Teaching

“It’s a very good course. It should be included in the regular ECE department courses instead of a Special Topic.”

“The course introduced me to the whole world of side-channel attacks, in addition to providing me with advanced insight into the details of the Microarchitecture.”

“This course strengthened my MS degree and I’m more proud and satisfied with studying at CE here.”

“She is someone who is able to see both the big picture, and the technically-deep details - which is an invaluable skill to have ...”

“Challenging us to constantly connect the dots ourselves, the overlaps in details, the limitations between works, ways to rethink problems - these are all aspects of a great instructor.”

“She is very knowledgeable, and she teaches with such exciting energy that it helped me learn and appreciate more of whatever was being taught.”

“The instructor designed course very well to build up the material and it was a gradual line up to understand the complex topics at the end of the course. Overall amazing course and would love to take it again if provided”

“It was papers based course, it helped me read papers fast and come up with belief of strength and weakness of papers by reading it through. The materials were made to help us understand step by step”

“Dr. Ajorpaz was very excited about the course material which really helped everyone get more interested in the topics presented. She was always receptive to any questions or concerns and provided additional material or in-class discussions which helped strengthen fundamental understandings of the course and peripheral subjects.”

“Reading all the research papers helped understand the overarching problems within microarchitecture security and helped with literacy in reading research papers quickly and understanding how to identify the benefits and drawbacks within each paper.”

“Dr. Samira is passionate about what she teaches and explains concepts in great detail. She tries to simplify concepts by referring to interesting examples that I found helpful. She is receptive and responds quickly to queries outside her office hours.”

“Besides, writing reviews and proposals helped improve my reading ability and comprehension skills. Furthermore, I enjoyed the in-class discussion and felt comfortable asking queries and sharing my thoughts with others.”

“She helped us to develop mindset of how to think in security domain.”

“I am very happy that the course was offered and would be recommending it to others if offered next time”

“Overall, the course itself has helped me immensely in terms of breadth of my knowledge, and depth of the topics we discuss. I would sooner tell her to leave everything unchanged, instead of risking ’mixing it up’ and potentially making the course less effective.”

“Dr. Ajorpaz is knowledgeable and she is able to engage students on the topic. She is passionate and that passion shows.”

“Nothing it is perfect. The course has the right balance of teaching and self learning, as expected from a special topics course.”

“Introduces a new domain which is not often thought of especially in academics but is very relevant in the industry especially in the current landscape.”

“The professor has a very good understanding of the industry requirements and the recent trends related to the course. The professor introduced the students to new concepts. The teaching was great and the classes were very interactive.”

“The course material introduced me to new concepts that I have never heard of. The course challenged me to combine the learnings from all previous courses to come up with new ideas and understanding.”

“It was good that the instructor encouraged active participation in the class in the form of questions, quizzes, and discussions. There was an open environment where we could share our freely answers and thoughts irrespective of whether it was right or wrong.”

“The instructor does an amazing job at starting at the simplest perceptron and building us up to full neural network architectures.”

“Great professor who was always willing to help. Professor cares about her students and wants us to learn and grow which is very helpful.”

“She made the class genuinely exciting and something to look forward to every week.”

“A very interesting course that inculcates research oriented thinking. I liked that it was approach and insight oriented rather than result oriented.”

“The instructor is capable of creating an enjoyable class environment. I felt incentivized to attend lectures, not just because I am interested in the course material, but also to have a good time.”

“I also think the focus on transformer models and LLMs fills an important gap in other ML courses at NC State.”

“The professor ensured the class environment was one of open engagement. Students are strongly encouraged to ask questions and the discussions that follow them were productive.”

“Very fun and interactive enjoyed the class”

“Good for developing a research mindset”

“Dedication of time and efforts for the students of class, in terms of project and presentation guidance”

“Ability to put together students with different skillsets on project teams promoting students to learn from each others strengths.”

“She cared for each student to learn and balanced the requirements for undergraduates and graduates, making it easier for undergrads to succeed in the challenging course.”

“This course is great for undergrads though you need a little background in programming”

“The course does a great job of explaining the development of the concepts, really liked the layout of the course and the in class assignments.”

“Best prof one could ever ask for, she has in depth understanding and her teaching is really good, she explains everything with finesse!”

“Best course i had taken so faar, it improved my understanding in multiple domains.”

“The entire structure is very strong and builds confidence on each and every aspects such as research work, industry standards and domain knowledge!”

“I loved the subject and the teaching approach taken by the professor.”

“The professor is really very supportive and showed interest and was available any time.”

“The course was very good overall in terms of practical projects, presentations, quizzes, theory part, etc. Really well structured course.”

“I would strongly recommend this course to anyone who wants to get started with Generative AI. While NC State does not offer many courses on Generative AI, this is one of the best courses one can take.”

“Great instructor, loved the structure and course style. She had a personal style in addressing the class and took measures to make sure everyone knew each other.”

“Dr. Ajorpaz was extremely motivated in helping students gain knowledge not only about the history of machine learning/AI but also the current modern day applications as well.”

“The instructor teaches well, and the material is course-relevant”

“I think the material and project work in this course are very relevant and a good learning experience.”

“This course taught the most important skill in tech, which is the skill of critical thinking.”

“Keep up the great work!! Very balanced course load and extremely understanding instructor make it a great course to take.”