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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Data Structures and Performance by University of California San Diego

4.8
stars
2,210 ratings

About the Course

How do Java programs deal with vast quantities of data? Many of the data structures and algorithms that work with introductory toy examples break when applications process real, large data sets. Efficiency is critical, but how do we achieve it, and how do we even measure it? This is an intermediate Java course. We recommend this course to learners who have previous experience in software development or a background in computer science, and in particular, we recommend that you have taken the first course in this specialization (which also requires some previous experience with Java). In this course, you will use and analyze data structures that are used in industry-level applications, such as linked lists, trees, and hashtables. You will explain how these data structures make programs more efficient and flexible. You will apply asymptotic Big-O analysis to describe the performance of algorithms and evaluate which strategy to use for efficient data retrieval, addition of new data, deletion of elements, and/or memory usage. The program you will build throughout this course allows its user to manage, manipulate and reason about large sets of textual data. This is an intermediate Java course, and we will build on your prior knowledge. This course is designed around the same video series as in our first course in this specialization, including explanations of core content, learner videos, student and engineer testimonials, and support videos -- to better allow you to choose your own path through the course!...

Top reviews

DB

Oct 12, 2017

Great into to Java, instructors have clearly put thought in to the format with the choose your own learning style videos, and additional coverage where it may be needed. These have been very helpful.

SS

Dec 18, 2015

The course curriculum is well designed and teaches students the basic data structures needed to be a successful software engineer. The project is good, and the weekly assignments are challenging.

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1 - 25 of 444 Reviews for Data Structures and Performance

By Surhud B

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Apr 8, 2020

Outdated course and not what I was looking for. It contains all assignments on a Java Swing application which is outdated too.

By Rahul S

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Aug 1, 2020

This course code is outdated and cant be accessed from newer versions of Java Fx.

By Jade F

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Jan 5, 2019

I am very happy that this course is part of the Object Oriented Java Specialization - the one which has 2 courses from Duke and 2 courses from UCSD. If you are reading this, it goes without saying that you are interested in learning more about Java and getting certification - this course will do that but begin to blend in a lot more topics that are specific to Computer Science - topics like algorithm efficiency for sorting and finding data.

This shift towards Computer Science theory, as opposed to practical Java programming, may surprise you. This can be challenging material - but in the context of the course, you can evaluate how you feel about it without committing too much - since it's the final course in the specialization.

Regardless of your receptiveness to theory, the content is highly relevant in practice, just be warned that you may not breeze through this course. It will definitely be worth it though, as knowledge of these topics are what's expected of people with a Computer Science background in the field today.

By Alex R

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May 2, 2016

There is no one participating or collaborating here! There's no way to get help.

By PRAVYA R

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Jul 13, 2020

Outdated java is used! Applets are not even included in latest Java versions.

By Akosa E

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Dec 6, 2016

Very solid review of data structures. In fact, I learned a lot of new things along the way like how to benchmark test Java code and how to properly use JUnit and other unit testing frameworks.

By Yvette W

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Feb 6, 2016

This course by Alvarado, Minnes and Porter was clear, interesting and well presented. In fact, it's one of the better MOOC courses that I've taken.

The assignments were of medium difficulty: not too easy but certainly not so difficult that you will get frustrated and give up. In addition, they are interesting assignments. As mentioned, the lectures are concise, clear and interesting. In fact, I recently signed up for another course on algorithms and dropped it because it was SO BORING. Also, I am taking a course on machine learning that presents algorithms. In contrast, that course is not clear whatsoever; if I hadn't taken this one then I would be very confused. Finally, I like how they have the Concept Challenges where students discuss a problem. The thought processes of multiple people talking through the problem was helpful for me.

As a result, I highly recommend this course to anyone who wants to brush up on performance calculations (i.e., Big O), basic data structures, and a few basic algorithms.

By Shoukang

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Jul 9, 2021

This course illustrates the most common data structures well. With proper amount of practice with tests and an interesting project that you can play with. I especially enjoy building a linked list by myself. I hope we can also build a hash table in week 6. The hash table course gives a nice explanation but less practice. and we didn't have a chance to deal with a hash map. I also hope the explanations can go deeper. Overall it's a nice course and worth the time.

By Sruti R

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Mar 25, 2019

For someone who has some experience of coding but did not venture much into data structures - this is a superb course as it covers an introduction to data structures, their performance, test driven development, benchmarking and more. The lectures and project materials were simply great for introducing the concepts as they were challenging but not too overwhelming for the typical intermediate level beginner like myself.

By Dixon B

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Oct 13, 2017

Great into to Java, instructors have clearly put thought in to the format with the choose your own learning style videos, and additional coverage where it may be needed. These have been very helpful.

By Yatin K

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Jan 11, 2016

I really liked this course and the way it was taught. Although I am a CS major, I really learnt a lot of other stuff from this course apart from learning the core content of Data Structures.

By Pat C

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Mar 3, 2019

Top class course with top class instructors. Later after completing the course I come back to this material to refresh the material. Top class instruction.

By Akshay G

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Sep 10, 2019

well prepared, thank you so much!

By Krishna

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Sep 26, 2019

Great Course, really loved it.

By Krishna A

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Feb 1, 2019

The idea of applying linkedlists, hashmaps, trees to solve a commonly occurring problem of Word suggestions is cool. It allows the students appreciate the practical context in which these algorithms are useful. The assignments can be made a bit harder to make the learning that much more worthwhile.

By SHAOCHIN L

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Sep 11, 2019

Love this course combining the data structure with some basic real word problem

By Valeriano T

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Feb 20, 2016

Introductory course to data structures. The lectures are good, however the assignments are too much guided. Sometimes you can get it done without actually understanding what is going on.

By Tarun L

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May 7, 2020

Dont Take this course if you want to learn updated OOPs concepts

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By Jesús A

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Feb 7, 2016

This course is a excellent introduction to data structures and algorithms for beginners. The lectures are extensive, complete and very helpful. The assignments are challenging and stimulating. The project is the construction of a text editor with check spelling, auto-correction, suggestion and more. It was the first time I felt involve in a large project, and you learn a little bit of software engineering too. This is the second course in the specialization and it overcomes the previous course in every aspect.

I'll give five stars. The only thing I didn't like was the concept challenges, and not because of the challenges but because of the discussion with the UC San Diego learners. They are not beginners, they are actor pretending they don't know how to solve the problems when it is evident -at least it was my impression- that they are advanced students. I found them annoying and not helpful at all.

By Shail B

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Dec 5, 2017

Great course. I am learning so many things. This course has improved my structured thinking to start with a real world problems in many ways. I have adopted test-driven-development cycle for all my work which has improved my code quality significantly. All those real word challenges videos are a nice inspiration. My favorite videos are the "How I Struggled" because I am able to relate myself facing the similar kind of situation and got boosted to continue. Liked course structure. It works for me.

Mia, Christine and Leo are just awesome . Thanks for all your efforts. Really grateful to you and University of California, San Diego. Thanks.

By Rajesh C

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Jan 17, 2016

This course covers some of the industry standard applications and they can be implemented. This really challenges the programmer to sit down and work some of the very good algorithms. And it shows the real usage of the Java data structures.

Professors Christine, Mia and Leo's teachings were very professional and helpful.

A word about the projects. After a student finishes the projects, they can confidently say they did something good with the data structures in Java.

Thank you for the course instructors and everyone who worked behind this.

Highly recommended for the serious Java programmers.

By Dee W

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Aug 2, 2016

I love this class. There are a couple of data structure classes in Coursera and i think this class fits me the most. I like that it teaches data structures and how to use them in the real world. So, you will be building actual programs with the data structures you learn . It skips alot of the math stuff and I love it because i am not trying to be a "real computer scientist" . I dont need to know how to write a math proof on how a algorithm works what not. Maybe in the future when i want to do research, but as of right now, I just want to build cool software and have fun.

By Rafael M

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Jan 28, 2016

I'm graduated in System Analysis, not Computer Sciences, and learned to program only by experience. After 20 years it's a good deal but still I missed the theoretical background and this always annoyed me. I knew and used to make good use of all the structures presented in this course but never could quite explain how or why, or talk in asymptotic notations. Now I can. I didn't stop here, I do take some topics to deep dive during the lectures. It's being a great experience and I only wish I could have more time to keep myself always enrolled in some course.

By Dzejlan

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Dec 22, 2015

This is one of the best series of courses I came along in online MOOC platform, such a brilliant course, this whole specialization is brilliant, such a interesting projects, I'm disappointed that I live in country that isn't that much wealthy to help this Specialization and to be able to do Capstone Project , but I wish all the best hope to finish all in time, this is in my top 3 online MOOC Courses and I saw a lot of them.

I wish all the best to this team and people that made this possible.

By Konstant K

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Feb 11, 2016

The course is fantastic! The professors are very enthusiastic and creative: they explain difficult subjects very clearly and provide visual aids and in-video quizes to enhance more deep understanding of material.

Special thanks for the project assignments! They are very interesting and well-laid.

I would recommend this course to programmers who want to deepen and practice their data-structures skills. For the novices this course should be taken after the first course of the specialization.