Howard explains clearly about concept in C++ and he is very nice! His teaching of CS31 can be easily understood by students who are new to programming. Though the workload of projects (one every week) is a little bit heavy, it can be handled well if you think and design your program carefully.

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As someone who has never touched CS with a 5 ft pole, this class was honestly doable. In fact, the lecture may have been a little too slow. Howard is really helpful and attentive (he responds to emails and discussion post questions pretty quickly). He also offered extra credit for people who attend discussion sections (0.5 added to your midterm score). His tests were pretty decent and both my midterm/final grades were higher than my projects grade. For tests, I would say the projects/worksheets he gives out are the best way to study (although the textbook is free, I gave up reading it because it was too dense and I couldn't comprehend most of it; just take lecture notes).

I would say the hardest part about this class for non-coders is the attention to detail you need when you test your code. Even if Codeboard says you did well, you still need to test A LOT of other cases to make sure you don't have logic errors. I did pretty badly on one project (heads up Project 3 is a huge jump in difficulty so start as soon as he releases it), but I was still able to salvage my grade with other projects/tests.

Goated professor. I've had friends become miserable after taking CS 31 with Smallberg, and then I personally took Huang for CS 31 during the winter, but had to drop it because I had no idea what was going on in class. I decided to take Stahl for the summer, and it has been the best decision ever. His exams are EXTREMELY fair. His homeworks are assigned once a week and are all multiple choice (20 problems long), they're also pretty straightforward. The projects are very similar to what other professor's for CS 31 assign, as expected. However, Stahl takes the time during his lectures to thoroughly run through the project specs, and he mentions common errors people may run into. He also basically does the projects for us part by part, but just by using different examples. If you fail this class with him, then IDK what to tell you bro. He is the reason I no longer feel like an imposter in CS. If you have no prior coding experience, Stahl is your best bet. If you have prior coding experience but just want an easy A, Stahl is also your best bet. Though, if you have prior experience, his lectures might bore you because they're pretty slow. Overall, he's great at explaining concepts and uses analogies that make the material easier to understand. I'm looking forward to taking him for CS 32 this upcoming fall.

In my experience, Professor Stahl is a wonderful teacher -- he knows exactly how to explain concepts to beginners. Although lectures can get boring at times (because they are 2 hours long), Professor Stahl tries his best to ensure he does not ramble. The tests in the class are EXTREMELY FAIR. He will tell you what kinds of questions to expect, provide practice, and even say he does not make trick questions (he really doesn't). Overall, if you are able to do all 6 projects by yourself, you should have no issue with the tests. The projects he assigns are also very fair and, with decent coding experience, can be completed in 1-2.5 hours.

To be fair, I had some coding experience (AP CS), but it was my first time learning C++. Even then, I found the class to be very easy and fair. If you have coding experience, you should be able to breeze through this class. Loved Howard, he's a great guy.

Professor Stahl is a great teacher. The way he presents his lectures is engaging however he speaks too slow to keep my attention. An easy fix for this was simply watching the recordings at 2x speed, which ended up saving me time as well. I came in with no prior knowledge of C++ and only a moderate amount of experience with R, however Stahl spells things out extremely well. I honestly should have received an A in this class but it is on me for prioritizing two other classes I fell behind in while almost entirely neglecting this one. Even though I was not very engaged for about the last 3-4 weeks, I still did well on the final and in the class, .4% away from an A-. This class with Stahl is extremely manageable and I can't recommend taking it with him enough, especially if you're a non-CS major and/or have no coding background. The tests are fair, with very few difficult problems. Every project except for project 3 I did the night before or day it was due. Project 3 was a bit more involved which took me longer but still not unbearably difficult. I plan to take CS32 with him next Fall.

Stahl is a pretty good professor. His class isn't unreasonable hard but you definitely need to put some effort into the projects and study for the exams. His slides are pretty good but his lectures can be a bit boring as he does go pretty slowly at times. My TA was really sucky (didn't know C++) but Stahl was not bad during office hours, although he can get a bit frustrated at times. He is super nice and approachable though. I definitely would take him again for CS31 and not Huang or Smallberg.

I definitely enjoyed this course. I think the projects really helped both my grade and my understanding of concepts and were also pretty fun to do. Howard is really nice and approachable. Lecture is pretty slow though, but discussions are great (if you skip the week of lecture, discussion is a great way to catch up). He also gave extra points on the midterm for attending discussion and filling out the LA survey.

I will say though, tests/hw quizzes can be really tricky. Howard is lowkey always trying to trick you. I think it's a good and bad thing, good because it forces you to really understand c++ and bad bc obviously it's annoying. My best advice for tests is to put tons of real code and output examples in your cheat sheet for tests. Those go a long way. Tests are also somewhat theoretical so make sure you don't only know how to code, but that you really understand the concepts.

I came in with some knowledge of coding from my high school's AP Computer Science classes, and I would say that helped a lot, because C++ is similar enough to Java (or maybe the other way around since C++ is older) for me to learn things very quickly. I don't think prior knowledge is expected though, and Howard really guides you step by step to learn C++.
Class format: Non-mandatory and yes recorded lecture + non-mandatory, both in person and online discussion, and you can go to whichever discussion section you want, so feel free to choose your favorite TA. I would recommend going to some discussions though, because 1. Howard gave extra credit for attending some discussions and 2. the worksheets are a good review of what we did in class.
Grading: Standard A+ 97% - 100%, A 93% - 96.99%, A- 90% - 92.99%, etc.. Howard did say that if you're 0.02% away from the next letter grade or something he'll bump it up. Homework, 20 questions each, is worth 5%. Projects (we had 6) are worth 36%, and each project is worth the same. Midterm is worth 25%, and the final is worth 34%.
Professor and lecture: I mentioned before that I have some coding experience, so the lectures felt kind of slow sometimes (and to be honest I skipped quite a few lectures). Howard himself is really nice though, and he shares pieces of his daily life with us (complaints about the LA roads lol) and it's pretty funny.
Office hours: I went to my TA's office hours for a few projects and he was SO helpful. I didn't go to Howard's because I had class at that time :( if you're stuck on something, go ask for help!

Overall rating: 9/10, would recommend, especially if you don't want to take CS31 with the CS majors in the fall.

I have heard Stahl is one of the easier computer science professors and I would agree. I think that his tests were fair. The projects were hard - at least for me. However I am a bit biased because I don't have a strong computer science background. I think if you do have a strong coding background, this class is great. If not, you are probably better off taking the PIC series.