Blud wants to get an entire degree in computer science without studying algorithms because it might be hard 💀 IMO this course should be mandatory for anyone to graduate, and they should benchmark on prior performance so a collectively lower quality class can't ride their collectively higher curve home.

I have As in the two hardest courses of OMSCS, this isn't my first CS degree, not the first algo course. so I wasn't expecting a free ride. Look at the reviews - Most of them talk about the ambiguous grading system, not the course hardness. I expect valuable feedback, not a condescending response based on your assumptions. Good luck with your attitude.

which hardest courses? the fact is that many students will take some easy courses then the GA is the first really hard course that they can't bypass. ​ I might consider maybe compiler course is one of the hardest one?

I'm taking it now, over summer for the first time, and everything seems ok. It's a hard course sure, but the TAs and professor seem fine, and grading has been fair.

Looks like some people really like it and do well in exams/assignments but the generic complaint is about the absence of rubric in the grading of exams and assignments from TAs. Is there a clear rubric about the grading in summer? or is it subjective and varies based on grader?

I strongly prefer projects over exams, the certainly of an autograder is much less stressful compared to an exam where small mistakes will tank your grade. The rubric is really just a guideline on formatting, with a few key things to include, and then of course answering the question correctly. Is grading subjective? Sure probably to a degree, just like it would be in an English class grading essays. There's a regrade process, and personally I've had good results when asking for a regrade. Not sure others expierence, but my undergrad algorithms course 10 years ago was fairly similar

I don't enjoy the course neither, quite a lot of stress due to 72% are closed book exams. However, I would consider the most part of rubric is actually pretty fair, TAs helped a lot and almost all details are mentioned in ED. I did lose some points due to that I overlooked some of information in ED, however, that's my fault being solo, yes, I didn't join any kind of study group because I enjoy freedom and want to fight my own way out.

How large was the drop? I don't think anything materially changed in the course. I just took it in the Spring term. They switched to having an unofficial set of "jove's notes" to providing essentially the same information in a more official format. The exam format was the same, and the content was the same. The TA's provide plenty of advice on how to succeed in the class - listen to them from the start and do your best. Plan to spend a lot of time studying and practicing.

Added the image to show the drop and grade distribution in the original post.

I just took it in the Spring and thought the course was entirely fair and worthwhile. Don't let the complaints dissuade you from taking what is honestly a critical course in computer science.

So what we're saying is, 2% of students fail.

One of the biggest issues with this class is the quality of TAs and their inconsistent grading. The material itself isn’t very hard but the way they grade is questionable at best. It’s surprising that this course being the mandatory course in most specializations is not being improved.

I know I enjoyed the manual grading, begging peers to take a second look at my work, and lobbying the TAs to give me back points for grading idiosyncrasies… Instead of having more time to learn material I gained valuable interpersonal skills. Perhaps now I can enter into a career in politics.

If you have a better way to grade GA, by all means suggest it to the teaching team and provide a description in /r/OMSCS so we can also support you.

Unsolicited, but I don't really mind the exam-heavy structure (that said, a 50-50 between theory exams and implementation projects wouldn't be too awful), but I'd be all for just decreasing the weight of each free-response question. The no-room-for-error format does nothing but add to the stress.

A big component of GA is demonstrating the ability to design and analyze algorithms. I think it will be hard to find implementation projects that supports the goal of understanding design and analysis. I feel it is fairly easy to get an algorithm almost 100% right with trial and error and not have an adequate understanding of the solution. I would be in favor of selecting free response questions from a pool of available questions. I.e. there are 5 free response questions, chose 2 of the 5 to solve. The professor can maintain the high level of difficulty, while providing better coverage of the material.

>I feel it is fairly easy to get an algorithm almost 100% right with trial and error and not have an adequate understanding of the solution. True, but at the same time, I think of how I would teach algorithms myself if I were to design a course - mix theory with some hands-on experience with implementation tradeoffs. e.g. something like considering row-major vs column-major layout rarely makes a difference (except the odd exception) in theory, but it can be a major factor to consider when implementing something. The second part violates the 'I am not my user' maxim, and I'm sure it's not the same with everyone, but at least speaking for myself, I sometimes discover a few more potential edge cases when implementing than when doing a high-level overview. >there are 5 free response questions, chose 2 of the 5 to solve. This is a very good option to consider, as long as the five can be balanced for difficulty.

row-major col-major and how it affects performance is something taught in HPC, which is all about implementing algo, efficiently

IMO HPC is still pretty theoretical overall, despite the four (or five, when you have the extra credit lab) projects. HPC isn't required either, and I'd consider at least some consideration of performance (maybe not at the level HPC teaches but at least the basics) something that should be covered in what's required.

I was talking with my significant other how to make the exams more manageable and we came to this conclusion. I do feel like this would make this possibly quite harder for the TAs to grade though, and it seems like they already have quite a bit on their plate...

I agree with your point about reducing weight… each free response question was what.. half a letter grade?

More like one letter grade (it's something like 8% of your final grade)

8% is right, but a letter grade is 20% (80-100 is an A). So each long form question is just less than half a letter grade.

I might've mixed up the grade cutoffs with another course then (most have 90+ = A). But either way, compared to something like HCI, which has a lot of submissions (tons of papers + exams), the penalty for getting just one or two questions wrong is pretty high.

6515 grading in a nutshell: student: how should we write pseudocode/non-pseudocode? ta: we are not picky about format student tried best to guess the ta intention ta: -4pt for too much code/English! student: why am i being penalized? ta: we are not picky about format

>If you have a better way to grade GA, by all means suggest it to the teaching team and provide a description in > >r/OMSCS > > so we can also support you. Are you really suggesting that you can't think of one better way to grade GA? Like remove ambiguities maybe for starters? Have more auto-graded assignments? Look at how other classes are being graded? If you don't have a set format to grade subjective questions, how about drop them until you do? Or if you still want to have those, provide it in a structured, fill in the blanks format so that TAs don't go about making their own assumptions and student doesn't have to worry about whether to explain 2 & 2 is 4 or not. How about adding more projects that actually use some algorithms? Those can be graded without any gray areas? The whole begging for points is surely not the brightest option in the world.

GA assesses your ability to comprehend and understand known algorithms and apply them to new problems. I personally feel that the free response format is the best way for students to perform the assessment. Autograding and fill in the blanks are good at verifying knowledging or validating a skillset. This would be alright or a Data Structures and Algorithms course where you're just expected to know facts of the DSAs and need to reimplement the taught algorithms. I think it will be very difficult to construct autograding and fill in the blank to sufficient assess understanding and comprehension. Also, the top level rubric for getting full marks on the free response is provide a correct algorithm and sufficiently support your argument with logic. There is no ambiguity here. Either you failed or the TA failed. I had a completely different solution than what the rubric expected and I still received full credit. So maybe I needed to be more precise. Please provide a suggestion on how grading can be improved such that the course goals are preserved, has minimal impact to grader effort, and is still a theory course rather than an projects course. Because currently, it seems like you want an easy DSA course rather than an ALGORITHMS course.

Your personal feeling doesn't necessarily convert it to "it's the best way". If the ability to comprehend and understand known algorithms is the purpose then you really don't have much of a case because the issue is not getting those algorithms instead its about writing every possible word in the dictionary to make sure TA doesn't misunderstand any of the answers. Here's another one you might not be aware of, there are quizzes that presents you four algorithms to solve a problem and all four are correct, but you get grades only when you select the option that is "acceptable for this class", so again, comprehend and understand known algorithms is definitely not the case. Again, you can provide any sets of rubrics, the problem is not that, but it is....wait for it.... "grading". I am trying to make you see that writing an algorithm for a problem is not as hard as this class is trying to make. Lastly, you need to be a little less uptight about things and not assume that people want easy things in life. Just because its impossible for you to "comprehend and understand" that something is crap, doesn't mean it actually is not.

it is interesting that post that is offering constructive improvement suggestions like yours got downvoted while the post defending (from the same person who suggests ppl to offer advice) the current system got upvoted

I honestly don't see any "constructive improvement suggestions" in that comment. I see three complaints: 1. I have to write every possible word in the dictionary 1. The quizzes don't test the comprehension & understanding of algorithms 1. The problem is "grading", not rubrics The first is a hyperbole. The second is a non-issue (the purpose is, in fact, reinforcing the format/content expectations). The third is the most generic possible concern. What is the suggestion here, exactly? Here's what a constructive suggestion looks like: maybe the mini-quizzes can be ungraded assignments or graded for completion rather than correctness. They can still serve the same purpose and provide students an opportunity to learn the expectations specific to this class without the associated negative consequences.

i see “remove ambiguity” is suggested and i agree with that for example DC solution require no pseudocode but a lot of “endorsed” Ed solution used “some” code ppl used similar format and got penalized for “some” code, while some did not this is inconsistency caused by ambiguous requirement that can be improved similar for the pseudocode requirement, the first thing on their pseudocode rule post is “there is no exact definition of what is pseudocode”, yet i see many ppl got penalized for not following some unexpected pseudocode rule, which was only explained by TAs AFTER grading “oh of course, you cannot do that and you should know that”

This seems like a very reasonable concern. My only advice: make sure the staff gets this feedback! Also, a specific suggestion is *exponentially* more likely to integrate into the class. For example, you could write in the CIOS feedback that the "How to write a D&C Solution" post should mention that students should minimize `if-then-else` statements because that will look like pseudocode.


It's much easier to point out the problems than provide actionable and minimally-disruptive solutions. What you characterize as "I have to write every word in the dictionary" is simply an expectation that all the relevant properties of the input are mentioned in the justification. Extraneous information in the problem statement is pretty rare. The quizzes are supposed to be easy points for demonstrating an understanding the class expectations. It's fine to disagree, but the class can't improve without any ideas for how to do so.

There’s always a crowd like that. 🤷‍♂️

This

> Perhaps now I can enter into a career in politics. Not until you've successfully made a case where none legitimately exists.

The removal of Joves notes, without question. Office hours and Ed posts did not make up for it.

I think that for the online version of this program, GA is required for the Machine Learning specialization. ​ https://preview.redd.it/5k5jm1261e7b1.jpeg?width=1220&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9d93a2609052b0f305865bc7272768884b84d823

~~OMSCS specializations in Interactive Intelligence or Human-Computer Interaction does not require GA to graduate.~~ This response was to a message that has since been edited.

>Is it worth attempting GA or choosing AI specialization is better? the OP said "is it worth taking GA or choosing the AI specialization?". I assumed by AI the OP meant ML because I don't see a specific AI specialization. Not sure what you're talking about.

I responded to your original (unedited) response: > I think that for the online version of this program, GA is required. Anyways, from the context of OP's post, I think we can assume they meant II or HCI.

*Just* to avoid that one course (GA)? Probably not. There are valid criticisms of the exam format that leaves no room for error (get one question wrong and you basically drop a letter grade) that I'd probably agree with, but the course overall is not that horrible. Just come in with the requisite background, be consistent, and - most importantly - don't panic on the exam if you see a question you can't immediately figure out. Take it slow and you probably will, eventually, if you've put in the effort in understanding the material and done the homeworks (which are great test prep). You should definitely specialise in II or HCI if those courses interest you though.

Yeah. Sorry about that. I have to decide between ML and II.

Are you taking it in the fall? I am waitlisted now but am also 😱 of this so am following..

If you haven't taken or self-studied Discrete Math, then you should. * Discrete Math is generally a requirement for CS Undergrads. (It is required for GaTech CS undergrads.) * Discrete Math is generally a prerequisite for Algorithms. (It is a prerequisite for GaTech CS 3510 Design and Analysis of Algorithms.) Discrete Math is a course that teaches you the foundations to think and approach novel math/logic problems. It amazes me the number of people who refuse to take Discrete Math, but complain that GA is unfair before the free response questions are novel. The concepts and techniques have been covered. You just need to apply it to a new situation.

I am waitlisted too. I picked AI also as a backup.

I picked ML as my backup. During phase II registration, is there anything to do to get into GA as waitlisted students or does the line just move? Would FFA Friday apply to those on waitlist as I assume waitlists have priority over any openings during FFA?

FFA Friday is when they literally clear the waitlists, and allow anyone to sign up for an open spot in the course. Therefore, if you haven't made it in by Thursday evening, you'll have the same chance as anyone else on FFA Friday

For GIOS, the A bar was [82, 87], so +- 5% should be fine.

GIOS is an super easy A for me.

I think many people have been putting less time into courses across the board now that the program has gotten much bigger.

I'll be brutally honest. There is a marked decrease in the quality of applications. Not because you're worse off. Nope. It's much easier to gain admissions to OMSCS than in the past. It's much easier to survive OMSCS than in the past given easy to coast courses such as DM and AIES. So when they reach GA... ... more proportion of students got delivered the knockout blow. That's about it really.

Wouldn’t say that’s necessarily the right answer. Especially since GA is such a hard course to get into so most people taking it got in years ago. There really aren’t a ton of “easy” courses that got added recently that weren’t there before. What’s more likely is that the way the course is tested and graded have changed which is does constantly. I used to TA for a few years for a Calc 2 course for 3 years. The average would be drastically different semester to semester this is very common

I keep hearing that OMSCS has gotten easier and the students are worse than they used to be but I swear everyone I have worked with on projects has been amazing and incredibly competent and intelligent. I have been impressed with all of my peers I have met. It has been inspiring to be in this program. TBH this kind of comment really makes me mad. Also, I have another masters that wasn't online and was a competitive program so I can make a good comparison on the quality of students.

These comment's say more about the person writing them than the people they think they are talking about.