CS 61B and AP Credit

<p>Is it a good idea to skip CS 61B (Data Structures) as an EECS major using AP CS credit? Are the courses comparable? What I've found here across other departments (math, chemistry, physics) is that the classes here always cover more material than their corresponding APs, and I don't want to miss out.</p>

<p>God no. I'm not an engineering major, but I know someone who is--and is in that class right now-- and I defo wouldn't recommend it.</p>

<p>so...you recommend taking the AP credit and skipping the class?</p>

<p>Well, Professor Hilfinger is teaching the class this semester, so what can you expect? He's quite infamous for his challenging exams and difficult workload (and arrogance). If someone else teaches it in the fall, things could be different.</p>

<p>
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and arrogance

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<p>is it wrong for me to hate arrogant teachers?<br>
I have a feeling I wouldn't like this class if I only looked at "Student"'s comment</p>

<p>Student, this is sad for me to say, but I would absolutely positively recommend getting out of 61B if you can. Heck, I would recommend getting out of as much of the entire 61 series if you can. </p>

<p>Why? Because the 61 series, and the 61B class in particular, is an infamous weeder. The sad truth is that the primary purpose of those classes isn't so much to teach you anything, but rather to weed students out, and therefore the primary purpose of the students is not to learn anything, but rather to avoid getting weeding out. Classes that come after the 61 series are not easy, but at least (except for a few others like EECS150), they aren't actively and deliberately trying to boot you out of the major. The sad reality of Berkeley (and schools that act like Berkeley) is that you want to avoid weeders whenever you can. If you can complete a difficult major while skipping over weeders, then I would say that that's a 'brilliant' strategy. I'm quite certain there are a lot of people who have taken 61B (or especially, who have failed 61B) who would have rather gotten out of the class by taking the AP exam instead. </p>

<p>Personally, I have to say that Berkeley should not be allowing anybody to skip over weeders. Either everybody in the major should have to take the weeders, or nobody should have take the weeders. However, as long as Berkeley provides a method to skip over weeders, then that is probably the best road to take. It's like if a special tax deduction exists only for people named "Student" and nobody else, and you happen to be called "Student", then the best thing for you to do for your personal wealth is to milk that deduction for all it's worth. On a larger cosmic level, the government should not be giving out special deductions to people named Student.</p>

<p>I'm in 61A right now and I wouldn't consider it a weeder. The class uses a standard scale (86.6% is an A) and the medians on the first two exams were 88% and 80%. My Chem 1A profs last semester were aiming for averages around 60%.</p>

<p>According to these stats</a> compiled by Hilfinger himself, about 35% of EECS admits in the 1998-99 school year received A's in 61A and 40%+ each in 61B and 61C. For L&S admits they're even higher (around 70% each).</p>

<p>Of course, I can be wrong. Maybe 61B has been ramped up in difficulty immensely in the last five years to tone down on the grade inflation, and in which case I will seriously consider skipping it. I'm just concerned that skipping it would leave me at a disadvantage for later classes.</p>

<p>Weeders are a 'relative' concept. By weeders, I mean courses that are substantially more difficult, either in terms of workload or grading, than the average class. A lot of people who are 'weeded out' did get passing grades in their weeders and could have proceeded, but observed that they could get higher grades for less work in an entirely different major. </p>

<p>I doubt that skipping any class would leave you at a disadvantage, especially a weeder. The truth is, you can basically learn the content of any class just by reading the book and doing some of the assignments yourself on your own time. You don't really need a class in order to learn something.</p>

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According to these stats compiled by Hilfinger himself, about 35% of EECS admits in the 1998-99 school year received A's in 61A and 40%+ each in 61B and 61C. For L&S admits they're even higher (around 70% each).

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<p>Another point that I forgot to mention is that this data regarding L&S CS admits is highly misleading. Not everybody is allowed into the L&S CS program. You have to apply as a continuing Berkeley student to get in, and plenty of people don't get in. Only those people with high grades in CS prereq work, such as the lower-division CS courses, are allowed in. </p>

<p>So saying that the L&S CS admits got A's 70+% of the time tells us very little about how difficult the grading was. It's really a case of sampling on the dependent variable. Obviously the L&S CS guys will exhibit high grades - it was high grades that allowed them to become L&S CS guys in the first place. In other words, you are only looking at the survivors. To paraphrase Thomas Sowell, by looking only at the survivors, one could conclude that nobody died in World War 2. </p>

<p>A far more fair way to do the study would be to look at ALL of the grades given out to students in CS classes, regardless of who those students are. That would include students who wanted to major in L&S CS but didn't make it. It would also include all the people who are trying to transfer into EECS, but didn't make it. This is the fundamental reason why I think the data is misleading - it doesn't account for all those people who didn't make it. In other words, the data is already somewhat "pre-weeded" and therefore does not really demonstrate where the weeders are.</p>

<p>I loved 61B.. given I didn't take it with Hillfinger, but my friends did. They said it was hard, however, they did learn a lot from it. Take it if you're interested, skip it if you're more on the EE side. (My friends that I speak of and I are L/S CS)</p>