Computer Databases

Have wanted to take this since high school, finally did

Algorithms, computer architecture, basically more computer science courses

Anything useful in the comm school

N/A

Probably but nothing that I particularly want right now.

Not besides the one I took, CS 4630. Perhaps another, but I can't pretend to know this ahead of time. I wanted to take this course, and it was originally slated for the fall, and then got moved to the summer session, so I moved with it.

Great course. The RSA lab sucked, the buffer lab sucked until you actually got the buffer overflow to work.Afterwards its good feeling of accomplishment. I spent over 30hours on the buffer lab just because it required so much knowledge of opcodes,ascii, and gdb. But now I feel I am a semi expert on gdb,opcodes and ascii. Learnt alot

The material, while absolutely worthwhile in and of itself, ultimately played second fiddle to the engaging and thought provoking lectures by professor Bloomfield.

Overall good emphasis on the learning experience itself. Although there was an adequate amount of risk with less homework assignments, but that was a technical issue. Surprisingly different feel from 2150 that he teaches. He has a tendency to go a bit fast, even though there is a plenty of time for lecture. A bit difficult to complete the labs to the fullest extent, but they do pique the curiosity of how viruses work despite a difficulty in getting things to work. The final homework assignment was a bit far too open-ended then typical of even open-ended homework assignments. Hours spent scouring google, forums for similarities, and many other sites elicit little to no useful aid to completion of the assignment other than coming up with maneuvers that cause further proximity from anything resembling the correct output.

The course material was very interesting. The pacing of the summer session worked very well, and I felt like I was learning a lot of new material every day. The homework assignments were all reasonable, and I felt like they reinforced the concepts that were discussed in the lecture. The final homework assignment was more difficult then the others, but it was very satisfying to work through the problem and finally get everything working properly.

The course was great overall. One thing I would like to be changed is how much homework is worth towards the final grade. The midterm should be weighed a little more and the homework a little less. Other than that, the class was great. It was a great opportunity as this class is not being offered next fall. Thank you very much, Professor Bloomfield. You are a great teacher.

Lecture moved so fast it didn't really feel like we were covering everything but I guess that is fine since we actually did.

Professor Bloomfield is one of the most engaged and ambitious teachers in the E-School, however the most impressive aspect of his teaching style is his ethical commitment to his students. That is, he always adhered to the syllabus in any way possible, fully disclosed grading and scheduling as well as any changes, and took responsibility whenever circumstances made it more difficult to honor his commitments. His system ensured that every student had an equal chance to succeed and helped ensure that success by being very clear about course expectations.

I now have a new road, along with the other CS paths, I'd like to discover.

The only problem I see is one I imagine plagues all summer session classes - the issue of time constraints on homework. I felt fine about the subject matter and the speed of lectures. What distressed me was the amount of time available for doing homework. I don't see much of a way to fix this, but it seems that a computing course could be presented a bit more coherently, at least in the area of downloads, software, etc. Much of my time was spent struggling with getting the development environment to cooperate, and that is not where I want to lose precious hours that could be spent coding and debugging. One assignment even reached the point of impossibility to complete, because I could not get the tool to install properly. True, I deserve some blame in this, for not planning my time as well as I could or working ahead whenever possible, but that doesn't detract from the truth in the frustration.

He was able to present the material in a way that made a really boring topic interesting.