CS 1110

I am very happy I took this class, and have even considered CS because of it. Sheriff is really funny and his lectures fly by.

All told, I have a couple of major problems with the class.
It is kind of biased towards kids with coding experience. Sherriff often just glosses over concepts and expects you to know them after barely using them at all. This leads to the second problem. The POTD's are pretty much what steers your grade. This is why a lot of kids do well because if they have experience they can just crank them out each week and get easy points. For me as a beginner, this was not the case. I spent hours upon hours in the TA office hours trying to get help on POTD's, and even after they helped me I had to wait 2 hours for the grading system to give me feedback on my programs. They start out easy and get hard pretty quick. Overall I found it to be not that hard, but the workload of a 4 credit class, which was so annoying when I had other work to do. This work was also extremely inconvenient as the grading system took a while to upload feedback.
Still. Great Class in which I feel I have learned a lot.

If you have ANY knowledge of programming, this class will be a walk in the park. My only CS experience was a Codecademy javascript course before taking this class, but it helped out so much in the first half of the course. My best advise would be to start the POTD homework a few days in advance; chances are you'll get stuck on some part so you'll have plenty of time to go to office hours to sort it out. These assignments are 32% of your grade, which you can easily get 100% on if you give yourself a few days to solve the problems....Combined with the lab grade(13% of your grade for showing up) and the game project(an easy 100, which counts for 10% of your grade), you're looking at half of your overall grade already being perfect. I needed a D on my final to get an A in the class because of this, so if you have any backround in CS already, do yourself a favor and take 1110 so you don't waste your time taking a lab.

This is a great introductory class. Professor Sherriff is one of the BEST professors in the CS department and honestly cares for his students. If you come up to him after class saying you are still confused, he will help you! He is a funny guy, so smile and laugh at his jokes! And show him some respect, he values that! The class itself has a lab component, which makes everyone upset, but attending lab is both EASY points but also really beneficial for honing skills, especially if you have never coded before. I took two years of CS in high school, and so I found the class very easy, even though it was in Python and not JAVA, but many of my friends who had never coded before didn't struggle too much with the class. OFFICE HOURS ARE GOLDEN! Go go go go and the TAs will help you with the homework. Only 15 homework assignments the entire year, so get started as soon as you can so you can go to office hours. Can't recommend this class enough!

I highly recommend this class if you are interested in coding and have never done so. It is not the easiest course if you have never coded before but entirely do-able. If you stay ahead of the POTDs (which is a weekly homework assignment) and go to TA office hours which are held Sunday-Thursday, you can get everything done. Sherriff himself is a very funny and approachable professor who wants to help you. If you show him respect, he will respect you. Coding can be frustrating but this class is essential and even enjoyable if you want to explore computer science.

Changing the Programming Language from Java to Python is the best decision that the CS department has made in my opinion. I have taken intro to programming in high school in Java and could not grasp the material. However, when Sherriff taught it in Python, I understood all the concepts (loops, conditionals, etc) very well and he made me to become a CS major. Looking back, I don't know whether my high school teacher was just terrible or if Java OOP concepts were hard to grasp. But Python being a very simple language helped me to learn CS concepts. After mastering CS 1110 concepts in Python, you will be well ready for 2110 in Java, although there are some difference in terms of syntax and etc. In terms of the professor, Sherriff is the man! I loved taking it with Sherriff. He is funny in lecture and keeps the class engaged. In person, he can be a little bit cocky, condescending, and rude. He admits that he is aware of these characteristics since he reads these reviews by looking at the comments on thecourseforum or ratemypofessor. But, this should not be the reason to stay away from Sherriff. I have taken 3 CS courses so far, and he has been my favorite CS professor since he is very clear and his expectations are very fair. Learn how to code by attending lecture and buy the textbook. It is a good reference for the POTDs and exams.

Ok, just finished it up. I think its B/B+ class if you don't try to hard. if you try a little more its an easy A/A-. The class is in python which is like pretty simple. if you know some java or took a CS class in high School you should get an A. The potd's will kill you later if you get lost and they are worth a lot of points. They start out easy but get harder and harder. so ask TA's or use office hours if you have issues. try to get a 100 on the potd's so you can have a grade buffer. the 2 tests were good but you only have 50 mins, so it was a time crunch. the final was fair ( I got a 93 with mild studying). I had a some experience before hand so i thought the class was easy and got an A. but if you ever get lost, you should probably ask someone for help because plenty of people just BS the entire coding parts of the test and didn't learn anything. CS is a cumulative type of subject, if you get lost or don't know stuff about one thing, you will fail in understanding other things latter on.

I never went to his office hours but i did ask the TA's a few questions. The TA's are a hit or miss. Some of them will actually help you and you can learn a lot. Some of them are a mixed bag. ...
Also, the textbook is not really worth it, never bought it. Some of my friends did and it was kinda a waste since you don't even have the answer key.

Sheriff is a funny teacher and classes are "entertaining" ...
good luck.

I took CS1110 with Professor Ibrahim, and loved the course! I thought he was an excellent lecturer. He's organized, answers students questions thoughtfully, and clearly knows the material very well. The tests are fairly easy. There's one "big" coding problem at the end of each test, which I would give yourself at least 20 mins to solve.
The two professors that I know (Sherriff & Ibrahim) have different teaching styles. Ibrahim is very organized, follows a powerpoint (which he posts on Collab), and covers only the material that students will be tested on. He makes sure to emphasize the material we should have a solid understanding of, but doesn't venture far beyond the basics of what you need to know. Sherriff, on the other hand, is more disorganized. He speaks fast, and quickly whizzes through things that will be tested on. He expects you to understand the material the first time around, while Ibrahim goes a little slower. Sherriff also goes a lot more in-depth, and covered a lot of things that were never actually tested. He doesn't upload any slides, but he does upload the lecture audio onto Collab. They have different teaching styles, so I would definitely recommend testing both out to see which professor's teaching works best with how you learn. Personally, I enjoyed Ibrahim's pace and the amount of time he spent ensuring that the class understood difficult concepts.
This was by far one of my favorite classes this semester. CS1110 encourages problem solving and critical thinking, and it's a great course to learn the basics of programming. It's taught in Python, which is considerably easier than most other languages. You don't need any experience to take the course. Some students (such as myself) had been exposed to Java in high school, which was a little helpful, but most students didn't have any prior knowledge of programming languages.
The homework was easy in the beginning, and didn't take more than 30 mins to solve. However, as the semester progresses, the length of time devoted to solving the problems increases as well. There are Projects of the Day (POTDs) that are due every other day, so I would definitely recommend solving them as early as you can. These POTDs are worth 40% of your grade, and each test is worth 15% (there are 3 tests, including the final). I would most definitely recommend TA Office Hours!!! Attending office hours saved my grade on more than one occasion, so I would heavily encourage anyone who's signed up for this class to take advantage of this time. Be warned though - I would often have to wait 2-3 hours just to receive 10 mins of help. So definitely bring along some work to do while you're waiting for help.
Overall, this was an excellent course! I loved the class and the material, and decided to major in CS because of how organized this course was. I definitely think that this is a course everyone must take before graduating from UVA, just because of how much fun it is. As long as you stay on top of your work, you won't regret it!

I had Ibrahim, but i'm writing on here because he doesn't have an option and the class is the same as sheriff (with exception of teaching style). Ibrahim was a good guy and would definitely take the time to help you if you needed it. I really liked the class overall. Let me break it down for you. 10% of the class is lab, which is annoying to go to but is just attendance based so it is a free 10%. Next you have the POTDs, 16 in total for 40%. It is crucial that you start these early! The system takes 2 hours to tell you what you got on the assignment, so you NEED to give yourself a cushion to be able to fix things. One night i had to wake up every 2 hours and continue fixing it after each attempt and i would not recommend it. However, I ended up getting a 100% in POTD and really anyone can as long as you are proactive. Next is the game project, which is 5% and another easy 100% if you fulfill the requirements on the instructions and is also pretty cool. Lastly, the 3 tests are 15% each and are the part that lowers grades. They are not insanely hard or anything, but lack of time was constantly an issue for me on the first 2, but with 3 hours for the final i finally didn't feel rushed (ended up doing really well on the final even though at first glance i thought all the questions were ridiculously hard). Overall, ended with an A and would recommend the class. CS kind of just clicks or it doesn't at all, so for me an A- was easy, A was a little more difficult. Everyone should be able to get a B+ in this class if you try.

I had Ibrahim as my professor but he doesn't have his own page so I'm writing here as both Sheriff and Ibrahim teach the same course. This class is an easy A class as long as you do your work. There are weekly programs to complete which are easy grades, especially if you go to office hours, 2 tests and a cumulative final. The tests and finals were easy and was made up of multiple choice questions, short coding questions, and one long coding question which can be tricky. If possible, I would definitely recommend taking this class with Ibrahim. He is a well organized professor who always posts his lecture slides online. He is also an incredibly kind professor, he was always super helpful during office hours and made a point to remember my name by the end of the semester. My friends who had Sheriff enjoyed him also as a professor but found that his lectures were too disorganized and Sheriff can also come off as rash and impatient. Overall I would recommend this class to everybody, even if you're not interested in majoring in CS and are just interested in learning more about coding.