Teaching

Technology advances so quickly that it is difficult to keep students well-prepared to face the challenges of today's workforce. To address this, my overall teaching philosophy is to focus on general concepts that underly all networking and security systems and then draw upon a vast amount of examples in both research and industry that are instantiations of those concepts. I have applied this approach to all of the courses I have developed and continuously update them over time to ensure their relavence to students.  I am also a proponent of utilizing methods at the bottom of the learning pyramid and have attempted to have students balance passive listening to lectures with hands on lab activities and project presentations. The results of this approach are reflected in the instructor effectiveness ratings across course offerings which are listed in the table below along with some comments from students in each.

Click on course title to display reviews

Term Rating Comments

Spring 2024

4.8/5.0



It was great course and Instructors emphasis on Lab exercises during the class time was very helpful in understanding the practical implementation of the Generative security applications. Thank you so much!


Top 5 professors at PSU, class is new so it's not fully flushed out. But professor knows the materials and teaches it well

Term Rating Comments
Fall 2023

4.9/5.0

(9 months later) I was a student of your CS430 - Internet Web and Cloud Systems class back in Fall 2023. This elective (should be required!) quickly became my favorite class thanks to its valuable material, an exceptional incremental assignment structure and engaging lectures to reinforce the numerous cloud tools we dive onto with the easy-to-follow labs. Establishing the basics of containerization, virtual machines, web servers, and cloud deployment has massively helped me attain an internship opportunity and increased my confidence working in my job's cloud-centric environment. I've been recommending this class to my peers for its extremely practical tools and knowledge to know before entering the industry, taught in a way that you can tell the course is well-crafted and prioritizes learning by application. I still reference my final project to refresh myself on cloud deployment, security policies, Docker containers, and GCP databases.

Thanks for teaching this class. I learned so much and I'm really excited to learn more about the cloud.

This class should be required for CS bachelors. I can't believe they required me to take Programming Langugages and not this class

Wu-Chang is an exceptional instructor. He really has a talent for making subjects interesting and keeping students engaged during his lectures. This class requires a lot of time, but he is very clear with his expectations and satisfactorily generous with late work. I really enjoyed this class and felt that I learned a lot.

Professor Wu did a fantastic job presenting a large amount of information and the labs, though quite the time consumption, were necessary for learning the subjects along the way!

Appreciate the professors incorporation of emerging technologies, such as generative AI into the curriculum

Wu-chang Feng is all ready my favorite instructor at PSU. He is smart, and very adept at parsing out questions from students who don't know the question they are asking! I will highly recommend him to other students and look forward to taking more of his classes. The material is pertinent and relatable

The professor demonstrates both expertise and dedication in his teaching approach. He has structured the course into various modules and invests significant time in thoroughly explaining each topic. Additionally, he has meticulously crafted laboratory exercises and homework assignments that effectively facilitate practical learning in cloud project development. However, it is important to note that the labs and homework are quite intensive and require a considerable amount of time and effort to complete, akin to solving complex puzzles.

This course was one of the best ones ive taken at PSU. All the lab assignments were very meaningful and were great resources for the homeworks and projects. The professor and TA we're very helpful during code parties, office hours, and in the Slack channel. I have zero complaints about the class or their commands on the material. I would recommend this course to any and all CS students.

This is probably one of the best courses offered at PSU. Professor Feng does an incredible job teaching the material and providing real world examples. Additionally, the labs were well thought out and helped me solidify the lecture material.

Spring 2023

4.9/5.0

Excellent class, loved the in-person and practical homeworks and Labs were very practical and class material was advanced with the most recent technologies in CS. Overall coverage of the cloud concepts was really insightful.

This class has been one of my favorite CS classes I have taken, and close to one of my favorite classes I have taken generally. The lecture style from Feng was very informative to me and helped further my understanding of the material and the field as a whole. Additionally, The lab/homework structure of the course has been my favorite. I felt like I learned a lot and only struggled enough to force myself to learn what I needed to. All in all I cannot say enough good things about this class.

I LOVE the "evolving" homework paradigm where each assignment builds on previous incarnations. I don't feel like the jumps between each were too large; it was balanced really well. Kudos on that. Also the opportunity for extra credit on HW2 was nice because it let me explore on my own and expand on what I learned, so it was really encouraging when I got it to work. I would recommend offering something similar for all the homeworks (just a couple points). Overall a great instructor with tremendous command of the subject material. I don't think I saw him even hesitate a single time when asked a question. Thanks for a great term! I will be trying to save all the screencasts for future reference.

This is hands down the most useful class at the university that I have taken so far. You cover a breadth of topics fairly deeply, and at the end you have a very solid understanding of how the web works. Professor Feng was excellent. He provided great feedback and knew the answer to almost all the questions that were ask, or else knew where to find the answer. You can tell that he both has a strong command of the subject and a passion for teaching.

To be honest, this was the best class I took as a CS student at PSU. Very useful labs and instructions, and feel like you learn something that you are going to apply in real life. I think classes should be designed this way to literally learn not only study. Not only me saying that, but every student I met in the class as well. Overall, loved it.

Fall 2022 (Hybrid)

4.7/5.0

This class workload is really huge but also really useful. I want to say that it would be better with a little less work, but I don't want to reduce its usefulness.

Very cool professor, learned a lot and am glad I took the course! It's always difficult to provide recent knowledge on developments in technology nowadays, so learning all these things is great!

This class was fantastic and I really enjoyed it :D

Thank you for making this class so much fun and WAY easier to start learning these systems than jumping in on my own!

This is the best CS class I have taken so far, the material was interesting and applicable to a software career, and the labs were a great way to become familiar with the many changing technologies and services offered in the cloud. I particularly liked the theoretical knowledge build up in the first few weeks, and that the instructor didn't take any of our subject knowledge for granted (teaching us the basics instead of assuming we knew). I wish PSU did semesters since there is so much to cover in this class!

This is one of the best courses I've taken in the PSU CS department, and is very applicable for working in this field. I also really appreciate Wu- chang's teaching style. He's very engaging and demonstrates a passion for the topic.

The course structure is very well organized, comprising of a variety of different, latest and useful topics. Hands-on tasks involved in the course are quite useful as well. Instructor has a very good command on the subject matter and lecture deliveries are really good.

I totally respect how much work has gone in to designing this class. I just feel very fortunate to have this kind of class offered to us. It's unique. In talking to other peers in other programs and other peers who have graduated, this is not a common subject to be exposed to.

This class was amazing! I was currently looking into learning this material for my job on my own, but found this class and it is a required course for me. I feel WAY more comfortable talking to the developers at my work about cloud deployments, security involved, resources that should be used, and how we can minimize docker images to save space and reduce the threats and attack vectors.

Fall 2021 (Attend Anywhere)

5.0/5.0

(9 months after course) I'm a Computer Science graduate from Portland State University currently working at Intel as a Cloud Software Development Engineer. I completed CS 530 and I just want to thank you. The topics taught were exactly what they expected from me in the Intel interview and these are the technologies used right now in industry. I was confident in my interview and now in my job because of the CS 530 labs and homework. I'm glad that I had the opportunity to take this amazing class under your assistance. Thank you!

Excellent course! I like the emphasis on Docker, kubernetes, and serverless deployment. Assignments, labs and the project are super relevant to the material discussed in class. I would 100% recommend this class to anyone I know.

Wu-chang Feng is by far the best professor I have had. He is knowledgeable and not afraid to admit when he is unsure of something. Also willing to admit to the whole class when there are issues in the notes.

Learned a lot through the class, very hands on and applicable learning. Need all CS classes to be like this project based. WE LEARN BY DOING!!!!

The labs and homework were fun...The instructor tells really good stories that are related to the material. It gives more life to the lectures and makes the course more relevant and interesting. Please tell more cool stories.

This was hands-down the best course I've taken at PSU. The amount of preparation and work the professor has done to build the code labs and homework is just staggering. In contrast to many courses which lean heavily into theory, this course is jam-packed with exposure to real world tools and services that makeup the bleeding edge of the web.

Overall a really good and really practical oriented class. Would highly recommend all students in the CS dept take it.

Wu-chang Feng is a wonderful instructor. Obviously very knowledgeable about the course material. The only thing I would suggest is more variety of assignments (please no more guestbook, or at least a little less). In any case, I really enjoyed his class.

Wu-chang continues to be one of the best professors in the department. I really appreciate Professor Feng's emphasis on current trends, tools, and technologies. The lectures and content are super dense and I really like the weekly lab structure to reinforce the materials as opposed to testing and memorization. I've learned a lot, thank you!

I always enjoy his classes and learn a lot. He makes difficult subjects enjoyable.

This course was great like all of professor Feng's courses. I learned a lot. The assignments were very useful.

Fall 2020 (remote)

4.9/5.0

The course covered such a huge range of material that I found myself pretty lost sometimes. That said, I can at least look at Cloud computing with less of a "deer-in-the-headlights" look moving forward, which is probably the ultimate goal (no one's going to be made an expert on cloud computing in 10 weeks).

This class is great. It's a ton of work, but I'm happy to do it. It feels like the most professionally relevant course I've taken yet. Should be part of the core CS curriculum. Even over zoom Wuchang is an interesting and engaging lecturer.

Really enjoyed the course. I personally found aws to be a bit frustrating with all the logouts, but that isn't really the course's fault :).

The department knows this, but Prof. Feng can always be depended on for a solidly constructed/delivered class. I'll also note that the format he's used for years lends itself well to the remote format.

An overwhelming amount of content presented in every class. But, that's understandable because there really is that much cloud tech you need to be aware of. Overall, a great experience, and learned a lot from this class.

The structure of the class is nice once you get used to it. The lab work can take longer than stated (though that might be my own fault)

This should be a required class for the CS degree. I feel like it was the last pieces of the puzzle to put together all the different things that I had learned. one of the best classes I've ever taken.

Overall I enjoyed the schedule of the class even though there are a lot of labs. I feel that I learned a lot through the progress of the course and would recommend it to others.

Wu-chang did an excellent job with this quarter. He was approachable, understandable and helped foster a comfortable environment to learn and practice new concepts. I would agree that there was probably too much homework for this course, but none of it seemed unnecessary; it was more a result of there being so much content covered in the course than Wu-chang assigning too much work. Overall I was extremely satisfied with the course and am looking forward to and actively seeking out classes taught by Wu-chang.

Fall 2019

4.9/5.0

"Absolutely love Wuchang's classes. His command over the subject is amazing. In 10 weeks I am not a pro but he has made me feel comfortable about the cloud as a novice it didn't feel like I was dwelling into something unknown. He starts with some basics knowledge and builds over that.Yes the things that are taught in 10weeks is a lot to take in actually, but with Wuchang it doesn't feel like a burden and lost.I wish he taught more classes mainly Fullstack and any web development or anything related to web classes."

"Homework labs sometimes took longer than expected due to the material being out of date/ not working with google cloud platform updates. That made it frustrating at times to complete, but otherwise, the assignments were helpful in learning to use the different tools covered in class."

"I loved the subject matter in this class and especially enjoyed the application of knowledge and learning through application. The homework assignments and gradual progression was quite clever and fun. Professor Wu-Chang had a solid grasp of the material and was able to communicate the subject matter well. He was available to answer questions in class, on Slack, etc. My main complaint was that the length of the labs were too long to the point where I felt they were not as constructive. There is so much wonderful material to cover, but cramming it in seemed daunting."

"Great lectures and labs. Some of the labs were a little disorganized but do-able. Some of the labs needed a little more clarification for it to fully make sense."

"Overall, well structured, organized and defined coursework. The professor knows the materials and explains things very well."

Spending so much time on Google Cloud really helped me understand the moving parts required to deploy complex projects to the cloud. I had experience with using certain GCloud tools but now I feel more confident especially wrt containers/Cloud Run.

I thought the instructor was great at communicating this difficult subject, although the lab assignments were tedious and I would've preferred more homework instead of labs, the thunder CTF's were great and I felt I learned more from them.

I enjoyed every single class I've taken taught by you or if the material taught was owned by you. Full-stack web development, blockchain, cloud internet and security were all good classes. I think PSU should look into creating a program that is a subset of CS (Web developer?) that does not cover the full spectrum of CS theory but includes classes like these

Classes were interesting and very informative. Some of the labs took a really long time to complete. More lab hours would have been useful!

Best CS class I've taken so far. Very useful real world skills learned rather than theoretical material.

Fall 2018

4.9/5.0

(4 years later) During my time at PSU, I had the privilege of taking two of your courses, Malware and Cloud Computing. Your classes had a profound impact on me, especially Cloud Computing, which is closely related to my current job. I really enjoyed your classes, and your teaching style not only helped me learn but also deepened my interest in the subject.

"I found this class exemplary in all respects. I have found that CS classes are normally very hit-or-miss, and this class was a definite hit. The material felt both approachable and extremely relevant to current industry practices, neither of which I can say about most CS classes. Labwork and Homework were both excellent in striking the balance between "easy enough to accomplish, given time" and "useful in teaching and conveying the material." I would take this class again in a heartbeat. I wish I had taken this class before my Capstone. I have recommended to all of my peers to take this class if it comes up again. I love this class."

"I had a great experience in this class! At a high level, I've seen most of the abstractions in the class before, but I gained a lot by working through the labs and reading the couple of linked research papers and checking out the podcasts. Your lectures were clear and well organized, and I really appreciated your discussion of how these abstractions are used in industry and how they're changing over time. Thank you for a great class!"

"Awesome class! Wished you taught all the CS classes here at PSU."

"Professor went above and beyond to be available and communicative. His understanding of the material and passion to teach make this class a pleasure to take. Definitely enjoy the hands on and lab work provided for an in depth understanding of materials. Would recommend both this professor and this course to others."

"Awesome course that covers not just fundamentals but the latest technologies in internet and cloud systems out in the industry. I would highly recommend to take this course to anyone interested."

"This was the best and most relevant course I've taken in the CS Master's program so far. I really enjoyed that it was constantly evolving. Great stuff."

"I really admire how relevant this coursework is, and how up to date on current events in the tech world Wu Chang is. I feel like I've learned more useful things in this class than anything else I've taken in the past. Thank you!"

Spring 2018

5.0/5.0

"The subject turned out to be really helpful for me. I got an DevOps Engineer Intern position"

"I wanted to let you know that i accepted a job as an Entry Level Cloud Ops Engineer... In the interview, I spoke about things we did in your class such as VM's, Containers, Docker, Kubernetes and some more and they were very impressed with the fact that i even knew what those things were, let alone have experience working with them. I didn't have very much experience with GCP or any of the technologies you taught us but with the labs you had us do, and doing some exploring in my free time, I was able to learn enough this term to help me land the job. Thank you for this term, and being a great instructor."

Term Rating Comments

Winter 2024

4.6/5.0

Very useful and informative class

Loved this class. Very fun and enjoyable. Just never have it at 8am ever again.

Extremely challenging and work-intensive, especially for someone new to it, but also one of the most valuable classes I have ever taken.

Wu-Chang is very likely one of the best instructors I have ever had. The structure of his courses works extremely well for me. The lectures are engaging and both grow my knowledge of the material, but also provide me with insights into the current events and information in the field. The homework format similarly is incredible. The lab structure builds on itself, runs well, and urges students to develop real skills using scaffolded teaching. If I was not graduating this term, I would attempt to take as many more classes with Feng as I could.

Winter 2023

4.7/5.0



Professor Feng is awesome. This has been, by far, my favorite class yet in the CS program. I loved the hands-on labwork, and really appreciated the professor's swift responses to questions over Slack.

Prof. Feng is an outstanding instructor. My only negative remark is the workload in his class is far above average compared to other courses. Instead of expecting to spend 4-8 hours a week on homework. Students should expect to spend 8-12 hrs per week. That being said the assignments are extremely valuable and are the closest thing to real world examples in a classroom setting that I have experienced so far at PSU. I think others might be harsh due to some assignments not working as intended but in a big picture view. The assignments that broke are out of his control due to updates. He provides basically all the commands and code needed. We just need to read and understand why the commands and code does what is needed for a task. The end of the labs we typically perform a given task alone with a description of a end goal. This allows us to practice what we learned and attempt the challenges on our own through trial and error.

I absolutely loved this class. Lab assignments and HW were hard at times but helped me get a better grasp at what we are learning.

Loved this class! It is a ton of work but I feel like it's worth it! There are some labs that get really repetitive especially early in the class but it also helps drilling in the material. It was really nice having youtube video walkthroughs to go over the labs but I do wish they were more obviously advertised because it took me about half the term to realize they were a thing and could have saved me a lot of time. I do really like Feng's willingness to edit his labs and always accepted our feedback. I love taking his classes.

Winter 2022

4.7/5.0



(6 months after class) Thank you for being such a great mentor to me during my university time, Wu-chang. Without your guidance, I do not think I would have gotten to where I am starting my first software job. Your cloud and web security classes have been invaluable. Thank you again.

Wu-Chang is super friendly and personable in his lectures, and he breaks subjects down and teaches them well. He has the type of positive attitude that makes a morning class bearable! I enjoyed that he gave us many real-world examples of what he was teaching us, and the variety of what we learned. This is the class that has given me the most experience with the material in the CS department, because he introduced us to so many different websites, commands, resources, programs, etc.

Wus classes are actually some of THE BEST classes i have taken here at Portland State. His teaching is done in a class that makes it easy for everyone to learn and his homework load and layout is so much better in terms of organization and length than all the other CS classes. I hope Wu sticks around for a while and that he could be an example for the rest if the CS department.

Professor Feng was one of the best instructors I've ever had. He has boundless energy and is passionate about the subect matter. In all, the best possible way to blend a long career in Infosec with a return to academia (for me). I give this class A+/10*s!!

Another great class. I've enjoyed all of Professor Feng's classes and this was no exception.

Dr. Feng's courses are always practical, informative, relevant and interesting. I have never had so much fun completing labs and homework in over two years in the CS department. At the same time, I have never been so frustrated at certain stumbling blocks while making efforts to finish tutorial-like assignments. Luckily, Dr. Feng, his TA Wen, as well as a fair amount of classmates make this learning process much more accessible and bearable. The fact that Dr. Feng is constantly and quickly responding to the class slack channel every day is just one way in which he goes above and beyond. Each lecture references recent breaches in web security, and always relates to the topics learned previously. The sheer amount of set-up and preparation for any of his courses, especially Web Security, is yet another demonstration of how committed Dr. Feng is to the process of learning. Every lab is experiential education - the main reason why the rare moments of exasperation are far outweighed by the joy of discovery and accomplishment.

It was a pleasure to take another course by Wu-chang Feng! His cloud computing course was the best course I had ever taken at PSU, and this Web Security course is even better than that one. Whether you intend to go into web development or not this content should be seriously considered for introduction into the required courses. It's things that every computer science student should be cognizant of. I would also like to specially thank the professor for the tremendous amount of work it must take to produce the labs which make up the lions share of this course. They must require constant updating to keep up with ever-changing cloud services. I will definitely put my knowledge gained through the class to good use!

Winter 2021

4.8/5.0

I appreciate this class. No other class has made me cringe harder at some of the earlier web apps I wrote. They definitely could have been exploited in several different ways. Thank you again for this class. It was really useful knowledge. I really appreciate all of the stuff I have learned.

Dr Feng was amazing. The course content is very relevant and bleeding edge for what we will experience in industry. His lecturing style is great. Sometimes it would be beneficial if the pace of the lecture slowed a bit to let everyone catch up. TA was great this class too. I liked the method of learning that avoided textbooks and exams but instead focused on hands on labs and coding assignments. It was a lot of work but a much better way to cement the concepts. Great job and I hope to work with Dr Feng again in the future!

There was a lot of great content in this class, but I felt like I was missing a lot of it due to the short term length. I felt like I couldn't really sit with the material and internalize it. None of this is the fault of the professor. Ten weeks is just not enough time to learn so much complex material.

This was one of my favorite courses at PSU. I liked all the self paced labs, and they seemed to have more direction than the Intro to Security course binary CTFs. The recorded lecture format made it easy to balance my full time work with class learning, and made it simple to follow example walkthroughs. Tying the well known hacks to actual vulnerabilities discussed in the course was interesting and relevant.

This class was a ton of work. It was not easy keeping up with all of the lab assignments, but I feel like that is balanced with the time we are given. The labs are very useful hands-on experience.

The only critique I can offer is that I found the homeworks far more insightful than the labs--especially the last half of the labs. Maybe a homework covering those labs would be a good add?

I really enjoyed this class. The workload at times felt like a lot of work, but I think this was because the nature of these homeworks came with a lot of troubleshooting (thinking of the cloud assignments specifically).

Great class, great professor.

Wu-chang is a great professor and really understands how to teach and help students properly.

Professor Feng was absolutely amazing!! I wish I could have taken this class in person, I think I would have had so much more fun, but the fact that he was able to make it fun remotely is a godsend. He did absolutely amazing in teaching us the things we need to know and the grading was fair. I think this class is a high contender for my favorite class I've ever taken at PSU. Thank you for an amazing term!!

Winter 2020

4.8/5.0

One of the best formatted classes I have taken in the CS department. Each assignment has a logical reason to be done, and has actual useful ties to the real world. You can visibly see the work that is done in class in real life examples, and that is a really powerful way to show that this is still being done to this day and how important this topic is. Thank you for teaching us so well.

Wu-Chang has an incredible amount of knowledge in the realm of cyber security. He is truly a tremendous asset in the Computer Science department's faculty at Portland State. I signed up for this course with a mild interest and a vague understanding of the subject, and I got to experience a knowledge accelerating crash course that has changed my life. I not only understand significantly more about security, I understand more about how to learn well generally. I'm a bit more paranoid about using computer systems now. Maybe for the better...

Professor Feng is one of the most organized, knowledgeable teachers I have ever had. He clearly spends time preparing for every lecture and updates the course material daily as needed/requested by students. He is very active on the course Slack channel (which REALLY NEEDS to be paid for/upgraded by the university so we dont lose conversations after 10,000 messages - extremely detrimental to constructive learning) on a daily (sometimes hourly) basis. He continues to modify the curriculum to be current with modern topics and news. He also promotes awareness of the industry (jobs available) and understanding of multiple topics/disciplines. His course outline is phenomenal and should become the basis for most CS classes - labs with clear walkthroughs, CTF style homeworks and lectures that are valuable, informative and recorded for continued learning when outside of class or absent from a lecture.

This course is fantastic and essential for keeping your online accounts safe from hackers. I would recommend it to anyone because Professor Feng knows the material like the back of his hand and makes difficult topics easy to understand.

Wu-chang is a great lecturer, communicator and is extremely knowledgeable about Web Security. I thoroughly enjoyed this class and would recommend it to others as well other classes by him.

One of the best teachers in the CS department! Very enthusiastic about what he teaches, communicates topics and course material very well, and responds very quickly and consistently via email and slack. The class was one of the most difficult CS classes I've taken in terms of the amount of work assigned and the complexity of the topics. It typically took me 4 or 5 times as long to finish every lab and assignment than indicated by the instructor. It's a personal preference, but I prefer to go into depth on less topics than to scratch the surface on so many like this class did. Amazing professor all around! I'd take him again and recommend him to anyone who is willing to put the work/hours in.

The workload is kind of a lot, but overall very interesting subject matter. I am now paranoid of most services

The instructor is really good and knows his subject really well. He is hardworking. As there is a lot of material and lab work in the course, I felt I did not get very deep knowledge of the material. It was kind of an overview of everything.

There seemed to be a lot of work for this class. It was a bit surprising.

Wu-chang Feng provides an excellent course with very enjoyable content. It was a lot of work, however the information provided was incredibly useful and applicable to both real world scenarios and exercises on the historical problems. The materials provided were incredibly useful, and his availability via Slack, Office Hours, and after class made it very easy to get help if needed. Overall one of the best courses offered in the Computer Science curriculum, highly recommend.

Cloud and Web Security by Wu-Chang Feng has been the most insightful and interesting course I have taken at PSU. The exercises were challenging and interesting, and the lectures were well prepared and educational.

This class has a fairly heavy workload so if students are wanting to take a relatively lightweight upper division CS elective, they may want to look elsewhere. The lecture itself, while good, felt kind of purposeless sometimes. I believe this was because I learned more from the hands-on nature of the labs and homework than the lectures themselves. During lecture, the instructor seemed enthusiastic about answering questions and discussing different topics. However, after lecture, it felt much more difficult to get a quality answer from the instructor. Overall, an okay course for satisfying an upper division CS elective. For students who have a deeper interest in cybersecurity, this class might fit the bill. His class is great

I'd have loved to delve deep rather than this broad. Labs/HW were really satisfactory and knowledge enhancing. But they were too hectic, I found it difficult to read through books for other subjects. I'd love to have you take an in depth course from any of the topics covered in class. Thank you professor.

Fall 2017

4.7/5.0

"I really enjoyed Professor Wu's classes. The homeworks were really fun and I learnt a lot with respect to web security vulnerabilities. I liked both the Programming Assignments."

"I thoroughly enjoyed Professor Feng's course. I think his style of teaching and assignments are both excellent. This is the second of his courses that I have taken and hope to take more. I appreciate all the work that he has put in in constructing useful homework. He is one of my favorite professors that I have encountered since I've been here."

"It was a lot of fun!"

"This class was very enjoyable and I really liked the practice!"

"Feng is a very good teacher. The class is useful and practical."

Spring 2017

4.7/5.0

"He was a great professor and really engaged with the class. Always quick to help and answer questions."

"Great course for practical experience and getting a richer understanding of web security."

"This was an awesome class, being able to learn through example really helped cement the knowledge, rather than focusing purely on theory. Great job!"

"It's refreshing to have a class with applied knowledge, where we are hands-on learning about vulnerabilities and exploitation. It is a great intro level course to build a good foundation about web security. As someone who has found a few vulnerabilities in the wild, the course does a great job of covering common vulnerabilities and attack/defend methods. Class has a good amount of work, without being too much. Coursework is enough to get the idea, and learn, without dreading doing tons of exploits. One of my favorite courses!"

"Very practical and interesting course. Thoroughly enjoyed the material and skills learned seems to be useful for future career paths. Wu-chang has been one of my favorite instructors at Portland State. He is approachable and respectful to his students."

"Great class. A practical way to approach some serious issues in computing"

Fall 2016

4.7/5.0

"The class was engaging and informational. This has been one of my favorite CS courses. Would highly recommend!"

Term Rating Comments

Fall 2022

4.8/5.0

The course is very useful and recommended

Labs were a bit grindy at times but actually saved the link to them so I can find them later on, lots of great resources!

This is my second class with Prof. Feng and he has always been a phenomenal instructor. He's extremely knowledgeable and I'm so glad to have taken this intro to computer security course. I look forward to more security courses taught by him.

Great class, very informative. The labs were well written, pragmatic, and interesting.

Professor Feng's format is one of the best and most learning inducive formats for courses out of any of the CS dept's courses Loved everything in this class

Term Rating Comments

Winter 2024

4.9/5.0

One of the most challenging but interesting CS courses I have ever taken

great class, well organized

(4 months after class) I wanted to take a moment to thank you for the fantastic malware reverse engineering course. It's been incredibly valuable for me. Since last month, I've been in the interview process with five companies for security analyst/engineer positions. In almost all the interviews, the interviewers were very interested to hear about my malware reverse engineering final project and the various debuggers and disassemblers we used. Your course provided me with invaluable exposure, and I am currently in the final rounds of discussions with two companies. Thank you again for your guidance and support.

Summer 2022 (Remote)

4.9/5.0

Really cool class, thank you!

This was a truly amazing class and the teacher did an excellent job explaining the difficult concepts.

I felt that goals were clear and he wanted to see us succeed. Great class

I found the class to be a really great experience. It was not only very informative but, also Prof. Wu-Chang Feng found a way to make the course fun. This increased my personal engagement. I also feel I retained a lot more knowledge than some other classes due to the fun factor. I have absolutely no complaints about this class.

This was my favorite CS class so far, can't wait to learn more about security. Thank you!

Excellent follow up to the work done in the System's class. This class solidified what I learned in that class, in addition with working with a bunch of different malware analysis tools. Really enjoyed the class, really enjoyed working with real professional tools. Material very interesting. Thanks!

Very fun and interesting, favorite class so far.

Thank you! I had a great class!

Thank you! Definitely a great course :)

Winter 2021

4.9/5.0

This course was fun. The hands on homeworks forced me to understand the material more in depth.

Professor Feng's class structure is one of my favorite at PSU. Rather then just accepting how awful normal education standards are and continuing to force it on students, Professor Feng has developed a refreshing course. It enables students to actually work with the material while building skills and techniques actually required in the industry. I recommend any of his classes to students that are interested in cyber security. Higher (sic) more instructors like him please.

A great course I would suggest to any cs student interested in the topic.

This was one of my favorite all time CS courses. I appreciated how it was a more practical class with a lot of hands on exercises. Sometimes the labs had ambiguous wording which needs to be made more clear.

Professor Feng is fantastic at making complex material easy to understand. I am excited to go to each and every lecture. I would recommend anyone to take his classes because they are very informative.

I loved this class. It's hard to believe all of the concepts that I have learned throughout the term. The labs and CTFs were a great way to get hands on experience with the concepts.

Thank you so much! This class was awesome.

Thank you for a really awesome class. I feel like I learned a lot and I hope I was able to show that as well.

Winter 2019

4.9/5.0

This class can be very challenging but anyone that takes it gets a lot out of it! Great course and great instructor. I plan on taking more classes with this professor in the future.

Hands down my favorite CS course so far. Very hands on experience made learning easy and fun. I actually enjoyed reading the book and doing the homework assignments.

Thoroughly enjoyed the entire class.

I loved this class. It helped me develop a much deeper understanding of concepts presented to me in classes like operating systems and programming languages even though that was not its primary focus.

I enjoyed the class. The overall structure was laid out well, the challenge of the CTFs was perfect for me. By the end I felt I had learned a lot about Malware and appreciate the amount of work that goes into defending against it.

I really enjoyed the class, but I wish we had more time for exploring more symbolic execution, and hands-on reverse engineering. I was pleasantly surprised by the end of the course at my confidence level for starting the final reverse engineering project. I think everything scaffolds really well... The RE final project was probably the most fun I've ever had doing an assignment... thanks for a great term, Wu!

This is the most immediately practical class I've ever taken.

Like all of Wu's classes, the class was well structured and scaffold so I could easily and quickly learn the material. We covered a lot but it never felt overwhelming.

Really appreciate the screencasts. It is so nice to be able to just focus on listening during lecture, knowing I can review the screencasts and don't have to take notes. Every class should do it.

Winter 2018

4.7/5.0

"This is a really great class! I really appreciated all the work and effort Prof. Feng put into creating this class and all the CTFs associated with the class. It's also very nice that Prof. Feng records all his lectures, so we can review the lectures as needed. I love the use of a Slack channel in the class, because it's nice to get help and answers from fellow students.  Finally, my favorite part of the class is Prof. Feng's passion for the subject. Often at PSU, professors assume that you should care about the subject and that because the subject is important to them, it will be to you as well. In the past I've found it very frustrating that professors read their slides and fail to connect the students with the subject. This wasn't an issue in this class. Prof. Feng often talked about the importance of security in the real world and in building future products."

"I continue to be extremely impressed with the CS Security track at PSU. I knew this class was going to be good when the first thing we were shown was about educational methodology and the class putting an emphasis on learning by doing rather than just lecture. The CTFs, the book, the instructor, the labs, having the lectures on media space... everything about this class is extremely good. Please keep this up!!!"

"Can we clone him?"

"I really enjoyed this class. I'm a big fan of Professor Feng's method of having us do CTF levels for homework, as it gives a hands on way to explore the concepts and learn by doing. The workload was fair, and the textbook was interesting and helpful. I appreciated the professor's availability, both on and offline. He was very helpful with course material, and generally more available than any of the other professor's I've had though my CS program at PSU. Thank you!"

"Outstanding class in every way. The hands-on format was extremely helpful for conveying real skills and proving they were learned. I like how there are no exams and all the work is hands on. Pay Wu-Chang more and give him tenure."

"great course, instructor obviously cares about his student's learning"

Winter 2017

4.6/5.0

"Awesome class, I got much better at comprehending x86."

"...this guy is without a doubt one of the best teachers in the CS department and really understands how to structure a class for optimal learning. The CTF homework structure and the build your own level at the end not only made the class a good learning experience but more importantly made it fun. Everyone else should take note!"

Winter 2015

4.5/5.0

"By far one of the best professors in the CS program, he was reasonable, fun, he cares about the subject and the students, so much so that when I had to miss a class one day, but was on campus, he noticed and pointed it out to me. I would definitely take other classes from him and I definitely think other CS instructors should take lessons from him."

"A great course."

"It has been a great pleasure - thank you!"

"The labs and homework were great hands-on exercises."

Winter 2014

4.6/5.0

"Great class, learned a lot"

"This was by far the most enjoyable and rewarding class I have taken at PSU.  While it was quite difficult and confusing at times, I must say, learning new tools and getting more experience working with assembly really helped me establish my understanding of concepts explored in CS 201 and CS 333.  Thanks Dr. Feng for a great term."

"The good thing with this class is the hand-on (sic) lab and it is really helpful to understand the material...I really enjoy this class and Prof. Feng really (sic) good at explanning material one on one basis"

Winter 2013

4.6/5.0

"I really liked the material that was presented. I feel like I actually learned something useful for a change in the CS program."

"The topic is very interesting. More time should be spent on this in our full CS academic career."

Winter 2012

4.4/5.0

 "Interesting subject material; cover a wide variety of malware topics with lots of case studies"

"Good instructor, great material"

Winter 2011

4.8/5.0

"The material is very interesting."

"Covered a lot of ground and gave info on lots of types of malware"

"Lots of background material and good coverage of complicated topics. Good papers lectures pretty clear."

Spring 2010

4.8/5.0

"I liked beginning with a general overview of malware and ending with more specific studies of malware."

"Probably the most interesting CS class I've taken."

Term Rating Comments

Fall 2021 (Attend Anywhere)

4.5/5.0

Favorite CS course so far.

Great class, I learnt a lot. Was really interesting, enjoyed the lectures.

I've really enjoyed how relevant this class is. Material is always up to date, and it's readily evident that Professor Feng is passionate about the topic and also teaching.

Labs are challenging and I've learned a lot. One of my favorite classes.

Fall 2020 (remote)

4.9/5.0

This class was very useful and informative. The course material was straightforward. I love that prof. Feng records every lecture, and I wish it was required that all instructors do so.

Professor Feng's classes are a model for modern CS education with the hybrid online labs and class instruction. I'm a big fan! Many CS classes feel 10 years out of date (those that aren't timeless, like Algorithms), so taking classes that use current technology is really valuable.

Wuchang is one of the best professors I have taken classes from in the Computer Science department. This class was well structured and very informative. He is very understanding of students' time and does not waste it.

No complaints! A well organized and prepared course overall

Fall 2019

4.7/5.0

Great professor. The content of the course is great, and the CTF levels are a little challenge, but doable.

Great class. Outlining the goals of the lab notebooks in better detail would have been helpful since there wasn't much guide of what to place in them. Wu-chang is always on the bleeding edge and that is a great benefit for the department.

Very enjoyable and excellent course. Dr. Wu-chang Feng's had an excellent grasp of the subject and provided a lot of material both in class and outside of class. Many resources and a lot of help available if needed. I look forward to taking more of the instructor's classes in the future.

This class was focuses (sp) a lot more on smart contracts than I expected which is fine. I really appreciate the exposure to google cloud console for the project hosting. I think symbolic execution is a deep important subject that I would really like to know more about but we barely covered it. The subject seems like it almost deserves its own class. I might give it less time in this course to focus more on the core elements of the class, or give it more time.

Spring 2019 (w/ Charles Wright)

4.8/5.0

For such shakey source material, Wu managed to make an interesting and informative class. I definitely understand the basics of blockchain now and would be able to convey my knowledge in a constructive manner. That being said, I don't know what manner that would be appropriate... (to anyone reading this that isn't familiar with this material, that was a Blockchain joke)

This was the best class besides malware.

Wu-chang is rad. One of the few profs who knows how to make education fun and interesting. Seriously, the man has a rare talent for teaching.

This class was a lot of fun. Despite the subject matter changing frequently in the real world, Wuchang did a great job rolling with the changes and differences since the last time he taught the course.

Great professor. Well organized, interesting topics and discussions. Plenty of reference material and additional readings for supplemental knowledge and understanding. The course material was a little scattered as the topic is new and changing constantly. Good job for the first time is course has been taught.

Overall the professor was very knowledgable, accessible and reasonable with his expectations for the course. Lots of material was covered.

I really enjoyed the content of the course, I wish we would have more time to spend investigating more complex vulnerabilities attacks and also how to automatically detect them.

It would be a very difficult feat indeed to find something negative to say about this professor. The professor knows the material, communicates it well, and checks for understanding - rewording or summarizing difficult concepts. Out of all the professors I've had at PSU this one seems to have a true grasp of how to teach and clearly has a passion and talent for the profession. In addition, I feel that the course material is relevant to my work outside of school - not always something emphasized in school. I highly recommend this professor to anyone who asks about him and in turn recommend the courses he teaches.

Term Rating Comments

Spring 2020 (w/ Charles Wright)

5.0/5.0

The professor did a great job hosting the class via Zoom. He was well prepared and able to have everybody on board. The audio and video were great. We didn't experience any technical problems.

I enjoyed the course and feel like I got a lot out of it but couldn't help but feel like of all CS courses I've taken, it would have benefited from face-to-face meetings. Of course due to the circumstances that wasn't an option but I regret that we weren't able to do that.

Fancy Bear approves of this course. Stolen Pencil might ;) Would have liked to have seen more discussion of the papers and research brain storming instead of just presenting the contents.

Spring 2018 (w/ Charles Wright)

4.8/5.0

I loved this class. It has given me so many new areas of interest I don't know where to start.

I really enjoyed this class a lot. I felt that I learned an incredible amount of information about all sorts of security issues. I wasn't sure what to expect from this class, but I found the material and flow of the class so interesting, I would take it again if I could. Overall, I had a great time in this class. Thanks for putting it together and have a great summer.

The breadth of security topics was one of my favorite aspects of the course. The cadence of work was also very steady, I really appreciated knowing that for the next several weeks what I had to read and review. Just makes planning around other things in life that much easier. Allowing us who are not so outspoken during class time to put our thoughts in the reviews was another positive. It was also clear that this was the sort of class where it was clear everyone wanted to be there and we all shared a high interest in the subject matter. More classes like this please. The slack channel was also nice, seeing the regular postings of security news was fun to follow. Finally, thanks for making me aware of the Risky.biz podcast, it's awesome and now in my regular rotation.

Term Rating Comments

Fall 2021 (On-line asynchronous)

4.8/5.0

As a business student who knows very little coding, this class was great showing us some of the behind the scene aspects of smart contract and blockchain in general. The instructor was so knowledgeable it made me realize how little I know. Great class!

Term Rating Comments

Winter 2017

4.6/5.0

"Wu has a strong grasp of what he teaches, is the fastest grader I have come across, and is an all around for rad dude."

"Professor Feng is an outstanding instructor. His ability to speak so enthusiastically has really peaked my interest towards the subject. He is an amazing teacher with very clear guidelines to make it through the tests and offers a wonderful amount of material to review with in order to ensure everyone is properly educated."

Fall 2015

4.5/5.0

"He's an amazing teacher.  The class is demanding, but not impossible, and he gives us everything we need to succeed, and treats us as equals who just want to learn.  I wish all my CS classes could be like his."

"Overall this was my favorite CS class I've taken so far at PSU.  Professor Feng is a fantastic teacher and I look forward to taking more classes with him."

Spring 2014

4.0/5.0

"Professor does a phenomenal job of not just reading the slides, but using them to illustrate complex topics."

"Professor Feng does a great job of explaining a complex subject.  He speaks very clearly and slows down intentionally at times to allow the students to digest and think of questions to ask.  He is very knowledgeable and I really enjoy his personality.  Professor Feng is approachable and generous with his time answering questions after class and during office hours."

"A very good course; ... the best CS course I've taken at PSU so far."

"He was a great teacher."

"Professor using the whiteboard to work out problems in addition to the slides was great. He was very interested in the material and also provided examples and reasons why material is important for future classes and other subject matter. I really enjoyed the discussions of where security is often compromised and how code is exploited. 8 am lectures always seem to be difficult when trying to wake up and make it on time, however these lectures were certainly worth the extra effort required to get up and be awake for."

Spring 2012

4.1/5.0

"Excited energetic instructor challenging and interesting material."

"Engaging lecture with practice problems, homework assignments are very relevant and designed appropriately for class level."

"The instructor came prepared with good slides and the lecture material matched the textbook.  The TA was helpful answering questions via email."

Fall 2010

4.1/5.0

"The instructor was very well organized and had a thorough understanding of the material."

 "The instructor was very nice and knew his stuff.  He even brought in real world examples like security issues to illuminate certain points."

"It's challenging and in-depth."

"The instructor knows how to teach the material."

"The subject is very interesting.  Instructor is a good speaker, attractive person, nice looking, very smart."

"I like the fact that the instructor speaks clearly, uses good illustrations, and explains the material."

"The teacher is a good teacher."

"I learned quite a bit."

"Instructor has a solid grasp of the material and gives quite interesting and insightful lectures."

"Content is interesting and Prof. Feng is good at explaining."

"Prof. Feng is energetic and very knowledgeable. The lectures were not dull but could well have been.  He is a good speaker and very good at answering questions without too much digression.  A lot of good information about lower level programming and a good overview of how it naps into the hardware."

"It was very in-depth and thorough."

"A lot of good advanced material was presented and taught well."

Winter 2010

4.0/5.0

"I like that the teacher has slides that I can review outside of class.  Taping the lectures is great."

"Instructor had a very strong command of the material and was able to convey the material in a very clear style."

"Instructor obviously has a firm grasp on the subject and is able to clearly teach us."

"Great presenting, fair homework."

"He is quick, precise, class ends early a lot but only because all material has been covered."

"The organization of the instructor"

Term Rating Comments

Fall 2018

5.0/5.0

"Wu-Chang Feng is an excellent teacher who is clear about his grade distribution and goes above and beyond the typical professor by providing video of all his lectures and practice exams. His assignments and exams are relevant to what we are learned and are an absolutely fair assessment of our knowledge."

"Excellent course I couldn't be more satisfied."

Winter 2018

5.0/5.0

"The class was exceptionally well structured, Wu-chang built up the subject matter piece by piece making it easy to follow along. The various tools provided to assist in learning, screencasts, ITS site, CTFs were very appreciated to reinforce knowledge."

"Professor Feng is an excellent teacher. His course materials are some of the the best I've seen at PSU. Everything in the course fits together, the objectives and expectations are clear, and I felt like I had everything I needed to succeed in a challenging subject. Wu is also super approachable and responsive with questions. Thanks for an awesome term!"

"The class was great, and very organized and well structured. Any shortcomings were my own, thanks for the wonderful class!"

"Wu is very organized which makes it easier to take in such dense material. I really like that he posts his lectures for later reference. I wish all instructors would do this."

Fall 2016

5.0/5.0

"I enjoyed taking Professor Feng's class. He was always well-prepared and had an excellent command of the subject. I appreciated the many real-world examples of security issues related to the material that we were studying. That added a lot to the class, and gave me some perspective on the security field. He has put a lot of effort into making sure the homework assignments are both interesting and applicable and I really appreciate that. I thought the CTF that we worked on was both fun and an excellent learning tool. I would definitely recommend his courses.

Fall 2015

4.8/5.0

"The teacher used good communication with example problems to keep the class engaged"

Fall 2014

5.0/5.0

"Very knowledgeable instructor"

Term Rating Comments

Fall 2008

4.4/5.0

"The subject matter is fascinating.  Wu Chang's lectures are well-prepared and he's always willing to compile examples to show special cases and satisfy student curiosities."

"We go through the material quickly but we can stop and ask questions/examples the topic when we need to."

Winter 2008

4.1/5.0

"Having a knowledgeable teacher willing to go above and beyond to answer questions and make sure you understand coursework."

"Subject matter and instructor's enthusiasm "

"Great examples from the instructor"

"Instructor is very knowledgeable and clear."

"Feng's teaching style is direct and very organized.  He covers the material clearly and thoroughly without wasting anytime."

Fall 2006

4.1/5.0

"Material is very relevant and interesting.  The instructor is great."

"Very well taught"

Term Rating Comments

Spring 2013

4.4/5.0

"Professor Feng knows a lot about what's going on and it's interesting to hear others' perspectives"

"The discussion was interesting and relevant, with good direction from instructor.."

Fall 2010

4.7/5.0

"The discussion is engaging."

"Teacher's enthusiasm and energy… very positive attitude"

"The environment was comfortable enough to allow for real discussion of the material"

"It was very simple and the lectures were good."

Term Rating Comments

Winter 2016

4.8/5.0

"Probably one of my favorite computer science classes, even though this was only a cluster/elective. Professor Feng got the students involved by having us doing 2 presentations, becoming an expert on the topic and teaching the class about the subject instead of him talking to us for an hour and 50 minutes."

"Awesome class, learned much more than I expected. Getting up early is the main challenge in the course"

"This class is one of the best classes I have ever taken."

Winter 2014

4.5/5.0

Winter 2013

4.7/5.0

 

Winter 2012

4.7/5.0

"Dr. Feng is excellent!  The topics are engaging, too."

"It's a fun environment to be in."

"I like that Prog. Feng involves a lot of in class discussions to better learn the material. It's a much different feel, in a good way, to not just have to sit for a couple of hours and just be lectured."

Winter 2011

4.6/5.0

"Very informative yet understandable.  Very useful."

"The subject matter and in-class discussions were very interesting."

"Informative, entertaining and relevant.  Mr. Feng makes the topic interesting and easy to understand."

"Teacher is very knowledgeable about subject matter.  Knows very well about topics before assign them to students."

"Interesting discussion on real life situation/events/news.  Learnt new programs and internet security."

Winter 2010

4.4/5.0

"Computer Science, especially technical information about the internet, is a hard concept to grasp if you are not too well engrained in computer science.  This class helps clear the air on many internet issues at hand.  Thanks to instructor for being so enthusiastic as well!"

"The information given in the class is both useful and interesting"

"Very interesting class, learned many new things.  Not very computer savy (sic) but this class was very helpful and useful.  Definitely have gained a better understanding of computers and internet programs/techniques/information."

"People seemed to genuinely learn a good bit."

"Very discussion based, excellent learning atmosphere questions easily answered."

"It's very interesting, and Professor Feng is incredibly knowledgable on this topic.  He is often very enthusiastic about sharing such knowledge, and you can tell it is important to him.  Plenty of visual examples of the material."

"The instructor's clear explanations of internet concepts"

"The internet is obviously important, so info is greatly appreciated, but the social impacts of the internet are the best as opposed to technical info."

Term Rating Comments

Spring 2009

4.3/5.0


Spring 2007

4.3/5.0

"A good and very practical course."

Term Rating Comments

Fall 2008

4.1/5.0

"Good instructor"

"Instructor was clear and know gable (sic)."

Winter 2008

4.4/5.0

"Instructor has intend to teach and makes everything clear in class.He explains clearly and slowly."

"Instructor has good command of material, very willing to clarify and offer examples, etc."

Winter 2007

4.3/5.0

"Interesting subject/programming assignments"

"Instructor was easy to understand"

Winter 2006

4.7/5.0

"This class offers a really good introduction to Networking"