(Selected at random from the course evaluations submitted by students near the
end of the semester.  Well, OK, not exactly selected at random.)


	This was close to -- not the absolute, but close -- to one of the
	worst classes I've taken here at Harvard.  The lectures were
	useless, the book was incomprehensible, and the teaching staff was
	barely competent and completely disorganized.  Prof. Denenberg
	showed early promise as a riveting lecturer who had done a lot of
	thinking about higher education and would be a great lecturer.
	Apparently, however, Prof. Denenberg failed to realize that the
	CS121 style of teaching -- read off your own notes that you
	simultaneously put up on the overhead projector and hand out to the
	students -- is the absolute hands-down BEST way to reduce students
	to stupefied, uninterested, uncaring blobs, as well as the world's
	least effective way of encouraging students to come to class.
	
	Instead of subjecting myself to this ordeal, it was easier to learn
	off of the notes or book.  The book -- just because the Prof. wrote
	it doesn't mean it's any good!  There is a classic text in this
	field, and there's a reason it's the classic:  its explanations are
	much clearer, much better, than the infinitely dull book we were
	subjected to.  So I also tried section, which was of no use
	whatsoever.  

	All this says nothing of the organization of the class, which was
	abysmal.  The TFs were totally disorganized, the responsibilities
	and requirements (for example, about the breakdown of problem sets
	into sections) ill-defined and shifting, the method of returning
	homeworks totally ludicrous.

	Did I learn anything from this class?  Sure!  How NOT to teach
	algorithms; and something about algorithms, in the hardest, most
	onerous, time-tested manner:  ON MY OWN.