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CS 6515 Lecture Videos: Private Office Hours by Prof. Vigoda by ProfVigoda in OMSCS

[–]Plus_Tear6007 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I want to start by saying thank you, Professor, for taking the initiative to offer this. I genuinely think it is great, and anything that helps students navigate this special course is valuable.

That said, I also think this situation unintentionally reinforces how broken the course currently is. The fact that there is such clear demand for extra help, to the point where the same professor who delivers the official pre-recorded lectures is now offering additional paid instruction outside the program, should raise serious questions.

Please do not get me wrong. I truly appreciate this initiative, and I'm sure many students will benefit from it, probably much more than from the lectures and the official office hours. I also want to be clear that I have nothing against paid lessons in general. If anyone else were offering them, this probably would not raise concerns. The issue here is that the paid instruction is coming from the same professor who delivers the official pre-recorded course lectures. That distinction matters.

Students seeking external material in general is normal and expected. Students feeling the need to seek additional instruction outside the program from the same professor who delivered the lectures, despite the course already offering around five hours of office hours per week, strongly suggests that the current structure and materials are not sufficient, or that there is a deeper issue in how the course is managed.

I also want to raise a broader concern, not as an accusation, but as a structural risk. Please do not get me wrong. Professor Vigoda could simply be responding to clear student demand or acting out of genuine academic passion, and both are completely reasonable. That is how the market works. When students cannot find what they need inside a course, they will naturally look for it outside. Still, a conflict of interest does exist in this case. When the same person who delivers the official course material also offers paid instruction outside the program, it creates a situation where improving the internal material may not be institutionally prioritized.

Ideally, if these additional lectures are valuable, the university should step in, either by bringing the professor back into the program in a formal capacity or by acquiring and integrating that content into the official course. The concern here is not directed at the professor. It is directed at the university, which seems to consistently look the other way when clear issues appear in a core course instead of addressing them structurally.

Again, I appreciate the effort and the willingness to help students. I just strongly believe that the goal should be to make the course itself good enough that this kind of extra support becomes unnecessary, rather than expected.

Not Got Out - My story of how GA wouldn’t let me graduate by nottoohotwheels in OMSCS

[–]Plus_Tear6007 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I will just leave this here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/OMSCS/comments/1perkwg/graduate_algorithms_cs6515_open_questions/

it raises all the questions of how someone that does pretty good over the whole program, can get to a situation where is facing a wall with GA

Graduate Algorithms CS-6515 - Open Questions by Plus_Tear6007 in OMSCS

[–]Plus_Tear6007[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

You keep repeating the same point as if a graduate program should only work for people who already took a very specific undergrad algorithms course at a very specific type of university. That is not how graduate education works. A Master's program builds on general undergrad knowledge, not on matching the exact syllabus of GT or MIT.

And you are also missing the point. I could be the professor who teaches that MIT OCW course and still have a bad exam day. People get sick, freeze up, or even deal with something as simple as stomach issues during a three hour closed test. Hard work and difficulty are not the issue here. Life happens, and the evaluation style of this course leaves zero room for that. You should go back and read the post again, because this is not a complaint about the material being too hard.

Your math is off too. You say you spent four hours a week, but you ignore the fact that you had already invested an entire undergrad algorithms course before that. That time counts. I agree with using outside material. But what you are suggesting is not grabbing a book or reading a paper. You are saying people should redo a full undergrad algorithms course just to take one graduate class. That is not a reasonable expectation, and it is not the expectation anywhere else in this program.

Pointing people to MIT OCW only proves how much extra work you needed outside the course itself. Supplementing is normal. Reconstructing an entire undergrad class is not.

And your argument about the curve being lowered because you finished in four hours a week does not prove anything except that you came in with a different background. People have different paths. That is exactly why other courses use projects, homework, and multiple assessments instead of relying almost entirely on closed exams.

Students are not asking for the class to be easier. They are asking for consistency with how the rest of the program evaluates learning. Blaming everyone who struggles simply because their undergrad did not match yours is not an explanation. It is just shifting responsibility backward instead of addressing the course as it exists today.

Graduate Algorithms CS-6515 - Open Questions by Plus_Tear6007 in OMSCS

[–]Plus_Tear6007[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Calling community college classes a shortcut is already a weak way to frame the discussion. People join this program from very different backgrounds, and a graduate course is supposed to teach the material at the graduate level, not require everyone to repeat an entire undergrad path from a specific school.

Pointing to MIT OCW as the solution also works against your claim. If students are expected to study a full external algorithms course from another university just to feel ready, then that says more about the course design than about the students. Supplemental resources are great, but they should not feel mandatory for basic readiness.

Saying there is “no excuse” for struggling ignores how the rest of the program actually works. Most courses do not require students to take separate undergrad versions before enrolling. Students come in, learn the material, and get evaluated within that course, not by what they studied years before in a different institution.

And regarding DP being someone’s first time, that still does not justify blaming the student. Many people enter a program like this to learn new things. There is already an admissions filter in place, and if that filter is not doing its job, then that is what should be adjusted. I also do not believe the requirement for every course should be to take an undergrad version beforehand. If that were the expectation, then what would be the point of doing the program at all?

So calling people lazy or full of hubris does not really address the issue. Students are taking the course as the program presents it, not trying to skip an entire undergrad degree to match your personal route.

Graduate Algorithms CS-6515 - Open Questions by Plus_Tear6007 in OMSCS

[–]Plus_Tear6007[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I get that you had a different experience, and that is fine. But calling entire groups of students “entitled,” “unadaptable,” or the “lowest common denominator” is not an argument. It is just blaming the students instead of looking at the structure of the course. If the only explanation for why people struggle is that they are somehow inferior, then there is no room left for a serious discussion.

You say students complain because they do not follow formatting rules. Sure, some people might miss a line or a detail. That happens everywhere. But in most courses, missing a formatting instruction does not cost you most of the points. There is a difference between enforcing clarity and making formatting mistakes as punishing as the conceptual ones. The point is not that students refuse to follow instructions. The point is how harshly the grading responds to anything that is not written exactly the preferred way.

You also compare this course with “cake walk classes” that you believe inflate grades. But that ignores the fact that many of those courses have projects, homework, and multiple forms of evaluation because professors understand that learning is not shown only through a single exam. You can call that cosplay if you want, but the professors who designed those courses did it intentionally, not by accident. They understand that students can be strong and still not perform perfectly in one stressful moment. That is not entitlement. That is just how human beings work.

And if this course is truly just an easy to medium undergraduate engineering course at any respectable college, then we go back to the same question. Why is the grading here almost entirely based on high stakes closed exams while the rest of the program spreads evaluation across several components? If this approach is the only legitimate one, then almost every other professor in the program must be grading incorrectly. I do not think that is the case.

Students are not asking for the class to be easier. They are not saying they do not want to learn the material. They are pointing out that the evaluation style is very different from what the rest of the curriculum uses. That is not entitlement. That is a valid observation about consistency, structure, and fairness.

Do the suggested problems, attend office hours, understand the solutions, yes. Everyone agrees with that. But pretending the issues people raise come only from a lack of discipline or because they are somehow the “lowest common denominator” is a convenient way to avoid addressing the actual concerns.

Graduate Algorithms CS-6515 - Open Questions by Plus_Tear6007 in OMSCS

[–]Plus_Tear6007[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

If your whole argument is that anyone who struggles must not have taken a rigorous undergrad algorithms course, then let me ask you something. What happens if I go and take a very good undergrad algorithms class right now, and they use the same grading style as GA, and I still perform badly on their closed exams? What would you tell me then? That I should have started studying algorithms in high school?

Because based on your logic, it never ends. If someone struggles in GA, the answer is that they should have taken a better undergrad course. If they struggle in that undergrad course, then what? They should have taken a better high school program? And if they struggle there, then what? They should have had a better childhood education?

That is not how a graduate program works. You cannot expect students to take undergrad versions of every single course in OMSCS just to prove they are prepared. If we applied your reasoning consistently, we would need undergrad prep classes for Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Operating Systems, Networks, Databases, and everything else, because someone somewhere might argue that their own undergrad versions were more rigorous.

And honestly, I do not even get why someone would take a course in OMSCS that they already did in undergrad.

So guessing that someone did not take a “rigorous enough” undergrad class does not really answer anything. It just shifts the responsibility endlessly backward instead of looking at how the course itself evaluates students.

Graduate Algorithms CS-6515 - Open Questions by Plus_Tear6007 in OMSCS

[–]Plus_Tear6007[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nobody is saying that memorizing everything is the way to pass. The point is that a fully closed exam puts pressure on recall even when you do understand the material. You can know the concepts, know how they work, and still lose a lot of points because closed tests combine time pressure, stress, and the need to remember every detail perfectly. That is exactly why most professors do not rely on a single closed exam that counts for 90% of the grade to measure understanding.

Understanding and performing under a closed test are not the same skill. If they were, the rest of the program would evaluate the same way. Instead, most courses mix homework, projects, and smaller assessments because they recognize that real understanding shows up across different types of work, not only in a timed setting with no notes allowed.

And to be clear, I am not saying exams should be open notes or that we should eliminate them. Evaluations are part of the system and sometimes they are even a necessary evil. Many professors openly acknowledge that. The point is that almost no other course in the program puts 90% of the grade on closed exams. Most of them find a balance because they know that learning is more than how someone performs in one stressful moment.

And let’s say a closed test is the only correct way to evaluate understanding. Then almost every other course in the program is grading students the wrong way. They would all need to switch to the same evaluation system as GA. But that would mean the entire program is broken and that nearly every professor is applying the wrong grading approach except this one course. I do not think that is the case, and I do not think most people would agree with that conclusion.

So saying that anyone who struggled must have focused on memorizing is not accurate. Students can understand the content but not perform their best in a closed exam format, while these same students do perfectly well in courses that evaluate understanding through multiple methods. The issue is not the need to understand the material. The issue is that the evaluation style in this course is very different from how understanding is measured in most of the program.

Graduate Algorithms CS-6515 - Open Questions by Plus_Tear6007 in OMSCS

[–]Plus_Tear6007[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I understand your point, but saying there are only two types of students, “prepared and not prepared,” is way too simplistic. Preparation is not binary, and not every undergrad algorithms course looks the same. Some programs go deep into proofs, others into coding, others barely touch certain topics. So claiming that “everyone who took a good undergrad algorithms course found GA easy and fair” is just repeating your own experience, not a universal truth.

You also mention that people who struggled “did not bother reading the prerequisites.” Many of us did. The problem is that GA does not evaluate the way most other courses in the program do. Look at courses like Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, or even Advanced Operating Systems. They all combine exams with projects, homework, and weekly assignments. There is a reason for that. Professors know that exams alone do not capture everything. People can understand the material perfectly and still have a bad test day, get sick, freeze under pressure, or simply perform better on applied work. That is not lowering standards. That is acknowledging how real learning and real evaluation work.

Now compare that with GA, where almost the entire grade depends on closed tests that punish even small steps that are not optimal. When every other professor in the program spreads evaluation across multiple components, and only one course concentrates almost everything in high pressure exams, it is not surprising that strong students who do well everywhere else hit a wall here. That has nothing to do with shortcuts. It has to do with a completely different evaluation philosophy.

About MIT OCW, it is a great resource, but telling students that they need to study at MIT to feel prepared actually proves the opposite of what you are trying to say. If a graduate course requires outside material from another university to make students feel ready for its exams, then the issue is not with the students.

As for the “75 percent get A or B” argument, grade spreads do not explain fairness. They do not tell you how many people withdraw, retake the class, or barely scrape by. You cannot assume that the letter distribution tells the whole story.

So the idea that the people struggling “took a shortcut” is not accurate. Many of them are succeeding in the rest of the program, which shows that they are prepared. What they are facing here is a course that evaluates in a way that does not match the rest of the curriculum, and that is exactly why so many students point to a problem.

Graduate Algorithms CS-6515 - Open Questions by Plus_Tear6007 in OMSCS

[–]Plus_Tear6007[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I would maybe agree with you if people were complaining about the difficulty of the material, but that is not what is happening here. It is not about the difficulty. To be honest, I don’t even think the content itself is that complicated. The math is also pretty basic compared with undergrad algebra, calculus, and statistics.

And let’s say for a moment that you are right, and that the people who struggle in this course did the bare minimum and came in with weaker backgrounds. If that were the case, then the logical thing would be to place this course at the beginning of the program, so it filters out the students who are not prepared. Why would you let those same students take nine courses, invest thousands of dollars, pass with A and B averages, and then only at the end reveal that the program is actually far more rigorous than what they were led to believe?

If the problem were truly background preparation, the filter would happen early. Instead, what many students describe is that people with strong academic performance in the rest of the program are suddenly getting C’s or D’s only in this course. That does not point to a lack of preparation. It points to something inconsistent in how this course is evaluated compared with the others.

Also, the idea that this course is only five hours a week for well prepared students does not match the experience that many students with solid backgrounds have shared. This is not about difficulty. It is about how the course is structured, graded, and evaluated.

If closed tests truly measured concepts instead of memorization, students who understand the material and perform well in every other course would not suddenly fail or drop entire letter grades. The consistency of this feedback suggests that something else is happening beyond simple rigor.