<p>Accepted to Berkeley CS as a transfer, but hearing a lot about students "taking advantage" of other students, what with the cutthroat environment and all. I'm trying to steer clear of that nonsense, if possible.</p>
<p>First question is, how rampant is cheating at Berkeley. I know this is a minor question, and hopefully its not as bad as I am thinking it is. Some people say its gotten ridiculously out of hand though...</p>
<p>Second question--From what I hear, the CS61 series is graded independent of other classes, but I hear that most other Berkeley classes ARE graded based on how other students do. Is this true in the CS department? For instance, I've heard grades have to be maintained in the 2.7-3.2 range (like EE20) according to EECS dept policy, but what of other CS classes? Is it possible to go through CS without taking any curved classes?</p>
<p>Specifically I'd like to from CS majors who took an easy route, what classes he/she took, and with who. I'm not looking to have an easy time at Berkeley, I just think I can sit in on the harder classes (like Graphics and Architecture) on my own without worrying about the demanding schedule or the effect on my GPA.</p>
<p>In my experience, cheating at Cal was hit or miss. In weeder classes, I thought it was pretty rampant. If you are in something like CS – I never took CS at Cal, but I did take IDS 110 – which is like computer science for business majors – I had group partner steal my work and pass it off as his own. Because he changed the server password and everything, I had little recourse. So, I’m sure it does happen. In otherwords, if your groupmate starts acting shifty / becomes non-communicative, BACK UP YOUR CODE AND CHANGE THE SERVER PASSWORD IMMEDIATELY!!!</p>
<p>Computer Science is dicey, as my extension professor at UCLA told me – copyrighting code is almost impossible, because as I am sure you are well aware, computers are very literal and there is a limited number of permutations to do anything in the myriad languages. As such, it is very hard to prove people have stolen code or cheated. All you have to do is change a few variables, and viola, it can look like completely new code, so to speak.</p>
<p>Everyone I knew who took CS or EECS is incredibly bright. But they did complain about cheaters or people who simply downloaded the code off the internet, passed it as their own, and got As, while they busted their humps to get a B+. I would not worry about it too much. At the end of the day, the Peter Principle still applies and those people who cheated will get found out. </p>
<p>Though I’m not a CS major, I do plan to do some graduate studies in that field after I get certified, I hope I allayed some fears. As with all things computerized, be sure to back everything up, comment up your code, and change your passwords frequently, especially if people start acting suspicious.</p>
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<li><p>Well for projects and hws you can always cheat and it would be pretty impossible to catch these cases if you made some changes or modifications to the code/solution, but it would be your benefit to actually spend time and work them out yourself since the learning experience is more valuable than grade itself and it is very likely you will see the same sort of questions on the exams.</p></li>
<li><p>Most cs upper div classes and cs 70 are curved, the exact breakdown is depended on profs, but i believe generally 10% A, 15% A-, 15% B+, 20% B, 15% B-, 15% C+, 10% C is a pretty safe estimate. It is not possible to go through CS without taking any curved classes.</p></li>
<li><p>cs 186 cs 188 cs 170 cs 161 are generally pretty easy, also try to take as many prof Wagner’s classes as you can.</p></li>
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<p>Cheating isn’t uncommon to see on homeworks. Just pop into Soda the night before an assignment is due and you’ll often see a few vultures asking people for answers. The people I know don’t cheat because we know it’s going to hurt during the tests when it really counts, not to mention it’s just wrong. Who wants to graduate knowing they cheated for the degree? Many projects and homeworks let you work with others anyway, so it shouldn’t be a problem if you learn the material and get started early.</p>
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<p>This is pretty conservative indeed. It’s hard to say what the “average” CS class is, but 188 (one of the easier classes) has historically had 4% A+, 23% A, 13% A-, and 18% B+, just to look at the better grades. 162 is harder, with 2% A+, 12% A, and 12% A-, and 22% B+; it’s quite uncommon to find a CS course that gives fewer than 10% A’s.</p>
<p>In fact what you often see is a chunk of A’s, then fewer A-'s, and then a chunk of B+'s, fewer B’s, even fewer B-'s, with the lowest 15% of the class getting a C+ or lower. It’s certainly not a walk in the park, but I hope this allays some fears about the curve.</p>
<p>I hear cheating is rampant in Haas. For engineering though, if you don’t know the material, then you probably wont do well on the exams, since they aren’t multiple choice… Cheating would be kinda difficult since you need to show work. And if you get caught then the consequences are steep. Fail and student conduct violation.</p>
<p>A lot of students work together on homework, but that is rarely a significant portion of your grade. Know the fine line between cheating and working together.</p>
<p>EECS major here. First of all, CS isn’t really cutthroat. At worst, the main form of cheating is just copying other people on projects/problem sets (which will definitely screw you over anyways on tests). What you described sounds like what I’ve heard from business majors, where the material is easy AND you’re graded relative to other students, meaning even one or two incorrect questions could have a detrimental effect on your grade. </p>
<p>The grading IMO is actually pretty lenient for CS upper division classes (average gpa is supposed to be 2.9 - 3.2 I believe). From what I’ve seen, Top 30% of the class get A’s, A-'s, next 50% get B+'s,B’s,B-'s, the rest is for C+ and below.</p>
<p>I’d like to add that in all the CS classes I’ve taken, people are really chill and don’t mind helping each other. I’ve never ever seen someone attempt to sabotage anyone else.</p>
<p>As both a Haas and CS student… I find some of the claims ridiculous. IMO, most are non-majors that just hear rumors.
(for the IDS110 course, I don’t think it counts as a CS course… so I wouldn’t say that your situation is common. Usually, reporting that kind of behavior should solve it right? Sorry to hear what happened. Also, CS hasn’t been required for haas for a while now…)</p>
<p>Especially for CS, where projects/hw/labs/test are weighted so that it’s impossible to do well if you cheat. For instance, if you have to cheat on a project, then you probably will fail the tests. Also, most of the code you really can’t find on the internet. All the people have been extremely friendly. In lab, I can turn left or right or raise my hand to ask for help anytime and there would always be someone to help to lead you in the right direction.</p>
<p>For Haas, I admit, there are some who do cheat. But it’s always the same people (usually frat people). And I don’t think a whole community should be judged on the few. Most people i know are super nice and hard working. Most of the competition is in the lower div classes (for classes like UGBA 10, it was pretty hostile). But for upper divs (people who are already in haas) people tend to be more chill, as most of the meaner kids are weeded out eventually…</p>
<p>wow I never really thought about cheating here. That’s kind of unfair. : / considering I don’t do it. I’d be way to scared to get caught even though they probably wouldn’t catch me. It’s just a big risk that I’d feel really awkward about if they caught me. Can you imagine how that would go lol</p>