Above all, it is important to know Bruce Char has retired and no longer teaches this course. I will do my best to differentiate the course material from his teaching structure. COURSE MATERIAL: The course material is really fun. This course is very math heavy. But learning and applying all the crypto algorithms was really enjoyable. Modular arithmetic was really fun to properly learn. We used Maple to apply the concepts which was a quirky set up. I don't know if I like or hate Maple. I don't know if future professors will continue using it. I was pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed the cryptography aspect of this course. CHAR SPECIFICS: I took this course with Char in one of his last terms as a professor. The course was a living hell. At least 5 assignments a week. I got sick f...read more

If you have the time, have fun with the material. When you're taking notes, plug the math into the computer and try out different numbers and see what happens. Take time to read and understand the math involved. If you're confused, the TAs I had were incredibly helpful and cleared up all my misunderstandings.