He's nice, but the class sucks, and he's not doing it any favors. The group projects are poorly organized and I learned very little despite putting in lots of effort. He micromanages and generally makes the class feel like something from high school. Avoid CS156 unless you miss feeling like a 15-year-old taking your first AP.

Conrad is a nice guy. I guess that's why he has a high rating. He and his teaching team sucks. He creates projects that require a high level of participation from he and his TAs (reviewing PRs, responding to many different group questions), and then does not attend to these responsibilities. Bad planner, bad at supporting students. Bad class.

Took his online course for CMPSC 8 and had a great time. He's funny and cares about students

One of the few professors I'd rate 5/5. Took CS16 and he was absolutely amazing at helping students get situated into complicated computer science concepts. Funny, lectures broken down to ELI5 language, class pace was definitely doable, and incredibly knowledgeable. The labs were easy and ZyBook was a phenomenal online textbook used for the class.

Cs156 taught me how to code. Loved this class and loved conrad!

Professor Conrad was great, especially online which is how I took this course. He is always open to any and all questions, and has a ton of easily accessible office hours. The class is a lot of work every week, with reading, quizzes, and labs, but if you stay on top if it early in the week, or even get ahead, it's not a problem.

Professor was passionate about what he taught and really knowledgeable. He became sick halfway through the quarter and the class basically became online. The class then became too easy to the point where you don't learn anything. I feel like I don't have a strong foundation for future CS courses because this class was so easy.

This was my most enjoyable class and professor yet. The class is structured online through zyBooks. Weekly quizzes, but no midterm/final exams. Final project was easy. TA's can be helpful (I think, but mine was pretty useless). Overall, worthwhile, and I would take again in the future.

Just a fantastic professor that is passionate about what he teaches. Class was structured in a way to mimic real world web development. Overall I felt that I received a lot of value from this class.

Very passionate about the subject and always willing to help you. Practice quizzes were always provided that were very similar to the actual ones. Final had infinite submissions that showed you your score each time to allow you to get the highest grade possible.

Conrad is a great professor objectively! Passionate and caring towards the subject and his students. However, he got sick in the middle of the quarter, canceling our midterm on such a short notice and starting to lose focus during lectures. Hopefully, this was just a one time thing, but I honestly have not learned much because of it.

Conrad is a passionate and knowledgeable teacher. He explains complicated concepts well through examples and works hard to make instructions for projects as clear as possible.

Conrad has a very good reputation in the CS department at UCSB. However, when I took his course he became very sick midway through. This caused him to cancel the midterm with two hours of notice and replace them with a series of 5 asynchronous quizzes with multiple attempts. Same deal with the final. This class is a joke.

This class was an emotional rollercoaster. Phil is a lovely lad with a respectable reputation, but health problems really impacted his ability to focus. Our midterm was canceled two hours before it took place, and was replaced with five asynchronous quizzes which we still have not taken days before the quarter has ended. I've learned nothing.

A PNP class where you define your own project and work on it. Short standup for every class & mandatory final presentation & voluntary presentations during the quarter. Reach out to Prof. Conrad if you face any problems in/out of this class - he's always willing and able to help you with all kinds of amazing resources! Super warm and knowledgeable.

Best CS teacher I've ever had. A must take class for students interesting in pursing software development professionally.

Great lecturer. Assigns zyBooks, which is a lot of reading if you're new to CS, and labs. Mostly an easy A if coming from a coding background, but Conrad's grading policy requires 93+% in all grade categories (zyBooks, labs, midterm, final) to get an A in the class, which screws over a ton of students. (Fall 2021)

Decent class. However, this professor fails to handle the class average wisely. He probably gets half the class w/ an avg > 95 by the end of the quarter and needs to give A- to a group of top-performance students. Beware of the final - mine was 25 multiple choice questions, in which, if you get 2 wrongs, you will end up with an A- by his rule.

He is a Prof who actually cares about you learning. I don't want to water down this review more. He's a genuinely good person who is also a phenomenal Professor. His class CS156 tackles some tough things to do in a quarter and he's on his own in this regard as well as academia doesn't cover what he teaches in this class. GOAT status.

Conrad's pretty passionate about cs and always ready to help students understand things. Easy A if you have a little background in programming.

Online textbook subscription was around $70. The class was overall easy, a bit more challenging when we got to new concepts. Workload includes Zybook and labs which are not much. With the grading criteria, students who got A- on their exams end with an A- for the course even with a 96% in the class since he made the course too easy :/

Conrad is a great lecturer and seems extremely passionate about his work. He gives amazing feedback and explanations are clear. The only thing that I was worried about was the grading structure. All grade categories needed to be 93% or greater for eligibility for an A in the entire class. However, the class was pretty easy with only one midterm.

Conrad is so caring and such a good teacher. His lectures are very well thought out and teach you a lot about how to use Vim in terminal. The class starts out very easy then progressively becomes more challenging as we cover new topics. Be sure to stay on top of the Zybook Hw bc it can end up being a lot more work than you anticipated.

He is good. The course content is not hard, and the lectures are good. But the grading criteria is bad. I get 97% in total, but the final grade is A-.