UBC CPSC 313 Computer Hardware and Operating Systems

CS 313 is basically a computer organization course with additional topics such as file systems.

Assignments weren't as challenging and rewarding as I expected but OK.

I would say take it with Donald Acton if you want to master the material. His exams and assignments were much harder than those of other instructors. For example, we modified matrix multiplication codes to exploit cache and parallelism in order optimize performance, while other sections didn't. His exams would be difficult but he also scales. I thought I failed the final but still ended up getting 95%. 

I would say take it in sophomore or even in freshman year so that you have a good understanding of caching and virtual memory etc.

Difficulty: 3.0 / 5.0

Quality:     3.5 / 5.0