Computer Science

I thought this class was very useful in learning mathematical concepts of coding, but his grading scale is very confusing. You have to hit a certain number of learning targets and score well on the labs to get an A and I got screwed over completely by 1 learning target. Be careful and make sure you hit all of the targets.

Though this course has a lot of projects and assignments, and it is heavily Python-skill-based, I really recommend you try it if you really want a new experience. There are many, many, many retakes & extraordinarily clear rubrics (but really depend on professor, e.g. our class has its own mini-website to categorize materials). This means you can get a really good grade if that is important for you. In addition, the professor is very, very, very nice. Caplan is a very shy teacher. In class, you might feel awkward when he tries to make a joke but can't make everyone laugh. However, he is very knowledgeable and professional. There is rarely anything he doesn't know and could often extend the content beyond our level (for anyone who is interested, it is a great way to link different level difficulties together). Even if there is anything he doesn't know, he is very, very, very honest and would try with his intuitive during class while explaining his steps (9 out of 10 he is correct in guessing too). Furthermore, if you ever take this course, you MUST go to the Office Hour. In the class, he might be very fast in writing code and might sometimes move on very quickly. If you ever find it struggle to ask him questions directly in class (which is common because the class is often very quiet), office hours is extremely helpful. He has a whiteboard where he would take you step-by-step until you understand everything. He has a great ability to give examples and can write code very neatly. He has the ability to create connections through knowledge we already learnt and the new things we might know (for instance, aerodynamics & Chapter "Complexity analysis, Big-O, Numeric representation"), which I find helpful. The only thing is that he might be very busy during finals, so better to start reaching out to him as early as possible in the semester (he also has a surprisingly good memory of students and has prepared surprises like gifts).

Though this course has a lot of projects and assignments, and it is heavily Python-skill-based, I really recommend you try it if you really want a new experience. There are many, many, many retakes & extraordinarily clear rubrics (but really depend on professor, e.g. our class has its own mini-website to categorize materials). This m …Read more

Really enjoyed Professor Vaccari. The grading was fair, but it was definitely a somewhat difficult class. The weekly homework was difficult, but I'm definitely glad I took the class. I was not a fan of the written exam format