this class unless you love Eggert.. Anyways, Tony is super passionate and his assignments are doable. There are some strange questions on exams like word games but still, they are doable. Questions posted on Piazza can always get an answer really quick. AND in the last lecture, he used 10 minutes to sum up the entire stuff of this quarter which is REALLY cool!! He gives extra credits which provides a bigger chance of getting a good grade. Actually I messed up my midterm totally, but there's still a chance to get a good grade.

One thing to watch out: I don't think he is doing this in his previous teachings but this quarter participation counts in discussions.

Really nice guy, doing his best with some ~dense~ material. Yugo Watanabe is the best TA on the planet...

Seems like it's generally a pretty difficult class, but Professor Tony is a good guy to teach it! My advice is to get started as early as possible as the labs, and to review anything you may have glazed over in lecture - he moves pretty fast so it's important to keep up. He is very active on piazza (a message board) which is super helpful. One thing to be warned of - his tests always contain a multiple choice section that may have multiple right answers, and you have to select all of them in order to get any credit on each question, most students bomb that section.

Lectures: lectures are very fast paced and pretty unforgiving. reading the textbook before lecture probably helps (he outlines the corresponding sections to the lectures), but if you're lazy, looking at the slides probably help too. I think most people agree that the lectures are really fast, but honestly I don't really think it's Tony's fault. The class is just super dense and there is so much new material. But Tony is pretty passionate and knowledgeable about the area, so he's definitely a great option for cs33.

Discussions: discussion was optional. he had a duel grading scheme so if you went to discussions and submitted a worksheet (graded on completion), then you can get 10% of your grade to be discussion worksheets. if not, then the midterm and final will be worth a little more. discussions mostly depend on your TA, so hop around and find a good one if you are not happy with your current one.

Labs: the labs are still pretty time consuming. they're definitely different from cs32 projects (manipulating bits, looking at assembly), but honestly still take alot of time. however, he offers a lot of extra credit through labs, so that's pretty nice too. you might've heard about the malloc lab, which is definitely earns its spot for the being the notoriously hard lab. just start early and make sure you understand the concepts.

Midterm/Final: the exams were pretty difficult, but you get plenty of practice exams which are helpful. he has multiple choice questions that can have 1, multiple, or no answers; you have to get it completely right to get the credit. there are also extra credit questions that are usually based on a lab. since the exams this quarter are open note and open internet, they might have been a little easier, but tony knows that and probably writes the exam knowing you have the internet.

Overall, pretty interesting class conceptually, it's just really dense and fast paced. However, tony is really funny and will meme you on the piazza when given the chance. be sure to meme him back by writing your posts in the form of a haiku (he is a renaissance man okay)

This class is very difficult and Professor Tony speaks really fast. Malloc Lab is hard. Final exam is way more difficult than the midterm.

I want to become Tony when I grow up

This class was pretty difficult and a lot different from CS 31, and CS 32, focusing more on low-level computer hardware and programming concepts. There are five labs in total, which are pretty reasonable and help solidify class topics. The malloc lab is really difficult, and I would definitely recommend starting it as early as possible. The textbook isn't necessary, as Professor Nowatzki is a great lecturer and has informative slides.

Tony is a great professor, and super nice guy. His slides are also pretty quirky which is entertaining. If you sit in the front of the lecture hall and pay attention to lectures you will learn a lot and studying for exams will be a lot easier. Going to office hours was super helpful for me since he will sometimes give direct hints about how to solve the labs. They gave the option to attend discussion and get credit for effort on the weekly worksheets or not attend discussion and get credit for correctness. I would recommend going to discussion since the TA's are very helpful and you don't have to spend your Fridays hashing out the worksheet you forgot to do.
This was my hard class this quarter and I literally spent 3 entire days studying for the final exam, but it was all worth it. Tony gives past exams as practice so definitely do those when studying.

Pretty good class.
Midterm is mostly assembly based problems (tracing through everything to figure out what the program outputs). Average is roughly 60% for that midterm even after curve, but I'm pretty sure the professor curves the scores even more when doing final grades. Final is more oriented towards things like cache and memory mapping, and the average on that one was around 75-80% after curve. Projects are interesting (they got rid of malloc lab), and shouldn't take too much time compared to CS32 projects.

The lectures are fun and interesting too.