Admittedly, her lectures are good. The grading system in SP21 is different from usual; It adopted the ESNU system for the first time(E-excellent, S-satisfactory, N-not yet, U-unread). There are 8 projects, and students were required to get 6 Es in each dimention, or they would be likely to receive a grade below 3.5. You need to be perfect in one dimention to receive an E, if there is even one minor mistake, you will receive a lower S grade. The worst part is, both making 1 and 5 mistakes result in an S, so even I corrected most errors and made a resubmission, many times my grades did not change and still be S. Finally, the instructor intentionally divide everyone's grades apart, although there is not so much difference in students' ability.

If CSE 142 is not a required course for you, do not take it. If you just want to gain some fundamental programming knowledge, java is not the best programming language--C and C++ are better options, and you may find some online resources about them. If you decide to take 142, be prepared to receive a much lower grade than expected.

The material is very interesting and useful, and the lectures are designed for people like me who had never written a line of code before taking the class. However, the curve in this class is kind of harsh, and the grading is very nitpicky. I think it's unfortunate that an introductory course punishes GPA of people who just want to see what programming is like.

Do your homework early so you have time to sit and stare at your code until you hopefully find something you can correct. Use practice-it before exams when that becomes a thing again. If you just want an introduction to programming and have no plans of pursuing a CS-related major, maybe consider CSE 160 instead.

Reges was pretty good. His lecture examples are VERY similar to the homework so finishing the homework is not hard. The hard part is fixing up your style.

Grading curve is borderline ridiculous but that's kinda to be expected from a weed out class.

interesting and fun class good professor good class to take with no programming background.

Remotely, this class was really good. No tests and much less busy work than I expected. The grading scale and curve are honestly so messed and Professor Reges does dock off points for various silly things in HW assignments, which aren't really in the students' control, but I guess that's the case for all weedout classes here.

Rewatch lectures and ask questions. Revise your code as much as you can. Make sure to clean up your code to get those style points.

Professor Reges does an excellent job making sure you understand the material and the structure to his class is very organized.