2.2
Quality3.9
Difficulty28%
Would Retake90
Reviews28%
Would Retake
90
Reviews
Rating DistributionOfficial
90 total ratings5
11
4
9
3
10
2
13
1
39
What Students Say
“7/10 sections are mandatory”
CMPE80N - 4.0 rating“7/10 participation in section (any section is fine), 10 quizzes (2 lowest dropped)”
CMPE80N - 5.0 ratingClass Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
85%
Textbook Required
0%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
B+
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Declining
-0.27 avg changeRatings by Course
CMPE80N
3.8
(6)CSE150N
3.7
(3)CSE80N
2.6
(16)CSE150
1.9
(57)Difficulty by Course
CSE150
4.0
CSE80N
3.4
CSE150N
3.3
CMPE80N
2.8
Reviews (82)
7/10 sections are mandatory. You can choose which one you want to go to. Attendance for the lecture isn't mandatory, but helpful. It's pretty easy to predict what she's going to put on the quizzes. There are weekly quizzes but as long as you read the slides and do homework, they're easy to pass. she drops 2 of your lowest quiz scores.
7/10 participation in section (any section is fine), 10 quizzes (2 lowest dropped). The material is easy but you do have to put some work in it.
Parsa is a very nice lady, but not a good professor. Her class was supposed to be introductory class but only those with prior knowledge found it easy. Powerpoints are way too long and detailed. Theres a dense test every single week, and homework that takes forever that is graded harshly on correctness. If you don't have to take this class- don't.
Shes a very nice lady, but her lectures can be very dry. She also doesnt go over examples very much in class so it can be difficult to get help outside of section. The PowerPoint slides were always extremely long and most people would stop paying attention halfway through.
Chris is one of the nicest, most sincere profs I've had. She genuinely wants her students to succeed. Homework is helpful to study for the quizzes and she goes over everything thoroughly. People mainly find the class boring because business kids take it to fulfill some CE credit. I thought it was really interesting.
Best most caring professor. Wants everyone in the class to succeed. Really helpful office hours and after class questions. Quizzes and homework every week, but drops the lowest scores. She wants to help everyone she can.
Chris is definitely an excellent professor. She goes through all the materials clearly. The only problem is that CSE 80N is a fundamental course about Internet and therefore students who have prior experience with the Internet might find her explanation pleonastic. But that's what she does to students who have no prior knowledge on Internet.
The hardest professor I've ever met.
This class wasn't too bad, but I found it more difficult because I had no prior computer science knowledge. I took this class during the coronavirus too so the online format was difficult. Take this class if you have a genuine interest but be prepared to put some work in.
Chris is a very caring professor. She is available to answer Piazza questions almost 24 hours a day, and genuinely does all she can to help her students pass. The material is challenging if you have no prior networking knowledge, but doable if you put in effort. My only complaint is that she does not record lectures, even for the online class.
The class average on our final was a 63%. That should tell you enough about how her teaching is. Quizzes were unnecessarily hard and lectures were confusing. The topics in this class aren't so hard, but they were explained in such a confusing fashion that it made the class much harder than it had to be. She is very nice though.
It's a CS class, so the lectures are a bit dry, but if you work for it you can at least get an A. Make sure you really try to understand what she's saying. she and the TAs were super responsive to questions and feedback, so if you're lost, just ask for help.
The course seemed difficult only because I am not a CS major. For not having any background knowledge I felt she went at a very fast pace. Lectures also seemed to be dry. There are midterm and final and weekly quizzes, she drops the lowest one.
If you're not a CS major don't take this class. I'm a BME major and took this class to fulfill the computer literacy requirement because it's in the 80 sequence and is an intro course. I put in a lot of time and effort into this class and didn't get the results I wanted. Also she said during last class non CS majors are brave for taking this class.
She is a very kind and nice professor. Although the course is a little difficult and I just got a C to pass, I think the course is very useful and Parsa is very nice. You can ask every questions and she would teach you again and again with patience. Thank you so much, Parsa.
I really enjoyed this class and leaned alot about networking, but Chris's paranoia makes you hate the class. Besides for the lack of option to go back on exams, our course was taken off of canvas completely before the end of quarter so we have no idea how we did on the final. I hope she reads these comments and changes it next time she teaches.
I came in excited about networks but Parsa just killed that excitement throughout the quarter. Unclear rubric on HW, unable to go back and look at previous questions on tests, and she removed Canvas before we could see our final. Overall the class is interesting but Parsa will kill that interest over time.
Where to start? Nice lady, but her teaching is dry. Average on the midterm was 63%. A time crunch and you couldn't go back on questions- can't skip and go back later/can't time manage. Labs were vague and disconnected, some were frustratingly thrown at you to figure out, TAs were nice but inconsistent. Class was disorganized. Take someone else.
Lady moves through lectures like a freight train. Gives homework on topics she has not even covered yet, and then when she covers the topic she goes over it in 30 seconds
Very dry lecture, read off the slides. Be ready to show up to the lecture for daily group discussion. Homeworks and tests weren't covered in the lecture (Hws & quizzes every week). Have 2 group projects towards the end of the quarter but still prepare yourselves to study for hws and quizzes. This GE class's workload is heavier than my major classes
Unnavigable/overly simple Canvas page (no Modules/Assignments tab), nothing is titled (had to sift through 30 presentations to find old info), constantly interrupted inquiring students, rushed lectures, dictatorial late-work policy, due dates in the middle of the day hours after class instead of at midnight, added extra credit after P/NP deadline.
I would strongly recommend taking 80N prior to 150N, but the curve is usually generous at the end of 5-8% of your overall final grade. Many people failed the midterm and stressed for weeks, but eventually most did well. The Prof really cares about the content she is teaching, and exams are fair, yet cover a lot of content. Textbook is useful!
Highly recommend taking this professor and class! She is very caring and understanding, and interacts with the class really well. She gave our class a pretty good curve at the end, and the assignments were pretty easy, especially if you went to your lab section. If you go to lecture & read the book, you'll learn a lot!
She is a terrible teacher honestly. Skip this professor. She is a nice person and all but I strongly do not believe she is a bad professor. Labs you have to figure out on your own and if you do not attend lab sections you pretty much will fail. Alot of uncovered/barely covered topics on midterm and final and on top of that is a huge time crunch...
Just skip this professor. She doesn't seem to know what she is teaching. Her resources are terrible to learn from and the midterm and final averages were around 50-60 percent so she has to give an insane curve just to make people pass. If you are bad with time crunches, you will fail this course. You get around 10-15 minutes on 5-6 part questions..
I've had a fair amount of bad professors at this school but she no doubt takes the cake. Complete lack of any effort in lectures, poorly worded labs and assignments, midterm had absolutely nothing to do with what we learned, TA's and graders who don't even read the lab instructions, popquizzes about random history, completely dismissive of students
Study guide didn't cover half of what was on the midterm. It basically only regurgitated what the textbook said. Her teaching style is very archaic as she refuses to record lectures for whatever reason and expects you to come to class and pray that you are able to take good notes or else you're just going to have to hope you can decipher her slides
Material is good, professor wont hesitate to answer your questions. She wont just give you answers, youll have to work for them but she will teach you the concepts to do everything. Lectures and labs cover all of the material on the midterm and final as long as you actually UNDERSTAND the material and not just copy paste.
This professor does care about her students in terms of social interactions but she is definitely a tough teacher and not for good reasons. I have no idea what the last response was saying. It might honestly be the professor trying to get cookie points to get her rating up but honestly skip this professor if you care about your grade.
Christina Parsa was a good professor teaching a difficult course. Reading the textbook really helps with the material. As long as you do the reading and show good understanding of the material you should be fine in this course. My one negative is that there was one particularly terrible student grader that hard tanked students scores on the labs.
I have had bad teachers before but have never written a review before, because often they were understanding or at least clear. This teacher, for a lack a better term, is heartless: oh you missed class because of Covid, missed an in person quiz or in person group assignment that's 10% of your grade because of Covid, well too bad. Bad, mean teacher.
Her lectures are boring, basically reading off the slides. Lectures are mandatory and ARE NOT RECORDED! Lab assignments ask very stupid questions that require a lot of work to answer and are graded harshly. Just don't take any classes with her, she will make you do a lot of unnecessary work with no rewards.
Christina Parsa professor in computer engineering at UCSC, refused to provide the necessary and reasonable academic accommodations that I was entitled to as a person with a disability. When the DRC emailed her to meet she made excuses and evaded them for weeks until finals so we gave up. My experience with Parsa was discouraging as a student.
Easy midterm exam but extremely difficult final exam. This professor lets her TAs make her slides for lectures, and she keeps reading everything. What makes her course really ridiculous is that both she and her TA do not teach too much on the Python Module we use in this class. Would never take her class again!
Ridiculously tough class, teacher has no sympathy towards the performance of her students
Midterm review and reading material only match 50% of the midterm exam, her quiz only gave the last 5min of the class and she will leave by the end of class and not accept late quiz. She only reads slide during lecture so reading is more helpful than lecture
Chris was nice, but the course was pretty awful. Labs were given without any preparation, and mistakes were made on several assignments, exams, and even the final. Prof was also very ruthless on attendance, with no recorded lectures if you get sick or want to see your family. The final was TERRIBLE, and we were not prepared at all for the content.
This is an upper-division CSE class and shouldn't be considered "free". You should actively participate, read the textbook, and attend lab. If you strive to do the responsibilities mentioned you will do very well in the class. The lectures are important even if they can occasionally be dry tip: sit next to classmates who actively participate.
Be prepared for a large time commitment. Lectures and labs were mandatory. The lectures were alright if you can pay attention the whole time. Ask TAs questions during labs. Read the book if you want to ace the tests. Exams were difficult and there was a curve at the end. Only take this class if you really want to learn networking or if you need to.
Chris is a nice person, but lectures can be a hit or miss. Ended up reading the textbook. Attendance is mandatory and cannot miss it. Wasn't accomodating even if you have COVID. Labs are not bad but the exams are, average is 65%. You must pass the final exam or you fail the class. Good luck if you're taking her for CSE 150.
I felt like dying. Checked mate in every corner of my life. Breaking my legs going to all the OH, TA sessions, Tutor sessions. My eyes were burned 24/7, pupils melted away. The lectures very important. The average for exams was D. The curve stopped the war and saved many lives. Despite the struggle, it is a class where you will learn and remember.
If I was a professor and this was a class I taught, I'd be ashamed of myself. Her pacing of lectures is poor, and office hour availability is only 1 hour a week instead of the university mandated 2 hours. Its almost as if the labs are written by a high schooler and never proof read. Instructions are vague. Do not take this class at any cost.
Parsa doesn't care at all with her students. If you have COVID or a family member is on the hospital, you get a 0 on the exam. Her class is also disorganized and you're better off reading the textbook to understand the material. Exams have half of the questions not related to the study guide. Avoid her at all cost.
Not worth taking CSE 150 with Parsa. Half of the questions for the midterms and finals are not from the study guide. She is not accomodating with students who are sick or have COVID. Labs were worded bad. Overcomplicates some concepts. Better off reading the textbook to prepare for quizzes and exam. Horrible experience.
Her class wasn't bad. This class is time-consuming but it was doable. She gave 4 grace days for labs, but use it wisely. Be prepared to get lab questions with horrible wording on the questions. Attendance is mandatory for quizzes. Study hard for the midterm and finals, they're difficult and conceptual heavy.
This class worked wonders for an introductory class. Sections were mandatory to attend at least once a week, but lecture attendance was for extra credit. Her lectures were easy to understand, perfect for visual learners.
The class was a cool introduction to the make up of websites. Only downside was she hacked my computer without telling me how to do it back overwise awesome!
She overcomplicates straightforward topics. Practice exams are either similar or completely different to the exams. Exams range from easy to difficult. Doesn't let us take the exams to help us understand what we did wrong. Doesn't post slides on Canvas to help review what I learned from class. Make sure you read the textbook for this class.
Christina Parsa is by far the worst professor I've had in the computer science department at UCSC. Her lectures are boring and hard to follow; she reads off the slides the whole time. The labs are poorly written and graded even worse. The study guides won't help you for the exams. Absolutely no empathy for her students. Avoid this class if you can.
I repeat stay away from this professor. She reads straight from the slides has 0 empathy for her students. Labs are mandatory and over complicated. The study guides are useless when it comes to exams. When she mentions "curve" of the class its based on "performance" which is a lie and mostly based on final and how she feels. Overall worst UCSC exp.
(2/2) Class extremely difficult, especially towards quarter's end. Labs super tough, unclear. Unfair, harsh grading. Hours spent on labs/final project wasted. Final decides pass/fail, not performance so she says. No empathy, IGNORES student issues. Extremely boring lectures and hard to understand and over complicates topics. Avoid for GPA's sake!
It was okay labs are hard and she grades so harshly.
Class material wasn't conceptually difficult but she just makes it difficult with unclear lab instructions. Spent weekends in the computer lab doing hw because vm isn't supported by mac's and Prof gave no resources for computers that don't support it. Prof has no empathy and dismissive. Stressed for weeks after the midterm, I was simply surviving.
Took her fall 2022. She came off as rude and dismissive if you don't understand the material or need accomodations. VM not supported for Mac users with M1 chips or later and provided no resources for those students. Labs are poorly worded and graded harsh. Avoid. Take Chen Qian for 150. Heard from people much better experience.
Absolutely no empathy for students. Labs are poorly worded and graded harsh. Exams are completely different from the study guide. No resources for M1 Mac users who are unable to use VM provided for class. Overcomplicates topics in lecture. Nothing good in this class. Avoid
Plan your schedule to not have to take Parsa. I regretted it every single day I was in mandatory lecture. The topics are not even that complex, but she nitpicks so much. If you are unfortunate enough to take it w/ her, the author of the textbook she based the course on is the goat; the textbook is law.
Slides takes straight from Jim Kurose, labs are vaguely worded and pretty annoying. Professor was actually pretty chill, so not sure what these other reviews mean. Lecture recordings not posted even though there are quizzes for attendance. Overall I felt the class was fair, if you put in the work you would get the result.
BORINGGGGGGG. Mandatory lectures, discussion sections, and group assignments outside of class. The class is easy, but the busy work and hand-holding are draining. If you're taking it as a GE, find something else; it's as much of a time sink as my other important classes. The teacher reads off slides and is not engaging. Almost fell asleep in class.
Constant group projects, extra assignment during mandatory section, do not take for GE or credits. Extremely difficult to work with, and does not react well to things not going her way. Very little time for quizzes, i.e. 25 minutes for a 4 page quiz that requires technical solutions with explanations.
The amount of knowledge in this course is huge and detailed, requiring a lot of understanding and memory. The lab is very heavy. The exam is not difficult but not easy to get high scores. She cares about her students, and she wants to see the students learn. She curves grade.
Lectures are a bit dry but cover content well enough. Lectures/discussions pretty much don't prepare you for labs at all—you have to be good at Googling and asking questions. Labs and tests also have confusing wording and unclear expectations. At least email/Ed gets fast responses, and she seems nice.
Horrible professor who doesn't teach what is needed for the lab assignments (homework) for the class. She has you learn an entire python library on your own which is purely an academic tool with documentation that has outdated information. Additionally, test prep material given by her is very inaccurate, sometimes blatantly off.
The type of professor to really tarnish a school's reputation. Unstructured course, covers very little even for an intro class, no programming instruction(professor does not know how to code), TAs are helpful, graders instructed to give 0 partial credit. forced to beg for regrades, they only give you a few days to find and fix THEIR mistake.
Parsa doesn't record lectures nor post annotated slides, so if you didn't take thorough notes from her fast-paced lecture, you'll struggle with her tests, consisting of vague questions that can be argued either way, or obscure facts from the textbook (who cares where Dijkstra created his algorithm?). Nice professor and pretty forgiving though.
Professor Parsa was, at least to me, extremely sweet and kind. She is a nice person, no doubts about that. That being said, its no joke this class is 7 units. We had a lab every week, which was mandatory attendance (progress checks). Pop quizzes too for 5% of the grade. Lots of busy work. I did learn a lot though, the curve on the final was massive
Christina Parsa is a professor who is completely disconnected from the course she teaches and doesn't care at all about her students. CSE150 is a TA run course, entirely lab-based, with mandatory group projects. Parsa doesn't know what is going on with these labs, and will never take questions even during office hours. Please be warned.
if you go to lectures, read the textbook, do practice problems, and do your assignments, you will succeed. parsa's lectures are very clear and easy to understand. if youre a bum who likes to not pay attention in class and blame everything on professor rather than yourself, dont take this class!
Idk why everyone hates her, but she is really nice and her lectures are easy to understand even though the material is complicated. I didn't like the labs that much, and sometimes it felt like busywork, but overall she is a great professor and seems like she would give good hugs.
Treats you like it's daycare but works you like it's the navy. Lectures are just a 90 minute rehash of the reading you already did. Lab content is unrelated to the class. Generally pretentious attitude, acts like she's doing you a favor by wasting your time.Will have one of her coworkers email you if you miss a lecture. Poorly organized. Avoid her
Some overreacting with how bad she is. She cares about her students, clearly outlines how to succeed in the course as well as always available to talk if you need extra clarification. It's a content heavy class with the homework being doable if you do the readings and pay attention in class. labs are very time consuming but relative to content.
Meh lot's of people are overreacting the class is fine not great not terrible just lot's of busywork. The last lab which was a group project was poorly planned though and many people were failing the auto grader when it worked locally. I didn't find the material super challenging but I'd assume if you have zero exposure then yea read up.
Completely disconnected from her own class; doesn't know what's happening in the labs she assigns. Has changed assignment details within less than 2 days before the assignment's due date. Lab projects are based on python libraries that aren't explained or taught. Project specifications were incomplete and vague. Basically a TA-run course.
Actually wants students to fail
I thought the lectures and labs were super helpful; it helped me understand the material. I appreciated seeing the feedback on my assignments and all the grades were consistently submitted on time. I recommend you go to office hours because she genuinely cares and will help every student succeed. I definitely recommend taking the class with her!
Almost all of the actual course material is blatantly stolen from Jim Kurose, including the slides used in class and large portions of the lab material. All the actual work done to run the class is done by TAs; she doesn't know what's happening in the labs. The only thing she actually does is give vague answers to questions and grade some midterms.
Yes, she seems like a nice person and can seem caring. Personality does not equal teaching skill. Horrible teacher, all content not original (labs, lecture, and book taken from Jim Kurose). Extremely disconnected from the class, doesnt know what happens in lab, and does poor job answering questions. TAs run the course. But does it all with a smile!
This is a conflicting class. I loved learning about networking but the grading is insane. The labs, group work, and test grading criteria are unclear. She's nice for the most part but like others said, she doesn't know what's happening in the labs so it's essentially a TA-run course. I'm CE and I wish I'd taken the 123 series instead of this->157.
Lectures were less than useless, you're better off skipping them and just reading the textbook or watching Jim Kurose's YouTube videos since she just rips him off anyway. All of the material can be found online for free, so most of the actual class is superfluous and a waste of time. She also took down the class Canvas and made grades inaccessible.
I think she tries to be a good teacher, but I end up being less motivated to learn. It's not any particular action, but it sometimes feels like she doesn't want everyone to succeed, only those who really deserve it. Also, it feels like most of the work spent on labs is for the specifics of the directions as opposed to the actual content.
Lecture/content is fine (good, even), but the administrative side of this course is disturbingly awful. This class is shockingly disrespectful of students' time. The labs are poorly written and formatted. No recorded lectures, no annotated slides. Imposes her style of learning onto you, treating you like a child but working you like its pre-1938.
While Parsa is caring, she is too involved with student personal life. Lab and test questions are often ambiguous and unclear. Lecture slides are gatekept. The 6 labs are quite heavy and can take multiple hours each. That being said, class content can be very interesting and rewarding if you're into it. Doable but find other options if possible.
A lot of content in the lectures, most of the work comes from the labs. labs take a couple hours to complete and follow strict formatting requirements (30%), some being very programming heavy. Three exams total (%55), you fail the final exam you fail the course. Final lab project with partner, demo required and assesment of code (10%). Avoid.
Class Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
85%
Textbook Required
0%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
B+
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Declining
-0.27 avg changeRatings by Course
CMPE80N
3.8
(6)CSE150N
3.7
(3)CSE80N
2.6
(16)CSE150
1.9
(57)Difficulty by Course
CSE150
4.0
CSE80N
3.4
CSE150N
3.3
CMPE80N
2.8