Reviews of professor Venkata Nadendla

Rating: 1.0/5, difficulty: 5.0/5
Never take a class with this professor. He is interesting to talk with and is intelligent but I would not recommend taking this class unless you have a good foundation in Machine Learning. If you do plan on taking this course then first implement the neural network in pytorch.

Rating: 3.0/5, difficulty: 3.0/5
The HW problems followed naturally from the lecture material, and the tests followed naturally from the HW. There was nothing out of the ordinary. We weren't given any rubrics, but doing everything well resulted in getting full points, and the HW wasn't graded very strictly. Exam 1 took a month to grade. He clearly cares about this class.

Rating: 1.0/5, difficulty: 5.0/5
What you need to understand about Prof. Nadendla is that he teaches undergraduate material at a graduate level. He is passionate about the material, and gives adequate (though very hard to digest) lectures, but he severely overcomplicates coursework. Apart from this, homework formatting is very anal and there are only a couple exams. AVOID!!

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
Dr. Sid is a very good instructor who cares a lot about the success of his students. This was a tough course, as there are a lot of heavy topics to cover, but as long as you make an actual attempt to work hard, he is very willing to work with you. The only way you'll fail this course is if you straight up don't care or put in any effort.

Rating: 2.0/5, difficulty: 5.0/5
This was his first semester of teaching, and it showed. He admitted he taught significantly harder than all the previous Algorithms teachers, and he was brutal on grading Examshe takes off points in multiples of 5% of your grade, (every tiny/trivial mistake at least 5%), his expectations for answers were unclear. Class was an absolute mess.

Rating: 3.0/5, difficulty: 5.0/5
I honestly like Dr. Sid; he's seems like he genuinely cares about students learning and is passionate about the material. That being said, it feels like he is not quite on top of how the class should be taught exactly. More specifically, how to teach new students a topic that can become rather complex quickly. Some will like him, some will not.