Starts out easy with basic memory models, then goes into topics which are more challenging and important. To maximize grade and learning, make sure to do all the assignments. Labs were moderately helpful, but not that much. Take advantage of office hours. Make sure to get comfortable with I/O to synchronization, the last part of the course.

really fun and interesting course. My favorite unit was synchronization and concurrent programming because it is epic. The assignments are definitely the best part; my favorites were implementing malloc/free, writing a virus and hacking a server, playing with a virtual CPU, and writing a thread pool and using it to implement a multi-threaded brute-force password cracker!!

T

This course is pretty damn hard. Assignments are easily the biggest time burner of the course. With that said, I like the way Prof Mike Feeley teaches the course and I enjoyed the course despite it being stressful and strenuous.