2.2
Quality4.4
Difficulty29%
Would Retake169
Reviews29%
Would Retake
169
Reviews
Rating DistributionOfficial
5
29
4
16
3
10
2
14
1
100
What Students Say
“The fact that this prof deletes several ratings from students, plus even the gifted A students dislikes this prof shows everything you need to know about him”
CMPT295 - 1.0 rating“I cannot stress on how horrible this class is”
CMPT295 - 1.0 ratingClass Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
25%
Textbook Required
14%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
B
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Declining
-0.50 avg changeRatings by Course
885CMPT
4.0
(1)CMPT431
4.0
(2)CMPT300
2.3
(12)CMPT295
2.1
(154)Difficulty by Course
CMPT295
4.5
CMPT431
4.0
CMPT300
3.5
885CMPT
1.0
Reviews (169)
He is very knowledgeable in his topic, and very accessible for additional help. Will genuinely happy to help when you work on your project. However, his lectures are not very exciting, there is little use to attend them at all.
You will start off being intimidated when doing his course. His version of 300 is different and the assignments are difficult but you learn a lot! Thanks arrvindh for fun/rough semester. It was worth it in the end, though at the beginning it seemed it wouldn't be.
Should not be teaching a 300 level intro class. I am sure he is intelligent, and "mad genius" is something I appreciate in professors, but Arrvindh had no idea HOW to do the assignments he himself posted. TA had to pick up way too much slack. Inconsistent and conflicting information. Would avoid at all costs. Nightmare term.
This course is very interesting, assignments are not easy but doable and you'll get a lot out of them. Arrvindh is very smart, flexible with deadlines and grading but he's not willing to explain everything.
this course is very interesting. assignments are not easy but doable and you'll get a lot of them. arrvindh is very smart, flexible with deadlines and grading but he's not willing to explain everything.
Take Steven Pearce! Arrvindh's assignments are worth 70-75% of your final grade. Sounds good? NOOO! His assignments are not supposed to be for 300 level courses!! They are too hard. Try him if you do trust me. Heavy Coding for both assignment and midterm. He is knowledgeable, but doesn't know what students needs and he is not helpful at all!!
take 300 with him if you really want to learn how to code a real OS. his assignments are really hard, but you actually learnt sth. In addition, he record and put all the lecture video on youtube.
literally the best grading scheme i've ever had. like really 80% assignments, 10% midterm and 10% final. no need to come to class as lectures are useless (he posted notes online and he has youtube videos of him going over the notes that you can watch).
Bad lecturer. The slides for the course are good and lots. However, in lectures, he jumps from slide to slide. He would be on pg 30/90 of one slide and on 60/108 of another next second. Also very lazy and hard to approach.
Most assignments are copy&pasted and he doesn't bother to explain or fix small errors. Lecture notes are not helpful: averaging 80 pgs per slide and explain minimal points(and they are c&p too). Gives ridiculous exams.
If you want to have a tough term just choose him as your 300 teacher then you will find it so hard to understand what he is trying to explain. Lecture notes are over hundreds every week and lack of organizations.
The most disorganized prof I've ever seen. He doesn't even have his own presentation slides; he copies from other people. He posts multiple versions of the same lecture and expects us to know the right one to study with. Sometimes, it's hard to understand what he's saying during the lecture; he talks fast and doesn't articulate his words.
take 300 with him its a good gpa booster since most of the grade is based on assignments. exams are super hard but he scales at the end so its all good. ok lecturer but he has online videos that are clear and informative
CMPT 300 is an important class and I think Arrvindh Shriraman explained a lot of concepts very well especially for multi-threaded computing. He has too many notes and exams are RNG but most of the grading is in homework which are generally pretty interesting and graded fairly.
In the first class he recommended us to dedicate 20 hours per week in order to succeed in his class. Notes are messy, he doesn't follow a consistent set of slides, rather he jumps from one slide to another (most of which taken from other profs/schools) The saving grace is that he has videos on youtube covering most of the material.
Only 1 test and 1 midterm, 7 assignments makes up 70% of the grade. In 10 years of programming, I've never seen something made so complicated, and difficult. Fails to explain assignments well. gives marginal feedback, rude when you do ask for help. one of the worst classes I've taken at SFU. Start your assignments early or else....
This class in and of itself is really difficult, luckily Arvindh leans most of the grading on Assignments. The assignments are very long, and extensively tested, but they really help you understand the content. A lot of the time you are left to you devices to learn which can be challenging but if you stick it out with assignments its very rewarding
Assignments were long but they were auto-graded so you knew what you would get ahead of time. Lecture quality was average, but sufficiently explained concepts. Tests were extremely tough but only accounted for a small fraction of the overall grade.
Arrvindh is solid choice for 295. He explains the concepts well enough to understand and best part was that assignments were 70% of the grade and were auto-graded so you can always test what mark you're gonna get on it. Another 10% are essentially a participation mark so having the midterm and final only worth 10% made em stress free.
It such a nightmare taking this course!!! The course material is challenging. The course's unorganized + unclear Labs/ Assignments instruction even made it worse. instructions are poorly organized and they are all over the place (at least 3 platforms). lack of Labs/ Assignments explanation!
Literally one of the worst lecturers ever.
Very hardcore programming prof, teaches you lots of things.
This dude has the most unorganized class ever. He uses his own website for the course materials online, and it is impossible to find due dates for half of the things.
Arrvindh is a really talented professor and really knows his stuff. High amount of workload, as 4-7 additional recorded lectures are posted for us to watch every week. Assignments are also challenging but do help you learn the concepts. Arrvindh is also really helpful during office hours. Exam's are very difficult, so be prepared to study a lot.
I cannot stress on how horrible this class is. Unorganzied af and class average for midterm was 20%, like how?!?!??! avoid at all cost.
Arrvindh is not the right proff for this course. He is very arrogant and rude when you ask for help. When you ask for help the TA's send you stack overflow links and tell you to figure it out from there. Midterm was hard such that average was 20%. What's the purpose of setting a hard midterm that 3/4 of the class fails it.
Avoid taking this course with Arrvindh Shriraman
The midterm average was 20%. His assignments are all copied from other sources such as Cornell, UoC, and others. None of the assignments are actually made by him. The program worked perfectly fine on my side, but they graded it wrong. When I asked the TA, they send me a link to a discussion on piazza without providing an answer to me. Doesnt care.
If there are any other sections with any other profs, stay on the waitlist, DO NOT TAKE IT WITH HIM. Extremely boring professor, puts minimum amount of work into helping his students. His replies on email of piazza are short and sometimes condescending, he doesn't really care. Average on the midterm was 20%. He had to scale them up. AVOID HIM
Awful lecturer, did not explain much at all and his voice sounded full of dread the entire time. Midterm was way too difficult for the time we had. Take this class with someone else if you can.
Ask him questions on piazza and wait for incomplete answers. only rely on other students help no point in asking him questions. Uses boring lecture slides that aren't even his to begin with, same goes for the assignments. AVOID AT ALL COSTS.
I thought the prof was ok, until I realized that he copied all his notes from lectures from the university of Berkely and university of Washington. Also he started going way too fast and only really smart people understand what the heck was going on.
HORRIBLE. Now this is not coming from a student with a low gpa, before this course my gpa was hovering around 3.9-4.2 and had been crushing a lot of well known hard cmpt and math courses so uk this is not coming from someone whose just salty. Arrvin cannot teach to save his own life, 90% of the time no one knows what he's talking about.
He doesn't make his own slides and doesn't know what he's talking about. Sometimes his own answers contradict each other, thats mainly due to him not knowing what he's teaching. Do not take this course.
This was the easiest class i've taken by far. You don't even need to show up to lectures and you probably already know all the concepts taught in this class. All the assignments you can do in <30 mins and the exams are very fair. I don't know why people complain about him, he's a great prof that knows his stuff.
Hard class, extremely hard with this prof. Avoid at all costs.
This class made me feel physically ill every single day. He assigns homework 2 weeks in advance but the assignments are insanely long. There are 3 hours of video lecture + a 2 hour synchronous lecture every single week. He makes errors on exam then expects you to go back and fix his mistakes while heavily penalizing you for yours. The worst prof.
I've had some pretty bad professors in my lifetime, but arrvindh is by far the worst professor I've ever had. All the stories you've heard - multiply that by 100000000. He will make your life a living hell. Oh and if you don't like the sound of crackling paper and chewing, good luck - he will eat through the zoom call as you are writing your final.
Learned quite a bit from this class but the exams are very difficult. Midterm had a failing average and had to be scaled up. Final exam was also brutal and had many errors which were getting fixed during the exam. Assignments take a lot of time to complete but help you learn.
Just run away. Don't even think of taking this class with this guy. It's really questionable that how SFU hires its teachers. There are going to be so many profs like him.
Something to note that the CMPT295 ratings on here from late 2020 were from a time when their midterm/final was worth 7%/10%. The summer 2021 semester grading scheme for midterm/final was 15%/30%. The 2020 class had failing averages for their exams. The current exams were just as difficult, yet were worth far more. Avoid if exams are still 15%/30%.
just no
If you like rollercoasters, you will be in for the roughest and most confusing ride of your life with him. Like what others have said: tough, unorganized, confusing, and contradicting to his own words.
His logic is just messy. After his lecture, I thought I might have problems. I am happy to check RMP and find it's not my problem. dropped. just don't wanna meet him again.
This prof is smart and know lots of stuff, but he is not organized and gives very long assignments and many videos to watch. The course itself is hard but this prof makes it much harder with all the workload. Had to drop a course for the first time and glad I did it.
Horrible. Take classes from this professor only if you want anxiety and a lower gpa.
I took this course last term but I just wanted to leave this review for others to not fall victim of this horrible prof. all of his work is copy pasted from other universities. Just copy paste the description and you'll see he just copy pasted everything. He can't explain anything to save his life. Ate food LOUDLY during a 3 hours long final exam.
It's my pleasure to attend the course taught by professor Arrvindh Shriraman. I've learnt a lot about computer system technology from him. In addition, this course (CMPT 295) is very easy to pass and you don't need to pay a lot of attention but you still can learn a lot. The topics of the assignments Mr. Shriraman has chosen are reasonable.
I was scared after sooo many people said he's bad. After taking his course, the only thing that I wanna say is that the people who hated it are their fault. The course is sooooo easy and you don't even need to go to the lecture. There are a lot of assignments but it's god dam easy, just read the description and ur all set!! What a GEM in SFU!!!!
Easily the worst prof I've ever had the displeasure of being taught by. Wastes your time with 4+ hours of lecture each weekend. Super condescending & unhelpful when asked questions. Incredibly disorganized & contradicting instructions. Unenthusiastic lecturer. Taking this class took a serious toll on my mental health. Avoid him like the plague.
really nice prof, please choose them
!!!!!! NICER PROFESSOR
Very large courseload, time consuming assignments and between 5-8 hours of content a week is a struggle to keep up with. Testable material is unnecessarily difficult and averages below 50%. Although he's a solid lecturer, and is willing to give help, his style complicates an already hard course and makes for a negative and stressful experience.
Not recommended at all!!
While he is passionate about "his" material, that is all he cares about. I say "his" because some slides still have University of Washington logo on them. Also the assignments and some notes are from Berkley (I prefer the Berkley ones over his). He does not care about the students. All he wants to do is talk about the material and nothing else.
I just hope I dont go through the same experiences in life that this prof had to go through to teach this course like this.
The midterm mean is 18 out of 60 in a class of over one hundred people. It speaks for itself.
This professor makes an already tough course even tougher. Hard and long assignments with poorly worded instructions. Midterm riddled with typos with a 30% average. 5 hours worth of video lectures for 3 hours of class time in a week.
Worst Professor Ever, makes very difficult exams with class average as low as 30%. Better to wait for a semester and take the course with some other prof.
This profs rating is based more on difficulty rather than his teaching. Lectures are good but there are often times when it is difficult to understand what he is writing. Heavy workload with weekly quizzes, 6 assignments & lecture videos + inperson lectures. mt avg was ~50% after scaling. My main criticism is that questions are often written poorly
So easy guys. This guy can be your best prof in SFU
He is a really tough grader and expects a lot from students. His assignments are pretty long, with exams being really tough as well. His teaching style is not good, Had I taken this course with Anne, it would have been better and would have learned a lot more from this course. Really miss the teaching style of Anne Lavergne.
5 mod 2 = 2
Only the the most dire of circumstances should you ever take this class with this guy
Absolute worst teacher at SFU. This man does not deserve to teach a class at all. His Quiz questions and Exam questions are worded in a manner that is barely understandable. Laziest teacher I have ever had, typos all over his work and grading causing students to lose marks with correct answers. 5 % 2 = 2
Never been so stressed about a class in my life. Arrvindh does not care about his students' well-being at all and just gives ungodly amounts of class videos to watch and assignments to complete.
Honestly the worst professor I have ever had the pleasure to take. The actual content of CMPT 295 isn't anything insane and actually not that hard to understand. However, this neanderthal managed to overcomplicate everything. He steals assignments from UCB and just degrades the to the point of them being trash.
5 % 2 = 2
Assignments and Lecture slides are reworded slides from other universities (mostly UC Berkley). Typos are everywhere, which makes navigating through his course very challenging. While the materials aren't that hard, having this instructor will make you question if you even learned the right thing. Overall, would not recommend 5 % 2 = 2
Take this prof if you want to suffer for no reason. I was alive before taking this course and now, I don't even recognize myself in the mirror anymore. We are living in Arrvindh's world because 5 % 2 = 2
The course material itself isn't horribly difficult, but its difficulty is compounded when navigating through typos in the lecture notes, the practice exams, and even the quizzes which result in you losing marks for correct answers. Midterm about 40% average. Spent a ton of time on this course and probably wont get a grade higher than B/B- . Avoid!
Arrvindh learned to teach from a dumpster outside his house. He gives conflicting and vague instructions on assignments, has messy writing, and wants incredibly specific and arbitrary answers on quizzes and tests. His teaching team never proofreads any material, and he steals all his lectures from Berkeley without credit.
I can actually make an essay of how bad he is, but I'll keep it point form: Some things take 15+ minutes to explain can be easily explained Half the videos are considered filler as we aren't tested on them All or nothing tests A lot of his slides are stolen with no credit to the universies Condescending (Has a "I'm Right" mentality) Errors galore
295 by itself is a hard course. Luckily I am proficient in most of the material already so it was mostly a cake walk. DO NOT TAKE 295 WITH ARRVINDH if you can help it. If not, focus studying on quizzes and past exams. Midterm and Finals are essentially extended quizzes. The material is rough without a proper guide so good luck soldier.
The fact that this prof deletes several ratings from students, plus even the gifted A students dislikes this prof shows everything you need to know about him.
Run for your life. If his assignments don't beat you to the ground, his constant errors in his canvas quizzes and tests will. His lack of care and tone with anyone he comes across is mind-blowing.
He requires you to watch 3-4 hours worth of lecture material outside of class each week, plus 1-3 more hours of in-person lectures; add the weekly labs, quizzes, and bi-weekly assignments (which will beat you into the ground) and you have what is essentially 2 courses worth of workload in 1. This class has killed my love for computer science.
Arrvindh is one of my personal 2 worst professors at SFU. His neglect for his course materials are rivaled only by that fact that many of them are blatantly stolen without credit from other institutions. Yet, he has not updated many of them since 2018. 295 is a famously hard class, and his constant stream of work and lack of support further it
He is completely disorganized. It's better to take CMPT 295 with another instructor who is more organized and experienced. His in-class grading outline is completely different from his course website. Still unsure which grading criteria got applied at the end of the semester as he didn't have the time to answer student questions.
Haven't finished yet, but this guy is already horrible. Broken assignments terrible lecture. Makes no sense. Labs are useless, TA's don't even know what the prof wants them to do. Also makes assignments do at 9PM cringe, Failure.
Worst professor ever. Doesn't give any support to the students. Judge you hard
Idk why sfu still keep him.
Do yourself a favour and don't take this guy
Awful.
when you read rate my prof and it tells you not to take the class with him, don't. absolute shitshow if you try to learn from him. If you take this class with him, you will go for the first 2 weeks, then just start learning on your own. this guys course is taken straight off berkley's riscv course. complete bs, feels like a scam having to pay.
Not sure how to describe this one but he's absolutely the worst one ever. Doesn't really care about his students and all of his lectures you can find from berkley. Also, has no sympathy towards students and do whatever he wants. I don't know why sfu still hire him as a professor.
why did I do this to myself
Bro does not know how to teach, explain answers, or respond to questions. One unmarketable tomato energy.
This guy doesn't know what's going on either, he copies materials from UC Berkeley and prob doesn't understand anything from them. His exams solutions are almost always wrong (I know this guy doesn't know what's going on in class). Just don't take this guy because this guy doesn't know what he's teaching, how can you expect him to teach you?
expecting student to not cheat, but his own slides were copied and pasted from other universities without credit, no replies for private messages on piazza, told us to report errors on quizzes and midterm through online form, but gives no response. don't know how to teach, tons of homework and videos with garbage speech. good job
His website and assignments are an absolute mess. Verbose would be putting it lightly; walls upon walls of text that don't need to be there. Does not know how to present instructions concisely. You'll find contradictions & confusion within the assignments, broken autograders... have fun browsing Piazza for things he should've fixed ages ago...
Don't. Just Don't. Sometimes you may find that you can do good in his class before enrolling. This of course can happen, but provides no guarantees. In particular, many students will feel this course extremely difficult. This directly means he will flood you with homework with errors and typos. So I repeat 1 more time for emphasis, don't.
One sentence. If you do not absolutely NEED to take CMPT 295 in the semester you are enrolling for, then just save your ass and wait for another proff. It is not worth the 7-8 weekly videos you will be watching that are soo slow and boring that you will want to drop out every 5 minutes. Save yourself and reconsider. Good luck :)
Just don't take him, he does not know what he's talking about, just copied every material from "CS61C" from UC Berkeley
The class is a lot of work. Every class lecture has 2-3hrs of video lectures to watch which makes going to class optional. It's just a lot of consistent work which can get exhausting. I actually liked the video lectures. They're long but I feel he went over the same concept a couple of times so it helped with my understanding.
Very funny class.
Avoid him if possible. He's not good at explaining concepts and his lecture slides are badly organized. Be expected to spend tons of time on assignments, and the midterm was tough.
Does not speak English, the language of Canada.
Plzzz don't take it with him if you have other options. The course is doable if you spend enough time but, it isn't worth it. The lectures are a mess and you don't have questions to practise except the quizzes which are too easy and not representative of the exam. Past Exams are Important, do each and every question before the actual axam.
Not the best cs prof out there, but not the worst, its a hard class and he honestly doesn't teach, but just gives some mid website he made with mid lecture recordings. Take it if you need to, but would not recommend.
horrible assignments, be prepared to start the day it is released
i wish i dropped this class
Be prepared to always be somewhat unsure of what you're being asked to do. Assignment and labs are convoluted walls of text. Arrvindh manages to talk a lot but say very little. Regret taking this course. Berkeley teaches same course but better, the videos are online. Just stay home and watch those. Don't take this course with Arrvindh.
I wish I dropped out when I had the chance, SAVE YOURSELF
I wish I dropped this course. ~3 hours of online lectures per week (longer if you take full notes), 3 hours of in person lectures per week, unclear and confusing assignments that will take you way to long and pretty much useless labs. This course is pretty miserable, don't expect to both do well and have much of a life outside of this class.
please don't take this class, the workload is easily worth 2 difficult classes, he's ok at teaching but there is so much stuff that honestly if more organized could be way less and easier for students to learn. The answer keys are just wrong sometimes. Just don't take this class, you will regret it,100 percent. Question wording also sucks.
His lectures are good and understandable, but his assignments are disproportionate (4% assignment that will take you 15+ hours) and the exams are auto matked because they're on Canvas done in CSIL, so no part-marks. The exam questions are not reasonable like the quiz questions are.
Do not take this class with Arrvindh, take it with either Anne or Greg in either spring or summer term. He is alright at teaching but his grade scheme is terrible, his assignment instructions are very unclear and have you working for 18+ straight hours for a little percent of your grade and he requires to read/watch way too much lecture material.
Arrvindh isn't a bad teacher, but the course work is way too hard. Expect to spend 10+ hours on each assignment, all while deciphering his instructions. The lecture videos are helpful but very long, I recommend you watch them. The exams are the worst part of this class. They're autograded on Canvas meaning no partial marks, and are very hard.
Arrvindh is a good professor that's unfairly hated. While his exams are difficult, they are nearly identical to the practice exams and you can do well if you understand them. His lectures are great, and you will learn a lot in this class even if you don't do well. While the assignments can be confusing, he lets you test to ensure you get 100%.
Arrvindh is overhated imo. It is a difficult class, if you can attend lectures, and actually do assignment the class is not that bad. He clearly understands what he is teaching and encourages people to ask questions. My only issue with the class is the fact his assignment pages are extremely confusing but if you can understand them, its an easy 100
Very quick to respond to questions, as long as you attend lectures the class isn't that bad. Arrvindh is definitely overhated. His assignments are all pretty fun to do and his final was extremely fair, nothing unexpected showed up.
Way better than what the ratings say. Midterm was pretty cooked but other than that it's a well structured course. Lectures are actually useful and has videos online in case you miss. Also the autograder for assignments is very nice so you know exactly what grade you'll get.
While his exams may be hard, he does not try to trick you or put unfair questions on them, everything is based on his practice material. Arrvindh is way better than his rating suggests, and it's mostly skewed by people who dropped after the midterm. You are guaranteed to get 100% on his assignments if you do them, and the lectures are amazing.
Arrvindh's rating is way too low. If you attend lectures, watch the videos, and complete the assignments, you will do well.
A lot of us failed the midterm, and Arrvindh was kind enough to give us a retake. On top of that, his assignments are all auto-graded, so you can check your grade before you even submit. A lot of people dropped without attempting the retake, which is why his rating is so low. He's a great professor, and you'll learn a lot from this class.
The exams are extremely difficult but if you go to the lectures and put in the effort on the assignments he will reward you! Expect taking 2-3 hours longer on each assignment than you think you'll need. Don't listen to the hate. He's actually a pretty good teacher. His assignments and exam solutions often contain misleading info/directions though
Arrvindh wanted us to do good and despite giving a bad midterm he allowed a retake, and even allowed late assignment submissions. The final was also similar to practice exams and not a surprise. I'd say this class is quite difficult and requires a lot of dedication of time with the lecture videos and assignments, but overall he was a good prof.
His in-person lectures really aren't that bad. He pauses often so students can ask questions and comprehend what was just said and is very nice about reiterating concepts. Final exam is very similar to the practice finals he provides. The worst part of the class are the GPT-ahh assignments which are riddled with typos and confusing directions.
The assignments have very clear guidelines, its very easy to get 100 on them. We are given at least 2 weeks to do each assignment, and the midterm, although it had a failing average, he allowed for a retake for those who failed. He has recorded videos that go more in depth into each topic, if you put in the time you can pass
Arrvindh's lectures both in person and online were very helpful. The material is tough, you have to put in the work.The assignment instructions however were not always clear and took time to figure out (sometimes contained errors), but still learned a lot from them. He deserves more than the rating he has.
Either Arrvindh has improved drastically since he has started teaching, or he is just plainly overhated. If you spend time accordingly and treat the course as a 4-credit course, you'll do well. Assignments are autograded so it's insanely easy to get a 100%, however, they take very long to do (10+ hours). Do the practice exams, and you will do fine.
The assignment instructions on his website are confusing at times, so checking Piazza every day is required. Study through the past papers provided and the exam will be trivial.
As long as you put in the work this class isn't too bad. Make sure to study and attend lectures
Arrvindh is way better than the ratings show. Attend lectures and watch his videos and you will do fine. It's a lot of work, but it's worth it.
High workload but you'll learn a lot. Midterm was difficult but gave a makeup midterm, final was way better but not easy. Assignments take too much time(15-30 hours), instructions not really clear but u can know ur grade submitting, and apply what you learned. He doesn't read off the slides like most other profs., and is always there to help.
All his lectures are pre-recorded online which were very helpful. He is very knowledgeable, judging by the previous reviews I can only guess he has improved significantly. However his homeworks are sometimes hard to follow because he dumps so much information. His exams are difficult but very similar to practice exams from previous years.
Extremely good lecturer, has very engaging lectures and is super passionate and knowledgable and helpful when approaching for questions after class. If you genuinely put in effort and go for lectures, this is not a hard course at all. Exams are quite fair too, just the assignments could use some work, not the best instructions and often typos
Nothing I can say that hasn't already said, other than I can confirm it is true. Arrvindh is simply a bad professor, probably because he prefers research over teaching. His lectures are boring and he gives hours of additional lecture material each week as well as time-consuming assignments. Tests are ridiculous, class averages
I learned a lot, Arrvindh is the GOAT.
great at teaching
Great at teaching and very passionate. Assignments are long and quite time consuming so be ready to put in the work.
This was a very tough course, but I learned a lot! Arrvindh is a great professor.
A+ prof for an F+ student, I would highly recommend taking arrvindh. Don't even worry about the exams.
Great teacher, gives a ton of resources to understand the course. Provides students with extra study session assignments are geared to understanding the course. But this is a very heavy course so be ready to read.
He's overhated. People who hate him just haven't taken Janice. He's teaching a tough course really decently, explaining everything, going over examples. One problem I think is how the exams are in the csil machines which just makes it weird and like so hard to stare at a screen for 80 mins. It's just a tough subject to begin with tho.
Arrvindh overall is not a bad professor by any means. While his voice is monotone, the lectures provide a lot of information, and he knows what he is talking about which is better than some (Janice..). Assignments are very heavy and tests were quite hard, but I dont believe that is entirely to be put on Arrvindh. Overall, a fair class.
Arrvindh is decent at teaching the subjects, but the amount of mistakes in practice material and examples, as well as horribly written/misleading test questions was kind of a joke.
Exceptional teaching! Prof Shriraman knows his stuff inside out. He always addresses to his students' questions with precision. The course is inherently challenging, but his practice questions are a lifesaver. He offered extra zoom hours for final exam prep (very helpful), few profs go this far. He genuinely cares about his students' success!
Arrvindh is nice, knowledgeable and passionate at teaching. We need more teacher like this
Honestly I wouldn't recommend anyone taking a course with him. The reason being the assignments are terribly worded which makes them really time consuming and whereas he is good as a prof, the course lacks structure and you could be left hanging on topics.
Best CMPT prof in SFU. Takes time to answer every question in lecture, super available online (would reply to piazza posts at midnight). Gave out make up exam for ones failed midterm. Made quite a few mistakes in exam answers and assignment grading scripts but he will always fix them real quick if you ask.
IDK why people are making bad jokes about him but he was really really good last sem. Loved his lectures and the effort he put into them.
No matter what you heard about him he is good, now he has doable exams and lectures are very clear.
Get ready to spend a lot of your time trying to understand what instructions mean, and what steps you have to talk in order to complete assignments. Lectures are hard to understand, prereqs are not always taught by cmpt 120,125,130, (prof dependent). VERY time consuming assignments. His website and slides don't explain anything well ask ai for help
If you can take Greg, you'll have a much easier time.
You have to study yourself, practice material sucked for midterm prep. Assignments and labs don't help much for exams. Average for midterm 1 was: 40% even on just wk1-2 content. Extremely hard to understand his lectures. His layout & plan for the course is just bad overall. Mistakes on practice questions and instructions unclear 70% of the time.
run for your life. many people dropped after first midterm because he has a strict 33% exam 1 policy. i do not reccomend taking this class with this prof.
run for your life
midterm so bad I immediately went to a bar and got blackout drunk. do not take this mfr unless you literally have no other choice.
Worst professor
You think your life is bad? Try being with Arrvindh CMPT 295. His midterm was like dropping into D-Day, absolute catastrophe as we realized there was nothing we could do. I had to drop out cause of it, PLEASE DROP.
Uses terribly scrambled website he insists on but its impossible to navigate as everything is thrown everywhere. Hours of lecture vids you are expected to watch b4 class but vids are dull, have mistakes and need to be refreshed but I dont think he is interested in improvement whole course is ripped from UCBerk but has a fraction of the same quality
Don't take ut with him if you don't want a semester full of torture
Makes your life a nightmare, simply doesn't care for this students
Really should not be teaching such an important course
you need to score above a certain percentage on each midterm to pass the course. Even if you do well on other midterms or quizzes, getting below that cutoff on any one of them will result in a D or lower
If you didn't do very well in the pre reqs, absolutely avoid Arrvindh at all cost. He has unfair grading policies and makes his exams impossibly hard. I walked into this class with a B average in my prereqs but I've failed the course already since I wasn't able to meet his grading policy.
There is a reason why his class has low enrollment and tons of open seats. idk how hes getting away with this
An *extreme* focus on one specific kind of one specific kind of computer that doesn't actually exist in any meaningful capacity, while being incredibly bad at explaining how it works. The assignments were bizarre fill-in-the-blanks for *code*, mostly involving making a shitty emulator for the kind of processors in question
If you take this course, know that you will be feeling stress and anxiety for 3 months straight. Exams are difficult. Content makes no sense. His lectures are confusing. It takes 2 months to start understanding him, and at that point it gets slightly easier. Half the class dropped out after 2 weeks.
The amount of inconsistency and mistake in lecture + homework + exam are diabolical
RUN. The lectures have almost no clear structure. Before every class, we were required to watch extremely long videos, but the professor didn't actually follow them during the lecture. And in class you never know which slide he's talking about. And all exams require a minimum score just to pass the course
Canvas exams where you get 0 part marks because he writes unintelligible slop for questions that you have to decipher in 50 minutes all while he himself has typos in his own exam. Assignments that take 20 hours that are barely related to exams. Rips off slides from Berkeley and doesn't explain them half as well. Run.
It's the heavy topics that make this a tough course, not the prof. He's a decent prof that's pretty fair and is very accessible outside class. You should definitely make use of office hours and piazza
this jeet should NOT be teaching, bro is taking home 200k annually while putting pain in people ashess
worst prof on this planet, man should consider taking retirement for the sake of people's life and tuition money
This is a difficult course but he makes it 100x harder. The tests are online, so you either get the question right or wrong, there are no part marks. In addition to the in-person lectures which are very confusing, he makes you watch ~3 hours worth of videos outside of class. It's definitely worth it to wait and take this class with a different prof
Had to write this review because I literally had nightmares over the winter break about autograded final exams conducted through canvas.
Class Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
25%
Textbook Required
14%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
B
Grade Distribution
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Declining
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885CMPT
4.0
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4.0
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2.3
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2.1
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CMPT295
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4.0
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