<p>I'm thinking about minoring in CS but I'm not totally sure. CS61A is being taught by Hilfinger for Spring Semester. I've heard that he is a crazy difficult professor and likes to scare people out of CS. If I'm not sure about the minor should I take it with him and suffer, especially because CS does not come naturally to me, or wait to take it with someone easier. Thoughts?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Oh god those posters have better be trolls.</p>
<p>I dont know if they are offering CS61AS during the Spring but the course is taught using Scheme instead of Python AND its self paced AND YOU CAN CHOOSE TO DO 3 UNITS TO SATISFY THE CS61A REQUIREMENT.</p>
<p>^^^ Yep
But the downside is that Scheme is not too useful nowadays. Alot of the concepts are technically the same though from what I’ve heard.</p>
<p>take 61a w/ hilfinger to learn a lot</p>
<p>Hilfinger will probably teach you the most.
He will also mutilate your gpa the most.</p>
<p>After reading Hilfingers reviews last semester, I decided to wait and take 61b next spring. 
Is it true that some people refer to failing his tests as being “hilfingered”?</p>
<p>Hilfinger’s actually not that bad on the GPA.</p>
<p>He just holds difficult classes with high expectations and has tests that will make you feel like a wreck, but the grades are actually spot on in terms of how much you learn.</p>
<p>It is just as hard to earn an A in Hilfinger’s class as it is with other professors, but you will feel like you barely scraped by with a C+.</p>
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<p>CS 61A is not about Scheme or Python; it is about the concepts of CS that you learn and can apply in any computer language. Someone good at CS should be able to learn any computer language to apply the CS concepts with.</p>
<p>The switch to Python does help you pad your resume when it comes to short-sighted employers (of which there are many) that grep for words like “Python” in resumes.</p>