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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Algorithms, Part I by Princeton University

4.9
stars
11,100 ratings

About the Course

This course covers the essential information that every serious programmer needs to know about algorithms and data structures, with emphasis on applications and scientific performance analysis of Java implementations. Part I covers elementary data structures, sorting, and searching algorithms. Part II focuses on graph- and string-processing algorithms. All the features of this course are available for free. It does not offer a certificate upon completion....

Top reviews

RM

May 31, 2017

This is a great class. I learned / re-learned a ton. The assignments were challenge and left a definite feel of accomplishment. The programming environment and automated grading system were excellent.

RP

Jun 10, 2017

Incredible learning experience. Every programmer in industry should take this course if only to dispel the idea that with the advent of cloud computing exponential algorithms can still ruin your day!

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101 - 125 of 2,223 Reviews for Algorithms, Part I

By Tang

May 25, 2017

the course was perfect after the introductory CS course, it make you starting to pay more attention to how efficient you program runs. Besides, aside from the intricate math analysis, the instructor also spent a fair amount of time emphasizing on the practical applications where these algorithm truly shines, I love the course not only because the knowledge I acquire about these alogorithm, but the more fundamental reason why we even need them at the first place.

HW each week was fun and challenging, however, sometimes it requires a fair amount of self-exploring before hitting the right track, but it was totally worth it.

By Julei Y

Dec 9, 2017

Excellent algorithms course. Thank you Professor Robert Sedgewic and Kevin Wayne for producing such high qualify course on algorithms and making it free to all those want to learn.

Professor Robert Sedgewick explains complicated concepts in a much simplified and understood way, with a lot of visualization and concise code it's clear and easy for me to understand the logic. I also like the projects, Kevin Wayne organized them very well, the auto grading is super and give us immediate feedback on function correctness and time memory usage. Doing projects helps a lot to retain and solid what I have learned.

By Abe

Nov 7, 2022

I very much like how the information is presented on Specification pages. Everything is described clearly, with pictures (!), the FAQ page is a great addition to the course as it guides through edge cases, and moreover the page is just pleasant to observe.

Lectures are comprehensive, step-by-step algorithm running is a great way to understand it, I like it. It would be nice to have 1080p videos though, as 720p is quite blurry. In general, the course helped me to look at multiple tasks on LeetCode with new approaches, more straightforward than I used to implement.

By Juliano P

Feb 7, 2021

This course is AWESOME! Professor Sedgewick is great, the slides are very clear, all the selected algorithms have animations step by step and the tests have extensive test cases to make you worry about the smallest aspects of the code (correctness, memory and timing).

I took the first course of Stanford's Algorithm Specialization, and I say this one is much better. The Stanford's one is theoretical and academic. I think it is more like a deeper dive if you are willing to be an algorithms specialist, but for practical purposes, Princeton's course is much better.

By Aavo M

Apr 25, 2021

A very well explained course. But for some exercises the task was confusing. With 8puzzle it took me a lot of time to understand, that for the node priority calculation the moves must not be some global variable of steps so far, but the moves of the min item popped from priority queue. And also with kdTrees for too much time I spend on finding a general solution, unilt I realised that all the points are actually in the unit square (this simplification makes it very easy to find sub-rectangles and to solve the exercise). I'll defenitely buy the book also now :)

By Yuvaraj T

Apr 17, 2020

One of the best course on the internet to learn the data structures with its interesting mathematical applications(algorithms). The assignments are really interesting and challenging which gives us the feel of accomplishment when we finished it. The professor Robert Sedgewick explains clearly in the every part of this course. With the active discussion forums we can clear our doubts instantly even if you are in the other end of the world. Thank you for the professor Robert Sedgewick and professor Kevin Wayne and Princeton university for this great course.

By Vivek b

Oct 12, 2017

This course gives a really good feel of data structures and object oriented programming. The programming exercises are real fun (although exceptional handing/corner cases are bit frustrating). The course starts with union find and basic data structures like stack, queue, but the difficulty escalates very quickly (one needs a lot of patience for thorough understanding of Binary Search Tree (BST), Red-Black Tree, and Kdtree). I am sure you would learn something new even if you have already taken a course on Data Structure/Algorithm. Best of luck!!!

By Steven C

May 14, 2017

Lectures and explanations are methodical, detailed, and to-the-point. Occasionally I might be upset that I didn't understand something as clearly as it appeared as though Professor Sedgewick did, but, of course, part of the experience mandates that I make myself understand! The professor was encouraging, the TAs were extremely helpful and generous with their time, and my fellow students were kind, respectful, and also helpful. I would highly recommend this class to anyone seeking to enhance their knowledge of computer science and/or programming.

By Anton M

Nov 11, 2019

Great introductory-to-middle course on data structures and algorithms.

You're expected to know some Java in order to follow it, but acquired skills can be easily transfered to other languages.

On the other side, instructors will favor usage of classes (like set or stack) from customly written library, not standard Java one. Another thing, after each subject there are some examples of interview questions in the form of exercises. They feel like badly prepared and you'll spend most time looking for a better explanation/answers on the forum threads.

By Alfredo V

Mar 8, 2017

Wow, great course, one of the best in Coursera! I enjoyed the lectures a lot, they are engaging and fast paced, the examples of practical applications are interesting; the assignments and interview questions are well thought and challenging.

Thanks so much to the Princeton professors who decided to make this amazing material available online. The course is so good I had to buy Sedgewick and Wayne's Algorithms book, not because it was needed for the course (it is not, you have all you need in the lectures), but because they totally rock! Thanks!

By Aneesa S

Sep 12, 2017

After completing this course, I understand the fundamentals of algorithm design and analysis. The instructor presented the course material concisely and has a very deep understanding of algorithms. Being able to see the output of the autograder allowed me to see exactly where my code had errors or was not efficient enough. The assignments were very challenging, but after completing them I was sure I had understood the material fully. Thank you Princeton for this wonderful course! It was definitely the best online course I've ever come across.

By Tom T

Nov 18, 2016

Brilliant! I started the Algorithms course with not insubstantial software experience. However, I last took data structures over 10 years ago and decided to give myself a 'refresher' since my area of specialization rarely utilizes structures such as BST's or hash tables.

The assignments are 'just right' in applying algorithmic concepts and real-world technical rigor. The problems are focused and contained to fit busy schedules, but, at the same time, challenging enough to provide a sense of accomplishment and to see practical applicability.

By Zachary A G

Oct 1, 2016

I find Prof. Sedgewicks' moderately paced lectures very concise and easy to follow. His animated demo of each algorithm clearly demonstrates how the algorithm works. I find the problem sets challenging and fun, and finally finding an optimized solution as very rewarding, especially when I get the bonus scores. While this course uses Java as the programming language, I find the concepts quite easy to apply in other programming languages such as C. Thank you very much course staff for offering this excellent course for free here at Coursera!

By Kor T

May 23, 2020

Thanks for offering such wonderful instructions! Before taking this course, I had spent many hours reading the text book and my progress was painfully slow. This course with its instruction videos and programming assignment allowed me to quickly master the key concepts and apply them to solve real problems. The instructions from Professor Sedgewick are among the best that I had ever received from a teacher. I am looking forward to applying the knowledge in my future projects. Thank you again! God Bless.

Sincerely Yours,

Kor Tse

By Oleg G

Jan 10, 2017

Typical question of novice of programming: What language should I learn first?

Typical answer is incorrect, sadly.

Correct answer is: It doesn't matter. Algorithms and patterns matters. I'm not sure about patterns, but Donald Knuth and Robert Sedgewick are best at algorithms. And here you have unique possibility to learn from the best. Rush for it! And be prepared, it won't be easy.

And many thanks to Kevin Wayne for his fundamental job. Probably he is the one who we should thank for this great opportunity to learn it here, on coursera.

By Amlandeep B

May 6, 2017

Great not just for the underlying basic algorithms taught, but very close to what API design looks like in the professional context. Sedgewick's lectures are concise, focused and very easy to follow. the assignments are also reflective of good design in Java, and serves as a great complement to the four-part (formerly two part) course in Algorithms by Tim Roughgarden (in which I used python for the assignments). I personally took this course After the Stanford course but would recommend the reverse if you're new/still in college.

By Zhenwei Z

Mar 30, 2020

This course tells the basic algorithms and data structures, the best place of this course is the high quality of its assignments. They not only strengthened the understanding of the algorithm, and made us konw the importance of paying special attention to the exception handling, processing, immutable data types, function calls with no side effects, time complexity and space complexity, and these assignmnets help us to think about any possible corner cases, deepened our coding ability or is benefit for future programming work.

By RA

Jul 2, 2019

Amazing course! Loved the video lectures, the material is tough but the logic of lectures and the course itself is very clear. Also there is a book where you can find more details. I also loved the assignments, they were tough as well but very interesting. Don't afraid if it is your first experience in Java, if you know the basics you can pass them (also there is real help in forums). So I recommend this course for everybody who wants to learn some practical applications of algorithms and to know the basic theory. Thank you!

By 李迎

Oct 24, 2016

I really like this course. I think the pace of video is appropriate, clearly explaining the main knowledge of each part but not digging into details too much. for me,

I never learned algorithm or java before, but I can mostly grab the lecture content. Another reason I like about the course is the amazing programming assignment part. Each assignment is a little bit challenging but not overwhelming and you can exactly know how well you did through the precisely computing grader system. Thanks for such a wonderful CS course!

By 柳子豪

Dec 12, 2023

I took this course to review what I learned as a computer science major. Needless to say, I was impressed with the quality it offers as a free online course. Rather than spending time grinding some leetcode problems, I recommend programming exercises here as they have practical implications and require decent amount of algorithmic insights. I found randomized queue assignment hard initially but was able to solve it with 100/100 after following through what's talked about in class. The KdTree assignment is also a ton of fun.

By Polina G

Oct 9, 2017

Very well structured course. Amazing booksite and the full book with a bunch of practical exercises available. Lectures do not simply repeat what you can read in the book but concentrate on the gist and give advanced explanations and live demos of the most important concepts.

Programming assignments are designed in very capturing manner. I was challenged to solve interesting practical task meanwhile algorithm itself was only a tool to do it. And very detailed auto-grading tests ensured me that I used that tool correctly.

By J.D. D

Apr 1, 2017

Fantastic hands-on course that helps you explore algorithms. You should be pretty comfortable with programming in Java (comfortable with creating linked data structures) to get the most of out of it.

Assignments are incredibly well designed and allow you to make progress without much instructor. The discussion board is pretty responsive from other students in the course.

A great supplement if you have taken/are taking an algorithm course without any programming assignments (or poorly structured programming assignments)

By Nilson C

Jun 14, 2023

This was the most difficult mooc that I ever done, until now (maybe the part II will take this position), but what I learned is imaginable. I have now much more knowledge about algorithms and mainly how to code and understand what context I should apply it. I thank princenton, Sedgewick and Wayne to create this course for everyone. It's challeging, it's true, I take more 4 weeks than expected, and that's fine, what is important is conclude, and I have proud to say that I done it. I recommend for everyone this journey.

By albert a

Apr 26, 2021

Super interesting, was an enormous investment of time, but worth every second, even in times where I was frustrated with my implementation. Yes, this class is a real time drainer, but my response would be that the process is rewarding and was really enjoyable. The material is challenging and the lectures are succinct, but it's a real experience to learn how to struggle and keep going back and rewatching and rereading hoping to scrape just a little information that you missed: "learning to learn". Well worth the time!

By Guibao W

Jul 6, 2019

Great course for two reasons: 1) if you look at the reference code in the slides and extended materials, you will be amazed at how simple (and elegant) the implementations are. It's definitely a good point every serious programmer should strive for; 2) Each programming assignment were designed very very carefully. If you download the project zip files, you will see ton of testing datasets for debugging. Apparently they (the test data) had been chosen to help correct your solution, which are often very hard to obtain.