Project 3 was probably the most difficult assignment in the course. 6250 was not of the same caliber by a large margin, and was very disappointing overall. Class is divided into 3 parts: basic networking, traffic engineering, and security. The TAs are in the slack channel, be sure to join, but be careful of what you share. Students needed to create tests and share their tests to fully understand what the assignment was asking for. One of the best parts of the class were the projects. Very straightforward and easy. The SDN modules and project were super interesting too. Once you have basic knowledge of networks, the class becomes more interesting. Lectures are interesting, but the assignments not so much. I understand the basic networking concepts pretty well now and curious to learn more about SDN, OpenFlow, etc. Some projects are fun and interesting (you need to know Python in advance, though) but some just require you to do some experiment and report your observation under unstable VM environment which is bit tough. Could get by without listening to the lectures or readings and just focusing on the assignments. But looking back on this one, it was a great grind and a great way to close out the course. Overall the course was great! For the Python skills you can take Udacitys Intro to Algorithms course which I had gone through only about a third of its material but it was enough for me to be able to successfully complete the projects that required a better Python understanding. The TAs are extremely responsive and attentive, which is a huge advantage as the professor is non-existent. Projects: Not much assistance was offered, and if you got stuck on a coding issue, not much help was available (except from Piazza, see above) points (exclusive score for diehard licking dogs), =======Course improvement suggestions======= I feel hes truly altruistic and I wouldnt be able to be like him. Definitely the easiest of classes in OMSCS. We could never complete this in a weekend. Good to know more about TCP/IP, distributed networking algorithms, congestion, traffic engineering, and software defined networking. HUGE thank you to the TAs for this, they made the course more enjoyable and less stressful. Looking forward to seeing the class advance with a new professor. The videos were interesting, but did not help much with the assignments. I enjoyed them overall, but there were a few issues that Ill describe below in a bit more detail. This is a way that I struggle to learn. Some of the concepts I learnt in this course helped me to connect the dots in my day job. I had harder lab assignments in undergrad than the assignments in this class. Also, they gave out 6% extra credit. TAs- My class TAs were amazing. Others have noted her propensity to run a tight ship, and that is true, but is not necessarily a positive if you dont like your grad school experience to be akin to being the lowest ranking seaman in the Navy. Tests were proctored and not to bad to study for. (This was a common response referring to tests in T-Square). My undergraduate degree in Computer Science did not have any computer networking course, so most of this was fairly new to me. Most of the assignments I believe can be completed with almost no networking knowledge. Like most of the comments here its incredibly easy. Crossfire attack - this one sounds pretty scary. You need to spend time on the projects as they are not straightforward. The assignments often didnt line up with the content of the lectures either. The problem with that is that they then take points off for things that Meet Expectations according to the grading rubric, instead of taking points off because you actually did something wrong. Udacity quizes are trivial and do not facilitate or even test understanding. The lectures are as dry as the Sahara. After cloning, use the ls command to check the files from the Boma-watch project are present. The sad part is the actual work isnt that hardit is how questions are asked and assignments worded that makes it hard. I dont plan to do the extra credit. Id say its a medium since its not as hard as others, but not the easy one past students remember. In a multiple-choice exam, however, there is no opportunity to address the ambiguity! Lectures are very superficial and I did not get any real knowledge about networks after completing this course. They were dry, dense, and just flat out boring. It was the first semester that it was released and will likely go through some iterations. I enjoyed learning how things got to the way it was. You will read a lot of research papers which is a skill you will need to develop as well. There was 80 points of extra credit as well. The slides are transcriptions of the videos (where they exist) which are basically Dr. Konte reading that section of the book. I took this course without any computer network background. You wont remember even 1% of what you read because theres just so much information. Projects: The amount of code you write is extremely small so its worth thinking through every line that you write. Most projects had you programming in python on top of a framework called mininet, though some had you do analysis without coding. I figure a veteran in the OMSCS or Computer Networking wouldnt find it engaging though(unless youre doing it for the relatively easier A :-) ). Ultimately, this is a good summer course, and would also work well as a 2nd course during spring/fall semesters. I understand abstractions pretty well, and get irritated by tedium, so it was nice to have some of the details obfuscated and removed from the lectures/projects. 8th/9th class taken with Applied Crypto (AI4R, HPCA, IIS, GIOS, SAD, iHPC, AI,). 2) The depth is shallow. There is extra credit, but felt like a bit of a hassle given amount of points available and the effort, but might be helpful in a pinch. The TAs also host several weekly chat at different hours through out the day. Inspect the Project Files. youre expected to already be familiar with the ins and outs of the OSI model, inner workings of TCP, etc.). However, I have used Python and several other programming languages extensively for the past several years for coursework, research, jobs/internships, and personal projects, so I consider myself to possess at least an intermediate proficiency with Python. All the assignments are due during the weekend which is a big plus. The tests were straight forward, not tricky wording like other courses do. You are not alone. Personally, I found the topic to be not super exciting but that is not helped by how the course was conducted both with what the projects entailed. I spent ~2 hours per week taking notes on lectures. Kudos to her! Just understand the general concepts and you should be fine. But it wont make a huge difference in your grade and its probably time better spent focusing on the exam. for the on-campus students. Just awful. I think this class is easy. There are some grammatical errors in the Canvas modules, sure. Quick to learn, difficult to master Towards the end I think there were some heavy modifications to semesters previous, and the details had not yet been fully worked out. I dont think any project took more than a day (5- 8 hours), and no accompanying reports were required for the coding projects. If you do take it, I dont think recommend it outside of the summer session as, I believe, there are more required lectures, projects, and another exam. Ask questions in the office hour!!! Just make sure you cross your ts and dot your is when submitting. If you message the Instructors privately in Piazza, be sure to give at least a week of time. Could be better. I would also recommend brushing up on some of the networking fundamentals, but thats not strictly necessary. You have to write essay answers in tests. Some of the content was wrong in the slides. Mininet experiment based on research paper. The course clearly lists at least an introductory level in Python is required. Course lectures ARE NOT ENOUGH. In short, I feel this class is doable for those with limited networking skills, but may also be interesting for those who do have experience (maybe better for a condensed summer course). Projects: They give you an expected solution to match and most of the time, you should be able to reach it. For a University with the reputation of Ga Tech, it strains credulity that were stuck with this tech. But this last homework brings too many issues. Projects were sporadic, so I spent 0 hours for most weeks, and maybe 5-6 hours in the weeks they were due, so I averaged to about an extra 2 hours/week. For the projects its important to note that the way you submit them to canvas was different for every project. Having more TAs doesnt necessarily solve all issues that arise from such a large class in a variation on the maxim of the mythical man-month. You might be better off installing everything natively on your computer and then just checking it on the VM once done. The head TA is combative and easily frustrated. Some projects can take inordinate amount of time to solve. Lets start from the positive thing first. (the project introduction videos cover every minor detail, and the office hours are good to get any clarification). You will then be graded by some 20 year old TA that really doesny give a shit about any of this. TA in this course is nothing but great. Not too difficult. The course was very well structured and the TAs (Michael Brown was just amazing) ran the show in an organized and timely manner. The projects are all about tinkering with python to make some over-engineered scripts run. This may be a harsh review, but I really didnt like this class. Take advantage of your fellow students for help. If you make it past this project, 12-16 hours in two weeks, its downhill from here. This was my first class in the program and my first academic networking class. I cant comment on the bonus, I didnt do it. The third was more of an experiment, run the tests and write about what you found. Most projects are not challenging and the exams are checking your memorization instead of your understanding of the concepts. Just to get B The head TA (Stacia Stokes) is very attentive and present on Piazza. I expected this class to be boring but surprisingly learned a lot, some of which was pretty interesting. And thats basically it. Id suggest the most straight-forward approach for the earlier projects. For example, I found the following post (anonymous, taken verbatim from EdStem) to be representative of many students experiences, expectations, and quality of posts on EdStem (which to be fair, means theres a significant degree of selection bias towards the students who post a lot): Hey, all So dont put all your eggs on that basket. The videos are nice and the homework itself isnt bad but when you have a case where a you do what is in the homework and match their pictures, only to have things rejected because of OTHER unannounced parameters.. its not good. I also had to complete some freelancing projects. Read a bunch of papers (granted, theyre mostly interesting) and watch a few shallow lecture videos. The one exception for me was the SDN firewall project which probably took me 8-10 hours, most of which was spent trying to understand what to do. There are 3, non-cumulative. 5 were programming involved, 2 were run this - describe what you see type. It also gave a whole bunch of extra progamming assignments and exposure to some newer technologies that improve upon Pyretic or expand its capabilities. This class is in need of a refresh. This course assumes some basic knowledge in computer network. The lectures have continued to be good, but the rest of the class experience has been a disappointment. The projects are basically due every 2 weeks, all the test material is given at the beginning of the semester; the only thing you cant work ahead on is the projects. That was my fourth course, after taking CS6035/IIS, PUBP6725/Policies, and CS6238/SCS. The class is completely led by TAs. Quizzes are always at a difficult level because questions are subjective. As proof of this, this project took me roughly 20 hours to complete fully (i.e., half of the time that it took me to complete the STP project). Read all the papers they ask you to read this is needed for the projects and exam! Grading is very generous. Read the other reviews carefully about the atrocious state of the quizzes. There were multiple times where I felt like I actually, thoroughly understood what the question was asking and how each of the answers worked, but still had to just guess which was the best answer. Class-provided virtual environment is needed, depending on the hardware and efficiency of your implementation, the notebook kernel might crash while running, at least it happened to me several times, and was a gigantic waste of time. This is a great introductory course for computer networks. Exams were mostly fair. Sometimes fellow students and TA will drop some hints and ideas in Slack. Instructors should find a way to administer this assignment w/out requiring it be a Jupyter Notebook. Hopefully shes just shy and works diligently behind the scenes OR she gives her pay to the (good) TAs. I had a lot of fun playing around with mininet. Background: Papers: 19 papers total, most were reasonably dry but decently interesting. Although the content was somewhat interesting, we could never benefit from professorial interaction. A nice variety of papers to read, and I found the lectures to be well designed / delivered, and quite cogent and lively. I understand mistakes like this can happen, but these should be fixed. The project descriptions do too much hand holding and getting a working solution usually only took 1-3 hours. I recall one of the past reviewers mentioned that this class taught them how the internet works. The lectures covered interesting concepts but yes as mentioned before it involved more reading which as times I did not enjoy. Also for project 7, I have no idea why determining which files to modify is part of the assignment so everyone needs to figure it out for themselves (isnt the focus of this course supposed to be about computer networks? The course material is on par with an undergrad networking class minus any exams. I really enjoyed most of the projects, while I found the papers to be excessive. But even if I took these two the opposite order, this one should still be easier than IOS. Outside of that, I would recommend the course as interesting and somewhat challenging. If you are Non-CS, then be prepared to spend a lot of time in this class. A bit challenging, but you are set up to succeed. Make sure to just go through the study guide for each exam. I literally cannot remember the last time I took such a poor rigour-free class (even in high school). The lectures are poorly organized and the lecturer buries the lead a lot. There were 6 projects with 60% weight and 2 tests with 40% weight. Both my interest and existing experience were moderate. I found this one much easier than even IOS. The office hours are helpful. Its optional, but I learned a lot more from it than the lectures, so if you dont have a networking background I highly recommend it. Projects are in python. Intro to PowerShell (free course) Chapters 00:00 - Video Intro 03:29 - Secret Management in PowerShell 07:10 - Installing PowerShell 7 09:20 - Installing the SecretManagement Module 31:08 . Each project is released 2 weeks before the due date, so you can work ahead about 2 weeks. I feel like there should have been 50% more content in this course, and harder, more interesting assignments. Could take you some time to get step up and running if you are not familiar with python. All in all no surprises and rewards you with A if you are working regularly. TAs were fairly helpful in Piazza but the Professor was very slow at responding to things needing his attention. However, I did have some very light Python experience. I got 70/70 in projects, 9/10 in the weekly class quiz, 7/10, and 9/10 in the exam. After a good grind, I was really happy to come out with an A in the course. Got to program a switch, using Python, to create a firewall. A fun class where you will learn and enjoy networks. If you score high on all the projects, you can still pass with a high B / low A even if you do poorly on the exams. The assignments were a bizarre combination of ridiculously easy connect the dots exercises with explicit step by step instructions paired with buggy software and buggy instructions. There were a lot of research paper assignments, and frankly, the readings were quite dry, apart from maybe a few. The teacher is just a PPT reader I took this as my first class in the OMSCS program. I feel this isnt nearly enough for a class of this scope. In Project 3 I placed a break` in the wrong spot and ended up only passing 8/9 tests. As if Wikipedia is the fountain of knowledge!! failure. That said, I found the project objectives clearly explained and with the help of a few good python books enjoyed the projects and was able to do very well on them. Easy Course, Interesting Projects, Boring Modules. Projects and exams not too difficult, especially if you take the time to understand the concepts before jumping in to the solution. The staff are all very helpful and responsive on piazza. As I mentioned, I can only say good things about the content of the book because the class/lecture content was basically nothing more than that. I know there are complaints about this class, especially with some confusion about the final project in the past, but I will tell you that all of the projects this semester went smoothly. The exams were difficult as they were completely based on the lectures. 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