Professor
Lara Kassab
1 of 1
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2023 - Genuinely awful class. Just made me miserable and felt like a complete waste of my time. Horrible, unclear lectures delivered with a really depressing tone. The content of the class sucked too -- lacked cohesiveness or direction. Would have really, really benefited from a final project or ANY kind of application. Absolutely no preparation or direction for exams. She wouldn't even tell us how many questions were on it. It's not even that it's super hard -- it's just that you're given no motivation or direction to apply yourself, or any direction on where to spend your time studying. At least a tough class like 131a has a strong foundation and reason for being difficult. This one is just ridiculous. Horrible, don't take Kassab unless you have absolutely no choice. Awful.
Fall 2023 - Genuinely awful class. Just made me miserable and felt like a complete waste of my time. Horrible, unclear lectures delivered with a really depressing tone. The content of the class sucked too -- lacked cohesiveness or direction. Would have really, really benefited from a final project or ANY kind of application. Absolutely no preparation or direction for exams. She wouldn't even tell us how many questions were on it. It's not even that it's super hard -- it's just that you're given no motivation or direction to apply yourself, or any direction on where to spend your time studying. At least a tough class like 131a has a strong foundation and reason for being difficult. This one is just ridiculous. Horrible, don't take Kassab unless you have absolutely no choice. Awful.
AD
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2024 - I owe it entirely to my TA during this quarter for pretty much saving our entire class from failing (maybe a bit of an exaggeration but not by much). Kassab's lecture were okay, and I've taken her for 164 so I expected them to be similar to before where she just has slides/notes prepared straight from the textbook. But once again, I really only started to understand the materials when I read the textbook. I learned that the hard way when I got a new achievement in this class: "Set minimum score for class midterm". I absolutely bombed it, but I was determined to make a comeback. I went to our TA's office hours and discussions and he is the best at explaining the homework problems (which our professor was against because why? We all would love to know that tbh). Thankfully the professor and TA were very lenient when grading the final group project, and I got 100 even though I thought we turned in garbage. The final exam was made up of homework problems we had seen before, and I ended up passing, all was well. That's the story of my academic comeback. I hope to never take Kassab again.
Fall 2024 - I owe it entirely to my TA during this quarter for pretty much saving our entire class from failing (maybe a bit of an exaggeration but not by much). Kassab's lecture were okay, and I've taken her for 164 so I expected them to be similar to before where she just has slides/notes prepared straight from the textbook. But once again, I really only started to understand the materials when I read the textbook. I learned that the hard way when I got a new achievement in this class: "Set minimum score for class midterm". I absolutely bombed it, but I was determined to make a comeback. I went to our TA's office hours and discussions and he is the best at explaining the homework problems (which our professor was against because why? We all would love to know that tbh). Thankfully the professor and TA were very lenient when grading the final group project, and I got 100 even though I thought we turned in garbage. The final exam was made up of homework problems we had seen before, and I ended up passing, all was well. That's the story of my academic comeback. I hope to never take Kassab again.
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2024 - I was pretty shocked by the low reviews. Prof. Kassab is a very fair and kind instructor. Some may complain that the tests were "proof-heavy", sure, but it's not like these proofs were hard at all. There were really only 6-8 of them that you needed to know, and she went over every single one in class (or left it as an exercise that can be found in the book). Really - not bad at all! She gave us a practice midterm which I found helpful. I didn't do too well on the midterm because it was rushed and I made some arithmetic mistakes. (Unfortunately, the exam rubric punishes arithmetic mistakes heavily, so be very careful in your calculations!) However, she has a fantastic, forgiving grading scheme that allows the midterm to be replaced by the final. During the final, there is wayyy more time than the midterm so you can do better. Another thing I found really helpful was that she gave us a list of final study topics. I don't know if it was just because we were online for 1.5 weeks this quarter, but she ended up cutting out a lot of content in the final, which made things super clear. (I think our final was lighter on content than the other 164 class.) She also gave an extra credit opportunity on the last homework! Pretty sweet. But, once again, idk if she only offered this to us because we were partially online. Finally, one more piece of advice: whenever Prof. Kassab recommends a proof, DO IT. Overall, Prof. Kassab is helpful and wants her students to succeed. It is really clear she cares about her students. She would even show us coding examples of some of the algos, which I thought was pretty cool. I am really glad I took this class.
Spring 2024 - I was pretty shocked by the low reviews. Prof. Kassab is a very fair and kind instructor. Some may complain that the tests were "proof-heavy", sure, but it's not like these proofs were hard at all. There were really only 6-8 of them that you needed to know, and she went over every single one in class (or left it as an exercise that can be found in the book). Really - not bad at all! She gave us a practice midterm which I found helpful. I didn't do too well on the midterm because it was rushed and I made some arithmetic mistakes. (Unfortunately, the exam rubric punishes arithmetic mistakes heavily, so be very careful in your calculations!) However, she has a fantastic, forgiving grading scheme that allows the midterm to be replaced by the final. During the final, there is wayyy more time than the midterm so you can do better. Another thing I found really helpful was that she gave us a list of final study topics. I don't know if it was just because we were online for 1.5 weeks this quarter, but she ended up cutting out a lot of content in the final, which made things super clear. (I think our final was lighter on content than the other 164 class.) She also gave an extra credit opportunity on the last homework! Pretty sweet. But, once again, idk if she only offered this to us because we were partially online. Finally, one more piece of advice: whenever Prof. Kassab recommends a proof, DO IT. Overall, Prof. Kassab is helpful and wants her students to succeed. It is really clear she cares about her students. She would even show us coding examples of some of the algos, which I thought was pretty cool. I am really glad I took this class.
1 of 1
