Hi, so I was looking through the Cal summer session courses and I saw that they have the normal CS 61A in campus, but also CS W61A available online. Are you able to take the W61A course online and use that for your declaration of the CS major? Also, is this course easier than the normal CS 61A? Thanks
The CS61A on campus is basically the same as the online version because they webcast the on campus lecture so no one goes to lecture anyways. The big difference is discussion sections and lab will be online rather than in person. If you have previous CS experience, take it online because then you don’t have to get out of bed, or you can stay wherever you are. If you’re new to CS, take it in person, and probably for the full year, so that you can ask GSIs 1000s of questions and join study groups, etc.
Same difficulty.
However, Denero or something is known to be super awesome and used to work in the industry but now works at Berkeley and everyone calls him a god. So you should take his class.
DeNero IS a god (according to my kid). Most people in the regular class wind up watching the webcast for the lectures anyways so it turns out to be the same more or less as W61A. However my kid generally went in person to his lectures because he is that good. That’s interesting that the discussions are also online, that’s a new one. I wonder how that willl turn out.
The summer class materials is the same as the normal course, only 2x as fast since it’s 8 weeks instead of 15 weeks. So you will have to spend twice as much time studying. Do note, if this is your first computer class at Berkeley, do not make the mistake of thinking that it’s an easy class. It’s 10x harder than say AP Computer Science A. The tests are really hard, but curved a bit. Usually around 80% is the border for a predicted A-.
^^ Yes, John is God, too bad he’s married (j/k). I’m glad I didn’t take CS61A over the summer because it’s a lot to digest even if you’re not new to programming. It’s a class that can rewire your brain, so I’d also recommend the full experience. Exams are hard, regardless if you take it during summer, fall, or spring, but I agree with ProfPlum that while it’s hard to get A/A-, it’s also really hard to fail the class if you put some effort.
I’ll add a fourth vote for DeNero, my son says he’s amazing. 61A is a tough class I agree with taking it for the full 15 weeks.
Thanks for the info, I think I’ll take some math courses at my local CC instead and take the full CS61A at the campus. One more thing, do you guys recommend CS10 or should I just go into CS61A right away? Thanks
https://cs61a.org/articles/about.html says the following that may help you decide whether to jump right into CS 61A or take another course first:
@CH1CK3NMAN how much computer science and programming background do you have? I think that if you’ve taken AP CS A, gotten a good exam score, and have decent knowledge of a programming language, then you should start at 61A. If you don’t, a really good beginner course is Data 8 (CS C8) which is also the first required course for Data Science majors. Looks like DeNero teaches the class in the Fall, so if you can take the class in the Fall, I would highly recommend it.
@ProfessorPlum168 Do you think Data 8 would be a better course to take over CS 10 assuming little to no prior coding experience? This is for the Comp Sci major, not data science
You can look at the content at data8.org and cs10.org respectively.
CS10 is what AP Computer Science Principles is based from so that’s probably gonna be too easy for you so go with Data 8 for a more appropriate beginner course.
Okay thanks! I’ve already taken AP CS so I think I’ll go with Data 8.
One more thing actually, how much of Data 8 is stats?
Data Science is a good mix of computer science and stats. For Data8 there should be a lot of programming work in statistics terminology - confidence intervals, sampling, chance, distributions, etc.
Son is taking CS61A over summer term now. He has self-studied CS for > 5 years, got a 5 on AP CS A exam by self-studying Java for 2 weeks, took 4 semesters of CS at CCC (1 year C++, Data Structures and Algorithms, Intro Computer Architecture). Also served as TA/tutor for all levels of CS for 3 of those semesters. Did a summer programming internship in Europe (in C++) between first and second year of CC. As an experienced programmer, he reports that 61A is not all that hard, just a lot of work. And the graders don’t always agree with his programming choices. So in his opinion, a beginner should definitely re-think the idea of starting with this class.