Glenn Reinman. I was initially debating doing 33 this quarter, but everybody and their mother told me to take the course with Reinman. I scoured through Bruinwalk reviews, and I was super sure about my decision...well, till I wasn't.

My experience with this class (and most peers in Spring 2022) was extremely different from past years, at least going off Bruinwalk:

Class: Reinman follows flipped lecture, where he gives about ~2 hours of prerecorded content a week and follows up on the content/takes Q&A during the allotted lecture time. These pre-lecture videos are practically just slides with an audio tape, and they're incredibly content-heavy. 5 minutes feel like 20, and I personally really disliked - for the most part, there was no explanation and it was just him reading off the slides. If I had an hour to live, I'd spend them watching these because they felt like eternities in the passing.

The slides aren't like Carey's, either, which you could self-study from. In class, however, he does a fairly good deal going over the questions that students asked, and I think he mostly answered all questions directed at him. I'm personally not a fan of 2 hour lectures, but that's certainly not on Reinman.

The class is, in my opinion, a terrible adaption of CMU's CS 213, and shortened to fit in the quarter system. But it really shouldn't.

1. Primary Labs (Data, Bomb, Attack, Parallel): 32% (8% each) + Warmup Lab (3%) = 35%

The labs were most likely my favorite bit of the class. The first three labs are standard CS:APP content, whereas the parallel lab is unique to CS 33. I'd wager the data lab was the hardest by far, but the bomb and attack labs were the most fun. The parallel lab was mostly a joke (I think the TA made it simpler?) and most people I know got it done with in 2 hours, tops.

2. Homework: 5% and Discussion Sections: 10%

Both based on completion. The homework material was fairly represented on the tests, so I'd recommend doing them yourself. The discussion sections being mandatory high-key sucked, but the LA worksheets we covered were probably the most clutch thing to happen to this course. They go over practically all the kinds of problems, and our batch created a master doc with solutions, which really helped understand a bunch of concepts. 11/10 for the LAs. Try enrolling in Salekh's section if possible, he's probably the best teacher this course can have.

3. Midterm: 20%

I have no idea what on god's green earth happened here. Reinman seems overly obsessed with academic integrity, so he made six different versions of the exam, and gave everyone only 40 minutes to attempt them. It was awful, it was abysmal, and the class average was 49 ("lowest in his 20+ years @ UCLA") Regrades haven't been considered and we've already taken the final. He's mentioned that he'll lower the weight of the midterm based on final performance and he'll be curving, but we'll have to wait and see how that pans out.

4. Final: 30%

Reinman probably realized he screwed up during the midterm, so the final was a much better level, props to him for that. I'd say the expected class average is going to be around 65 - which doesn't sound excellent - but after that midterm, I'm going to take this with my arms wide open and all my heart.

Reinman just seemed strangely convinced that people were cheating throughout the course. If you did poorly, he'd explain how we should know everything (this problem was on the hw, this problem was done in class, etc.), but if you did well - like the class did on the bomb lab- he found it sus that everyone got near-full scores on the lab. I found this extremely silly, because he compared a 40 minute clusterfuck of an examination to a good lab where we could consult TAs, and spend two weeks working on it.

In terms of workload, I'd wager the class peaks in workload around the bomb lab/midterm, and strongly plateaus post that. Weeks 7 through 10 are super easy in terms of content, labs, homeworks, and you can easily cruise and focus on other classes during that time.

The man nearly bombed my GPA, attacked my integrity, but with all the data I have: I'll probably end up with an A-. I can't think of any parallel puns atm, but idk. I surely didn't enjoy CS 33 with Reinman.

Edit: Insanely nonsensical grading scheme too. Only gave out 35% A+/A/A-s this quarter, so don't raise your hopes off past grading distributions.

Don't count on the massive curve he's given historically, it didn't show up in Spring 2022 when everyone bombed the midterm. (edit: apparently he never set up the proper grade weights in Bruinlearn, so all of our grades were incorrect the whole time and we just didn't know)

I have seen some people saying he's unfair in how much he accused the class of cheating, but in my opinion he was probably right.

Lectures: CS 33 under Reinman was a flipped classroom structure in which you watch a lecture video before attending the actual lecture. This proved to be an awful structure - it was time consuming, yet Reinman was a very confusing lecturer, meaning that despite having to spend 6+ hours listening to lectures per week, you were unlikely to understand the material that well. To make things worse, some of the material on the exam only appeared in Reinman's in person lecture, so you had to attend them. It doesn't help that Reinman is not very engaging either.
Labs/Homeworks: Homework consists of textbook problems. Labs consist of the Data, Bomb, Attack, and Parallel Lab - the first three are copied from CMU's 15-213 class. I honestly enjoyed Bomb and Attack lab, however data lab was very difficult due to the lack of hints, and parallel lab was just stupid - there was really only one way to approach the lab which was given away by the TA, so why bother? Also, the latter three labs all have extra credit - make sure to get them.
Discussion: They are mandatory, however, even if they were not, they're 100% worth going. The TA's really do hard carry this class - they explain better than Reinman, and provide worksheets that are good practice for the Exams.
Exams: What the fuck happened here. The midterm was only 40 minutes long, and consisted of 4 very hard questions. The average for this midterm was a 49. The final was a bit better, but was still very difficult with the average being a 62. As stated before, the final involved material covered only in Reinman's very dry in person lecture, so the final still didn't feel all that fair tbh.
Reinman's Attitude: Reinman's attitude this quarter was something. After the first midterm, Reinman sent two very condescending emails accusing most of the class of cheating due to the low averages on the midterm, while failing to take into account the lack of time on the midterm as well as the very difficult and confusing nature of the questions. After the final, Reinman once again sent a condescending email, this time complaining about the poor course evaluations he received. Reinman, if you are reading this, maybe try being less condescending and take some responsibility for the issues with this class for once!
Grading: The curves on Bruinwalk are a lie. The actual curve was a roughly 33 - 33 - 33 distribution for A, B and C grades respectively (+'s and -'s included).
Overall I wouldn't recommend Reinman - he was not a good lecturer and was very condescending as well. That said, Spring is still the most convenient quarter to take CS 33 for most CS students, and CS 33 is a hard class regardless, so I don't think avoiding Reinman and taking Nowatzki in the fall is a must either. However, do consider the pros and cons of this class before taking it.

Other reviews said it better, and in more detail. But this was a terribly executed class throughout the quarter. Something must have been off this time because it seems like it has usually gone better for Reinman.

You can make your way along, understand the material very well and get 100% on every lab, yet still bomb the exams because they're poorly written and difficult to prepare for.... especially the catastrophe of that midterm.

In general, the exam questions felt arbitrary and the grading scheme nonsensical for a computer science class. Furthermore, the professor was honestly degrading the way he spoke about it, accusing people of cheating and incompetence.

It could've been an off quarter for Reinman, but I'd avoid for the future to be safe. It was a really bad experience from start to finish.

Note: this review was made in Spring 2020, a special year with a lot of discerning events. I did not take the CS33 final and cannot comment on it. For that part of the class, discard my review.

Glenn is great; the wave of reviews should comfort you. It's also simple to do well in his class, if you are diligent and work properly.

This is the very class that, if you attend lectures, start your work early, read your assignments properly, and check what you turn in thoroughly, you will GET AN A. People say this for a lot of classes but it's TRUE for Glenn.

Glenn is also very understanding and reasonable. Just super cool in general.

I got a 0 on the Parallel lab, but still got an A- because of extra credit from before. Yes - take extra credit on labs, in case you do screw up big-time elsewhere. Extra credit for the Bomb lab is especially easy (Attack lab, maybe not so much).

Also, please read lab specs carefully... that's why I got a 0, haha.

This is also the class where CS becomes *partly* less interesting than before. If you find it hard to just be a diligent student and pay attention, and you don't have any crazy environment, then it's not that CS is wrong for you - it's that you need to improve as a student. CS33 with Glenn is very accomodating for students, and it also has very important topics that you must digest.

The content of this class is very useful for understanding the computer system as a whole. But who the heck said that this is easier than CS 32...I even think the workload is higher because of the flipped mode (pre-lec recordings + lectures). Rienman is a nice dude but to be honest, he didn't explain the content very well.

I think a lot of people will disagree with me, but overall I think the class was good. I learned a lot and there were many opportunities to succeed in the labs which is 35% of your grade (and extra credit on the bomb lab and parallel lab). I was disappointed by the lack of partial credit given on the midterm, which definitely was an area that Reinman and the TAs did not do well this quarter. He only gave us 40 minutes to complete the test which difficulty-wise was do-able, but most people including myself ran out of time. Since no partial credit was given, there were hundreds of regrade requests which weren't resolved till close to the final. On the final, Reinman compensated for the low midterm scores by including one of the exact midterm questions on it. Final was difficult but doable (problems started easy and got harder but each was only worth 10/15 pts regardless of difficulty). Over 60% of people missed the exact copy of the midterm question on the final, so take that into consideration when you read other peoples reviews (aka some people just didn't study and it showed).

If you do the labs honestly (or at least learn how to do them: especially the bomb lab and attack lab!) and study the midterm material, you can succeed in this class. I got a D on the midterm and a B on the final and was able to end with an A. He will make your final worth more if you do better on the final and he curves generously so around 35% students get an A/A+.

Reinman uses a flipped classroom but honestly I wouldn't expect that to stay since apparently a bunch of students gave him terrible reviews on it. Kinda sucks for students taking it in the future because now it will be important to attend all in-person lectures instead of just watching videos for the core content. Definitely pay attention to in-class examples. Reinman is a fair teacher, he is willing to help you if you put in the work. He is pretty suspicious of cheating all the time, but he has a reason to be. The class is the same in many colleges so there are slides, practice tests, and lab guides to reference. If you choose to use online lab solutions, you'll do well on the labs but make sure you can put it into practice by hand because you'll have to on tests.

A lot of people say that CS 33 is easier than CS 32. I definitely did not find that to be the case. Where CS 32 is practical application of quick to learn concepts, CS 33 is dense in theory.
Note: This review is of Spring 2020 which was a special remote learning quarter due to the pandemic. Some things may be different in person.

TLDR; if you have to take this class, take it with Professor Reinman.

Instruction: Professor Reinman, as noted by many reviews, uses the flipped-classroom approach. You'll have anywhere from a 30 to 70 minute video to watch before each lecture. If you understand that, you get context for the class and can ask doubts which the professor answers quite meticulously. While it's officially called flipped classroom, it's more like saying that the professor gave you the slides of what he's going to go over in the class beforehand... attached with an audio file. I personally found it easier to keep engaged in the class since the material is so dense I'd have to go over it multiple times.

Labs: You will most likely have data lab (binary manipulation of integers), bomb lab (finding answers to a "bomb" puzzle using GNU debugger and interpreting x86 assembly), attack lab (manipulating your input in a way that circumvents design of a C program), and parallel lab (given some C code, you have to optimize it using optimization techniques and parallel programming). All of the last three labs have extra credit, even if the professor doesn't say so initially. Make sure that you grab all of that; it might end up being very handy. In terms of difficulty, Data lab > bomblab > attack lab > parallel lab (personally that's what I think. but most would agree that data lab was the hardest).

Keep in mind if the professor opens up some assembly code in the first class and talks about it like you should know all of it somehow beforehand, it would be nice to know that he'll teach everything about that and there's no need to worry.

Midterm and Final: There is just one midterm for the course, so make sure you do that well. Due to the special circumstances, I was able to opt out of the final, so I can not say much about that. But the midterm was to the point, however a little tricky here and there. Make sure you have a good understanding of the concepts; ask as many doubts as you have. If you do the labs yourself, you'll be fine for midterm. Would definitely recommend the LA worksheets as well. (Thank you LAs for your help).

The course is well constructed. It may look useless at first, specially coming from something like CS 32, but will end up changing the way you code for optimizations that don't involve algorithmic changes. Professor Reinman is great; he maintains a cheery attitude and genuinely tries his best to help everyone succeed.

LONG LIVE REINMAN!!!!!!!!!
GOD BLESS THIS MAN

Since this was the first class back in person after covid, I believe Reinman was a bit disoriented on the way to teach the class and the expectations he had for us. He uses the flipped classroom method where you watch a video (presumably) beforehand and then attend lecture. Many never attended lecture because they could just watch the video, however it is helpful to go to gain a better understanding by asking and listening to others' questions. Reinman does very little preparation for his lectures. Towards the end of the class, he did not even use his own slides and often got confused while explaining the material. He doesn't even have a laser pointer!

Without going into deep technicality, the majority of the grade was the midterm and the final with very little weight given to labs and homeworks ( he emphasized that we can finish those through "other means", so they're not a good determiner of what you know). The format of the midterm was honestly a big mistake, and Reinman himself apologizes for it. However, know that he expects you to know exam-type questions without going over any sort of review of what the format is going to be on the midterm. For this, you must go to professor and TA office hours (Salekh is the best TA!). The final was fair, in my opinion. We had enough time for the exam and we had experience from the midterm on what the format would be like.

You have two weeks to complete labs and one week to do homeworks which was more than enough if you did a little every day. That being said, Reinman often brought up that our bad performance on exams was a result of us cheating on labs and homework assignments. Given that we had more time to do those assignments and ask for help, this statement obviously does not make any sense.

Overall, you would need to get a lot of outside help and go out of your way to prepare beforehand for exams if you take this professor. Honestly, I am in disbelief at how Reinman chose to teach the class this quarter, and I hope he can learn from his mistakes for future quarters.