Algorithms is a very hard course in general, but taking it with Jackie will make sure that you actually come away with knowledge that's useful and a proper understanding of the material that can be applied through your career and other courses. It's a fundamental topic for computer science and his way of teaching absolutely makes it so that you actually can retain the information and apply it properly.

The material itself is super useful, but the tests (2 programming and 1 written midterm + final exam) were very difficult. Class average was extremely low (around an F by regular standards for the programming tests, and around an E for the written test) but that hopefully means we'll be curved? The assignments are super good practice for the tests though, and he gives a good amount of time to work on them. They're also only graded for completion so even if you just submit code that compiles but doesn't do anything you'll still get the marks.

10000x more useful than taking it with other professors *cough* Jeff Edmonds. No fairy god mothers or insane "get rid of racism" allegories here. Just proper mathematics and actually writing code. The course is definitely hard and the class average is horrible, but if you attend the class, actually use all the huge selection of resources that he gives us, pay attention, ask questions, and practice on your own, you will come away having learned a lot.

I wish I'd taken it with Jackie in the first place instead of failing the class and learning nothing with other profs.

Lectures are highly conceptual but the exams and projects are application heavy. The coding questions on the weekly examlets are worth about 30% but practice problems are not provided. Would have had better results grinding leetcode and learning the topics on my own.

Fundamental algorithms and data structures, content is useful but poorly delivered

Lectures are dry and have minimal engagement, but are recorded

Get good at doing linked list and binary tree problems on leetcode using C++