This is for 178 not 138 but bro I love this guy he's so approachable with questions compared to the other egotistical professors and he actually cares about the students and made cryptography super chill

Prof. Ananth is a great professor! His class was well-organized and had clear lectures. He provides a course schedule with textbook sections (the Sipser one is excellent). All the topics build off each other and the material gets harder, so try to keep up. Homework was reasonable, midterm was easy, and final was hard. Good curve.

It's a theory class so the material is really abstract. I've taken Ananth before for 178 and he always does take-home tests. It's not like he magically makes the content easy to understand but he is clearly very knowledgable and the class is reasonably fair. The first homework was very harshly graded. Provides covid-era recordings of lecture.

Great class, very fair HWs & tests, and class curve at the end. Lectures were great as well, always made sure everyone understood everything before moving on, and genuinely did care about students. I would take another class from him if he taught one. I always came out of lectures happy with what I learned, idk why he has bad reviews.

Nice guy but imo really difficult lectures, I never felt like they made sense. HW is hard but lots of time given, midterm+final were take home bc he's aware the material is rlly hard, but they're still too hard compared to lectures. Class NEEDED MORE OFFICE HOURS. Only thing I really know is how to make DFAs. Everything else? lol. Way too abstract.

Much of what was covered in lecture didn't even begin to capture how difficult the homework would be. He also encouraged students to just write I don't know and would give more credit for writing I don't know in comparison to an actual attempt.