CS 3 vs. CS 61A -- Please help!!

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Berkeley
1

<p>Okay, I'm an incoming EECS student and I'm torn between these two. My programming experience is rather limited, however. I've used a TINY (T I N Y) bit of BASIC when programming robots in HS, and 3 years ago I went through a C++ For Dummies book. </p>

<p>This is ALL of my programming experience. Do you think I should take CS 3 or CS 61A? I am ready to do some extra preparation this summer if it'll help me out with CS 3 or CS 61A (if you have any suggestions, please do not hesitate to do so!).</p>

2

<p>The standard question asked by counselors:



if(knowledge<em>of</em>recursion){
    take61A();
}else{
    takeCS3();
}

</p>

3

<p>A good way to check which one is for you is to take a look at the books. Fortunately for you, the 61a book is all online at:
<a href="http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>If you want to actually practice the programming, I'd recommend looking up "scheme installation" on the berkeley website. It is a rather strange/tedious process, but a good learning experience. </p>

<p>Conversely, here's the table of contents for the cs3 book. (It's not the full text, but you can see what is in store for you.)</p>

<p><a href="http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/%7Ebh/simply-toc.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~bh/simply-toc.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>