Michael is a good guy in teaching. He will give his help when you come across difficulties and he responds to emails very quickly. However, he sometimes make some definitions unclear, which he tries to make the explanations entertaining but only ends up being more confusing. the class is bruincasted but the quality of the video is not good at all. Michael will give you his very tough grading scale in his syllabus which might scare the heck out of you but he will eventually curve the grade such that 25% of the students will receive an A range. I earned a overall 91% which results in a final grade of A; if he stick firmly to his grading system, such score will only give me a B+.

TLDR: Do not take this class unless you want to have a breakdown in Boelter at least once a week. If you have to like I did at least do NOT take it with Mike Lindstrom. This class is a special kind of hell.

The class consists of one homework each week, a midterm, and a final. The homework seems easy the first couple weeks but do NOT underestimate the learning curve come around week 4/5. Make sure to get full points on the first couple of homeworks and if you get points off clarify why and try to get points back. I got a 5/20 on one homework because I forgot to change the name of the header file in my code and it technically didn't compile. 2 letters cost me 75% of that homework so be very careful with them. Go to office hours, my TA was Sam and she was super patient and helpful when I had questions. If you still need help on top of that there are fraternity chapters that offer free tutoring. There are three different chapters in Boelter and Boelter Hall that can help you, go there and say you need help with C++ and there's usually someone there that knows enough to help get you through the homework. The midterm and final are ridiculously hard. The average for the midterm was around 50% and the average for the final was 39%. You only have 50 minutes for the midterm which is multiple multiple-choice, code correcting, and code writing. On top of that Mike grades ridiculously harshly and with no remorse. People who submitted a re-grade for their midterm later hoping to get points back on a question usually lost points. The final turned out to be online for us considering the early end of the winter quarter. Although the exam was 24 hours online, open note, and open web the average was still only 39%. I submitted my exam and got an exam about an hour after it was due that my exam was somehow in a format that couldn't be opened by my TA. I quickly emailed her my exam again asking why the first submission wasn't working and she couldn't tell me why which is weird considering that was the same format I submitted my homework. Although, the copy I emailed my TA worked and I spent hours on the exam Mike gave me a 0 because the first copy I submitted wasn't working and the second one was technically late. Literally less than an hour late and only because the first copy wasn't opening right for a reason no one could explain. Mike refused to accept my exam even though I don't know why he thinks I would go through all that just to cheat an extra 50 minutes on a 24-hour exam. Mike doesn't care about helping the students who don't have prior experience or a knack for coding. His whole class is structured to weed out the very best and praise them, while not bothering with those struggling. It is ridiculous for an introductory class.

As it was online, this class was structured differently than usual. Homework was worth 78%. The assignments took some time and were challenging but most of what we needed was in his lecture slides and he was very available and helpful for questions. He goes through a lot of content but as there were basically no exams (the final was worth 2% and was a creative project) I only really learned what I needed for the homework. In the end he gave mostly As and some Bs.

If you struggled with PIC 10A I would not recommend taking this course; however, if you enjoyed PIC 10A, I would definitely recommend taking this class with Prof Lindstrom. He is incredibly clear and includes many, many helpful slides to accompany his homework assignments. Although the homework assignments are very difficult and require a lot of work, they are also very detailed, well-thought out, and really help you to learn the material inside and out. I will say though that the grading for this class is extremely nit-picky and you need to be very careful to follow all of the homework guidelines Prof Lindstrom provides. After taking this course, I would say my programming skills have improved beyond my expectations.

Prof Lindstrom is one of my favorite professors I have had at UCLA so far. In his lectures, office hours, and even through his emails he makes it clear that he not only wants us to do well in the class, but also to really appreciate the material we are learning. He is also super helpful outside of class and always invites questions and answers them carefully.

Professor Lindstrom is one of the best professors I have ever had in my two years at UCLA. This was the first quarter we had remote instruction and Mike was super understanding and considerate of the situation. The majority of our grade was from homeworks, because he understood that exams were unfair in the given situation. The homeworks were really difficult and took many hours, but it gave me a really good understanding of the course material It was very clear that he truly cares about his students and student learning.

This class was not it. I had experience in C++ before and still found the class miserable. A 95 is required for an A, so not great for the GPA, but I do believe the lower brackets might curve nicer.
There's a midterm and a final worth like 5% of your grade, 24 hours to complete, and usually taken from the end of the slides.
The older reviews are correct, the homework takes forever to complete(~10-15 hours/week according to a poll of class). If you want to succeed you need to start assignments early, use clues from TA's to start, and attend lots of office hours.
Also do not plagiarize! He's crazy about honor and cheating and will ruin your academic life.
Overall, you can get an ok grade if you put most of your time into it, but it's likely the other professors are easier for 10A.

Terrible professor, even at the start of the class he joked that he had bad reviews because students are lazy. This is NOT the case. I received a C- even though all of my assignments worked for all edge cases, and were fully commented. I was one of the students that almost everyone went to for debugging their assignments, especially during the later part when assignments got hard. Tests are very niche on concepts that aren't covered extensively during the lectures. Would never recommend Lindstrom.

Lindstorm probably impersonated a student and generated the other fake review. Be cautious.

Why would someone give this devil a 4.0 rating?

Terrible professor, programs can work 100% (including edge cases & commenting), and you will get C's if coding syntax isn't 100% correct. His monotone voice is far superior for sleeping than learning. Took online and would not recommend him to anyone.