<p>I'm a prospective psych major and I was thinking about doubling in cognitive science as well. But a prereq for the major is cs61A. How hard would the class be if I have had no prior experience in computer science (and not much of an interest either)? Is this doable? And the class has a prereq of math 1a, can my AP calculus BC score count (I got a 4)?</p>
<p>Furthermore, I also have to take math 55 (discrete math) which recommends math1a-1b, but can i survive the class with just AP calc BC?</p>
<p>It would be rather difficult, though it depends on what kind of person you are. Do you have a strong interest in computers? Can you learn new concepts quickly? If you aren't confident in these areas, you should take courses from the 3; it'd give you a feel for programming that would prepare you adequately for 61A.</p>
<p>You can receive credit for 1A ony, I believe. You'd need a 5 on the BC exam to get out of both 1A and 1B. Math 55 might be slightly difficult if you haven't taken either 1A or 1B (such is true for 53 and 54, at least).</p>
<p>in preparation for cs61a (i dont believe i am nearly as good as those ap cs 5 guys/gals), i was checking out how to use their stuff (emacs scheme unix). and i seems confusing at the moment. do most of the cs61a students go in already knowing how to work these systems or are they completely fresh? and will the class teach me how to use it or will i have to learn it on my own?</p>
<p>hmm.. it might be kinda hard if you have no experience and have little interest. For most people though, I think it's very doable. I started with CS61A with no prior experience, but granted I have a strong interest in that kind of stuff. A lot of people do have programming experience, but most are learning scheme and unix for the first time. I think it's rather easy to keep up, since the class starts out pretty slow in the beginning. Go to lab and ask your peers and GSI's if you need any help. Everyone is extremely willing to help out. Bottom line: I would recommend going to cs61a for pretty much everyone.. I think it's a better use of time than CS3.</p>
<p>Watch the first few lectures on webcast and see how comfortable you are. That's probably the best way for you to find out, since well, you're the best person to judge your own abilities.
All 3 of those are skills you pick up as you go through the class. It's definitely possible to enter them with no knowledge of unix, emacs and Scheme (I did that!). However I would say that you should ideally like programming, and be interested in the content of the course. (If you aren't, it can be hard, but if you are, it's a great course)</p>
<p>I went into 61a my first semester at Cal with absolutely no programming experience prior to it. The first few weeks were really treacherous, I had no idea what was going on. But after those first few weeks it got better. Still, the whole class was pretty hard, but it was like that for pretty much everyone. I ended up getting a B in the class, which is pretty good, considering its above average (the average student in CS classes isn't the typical "average" you might imagine) and that I had literally never programmed before entering. On the other hand, my other friend who was in the same situation as I was, and whom I went to high school with, ended up with a D in the class.</p>
<p>So, yes, programming experience would help tremendously. But you can definitely be fine in 61a without it, many people are, as long as you're willing to put in 2x the effort.</p>
<p>Yea.. another reason I'd say jump to 61a is because IMO CS3 is a rather pointless class. You spend the whole semester learning what you learn in the first few weeks of 61a. I think there's more important things to learn than all of Scheme's little subtleties. And it's supposed to be really easy as well.. most people get A's if they just put in the effort.</p>
<p>B+ ... but I was a pretty bad student... I would copy the hw's and skip labs and discussions... with more effort, I'm sure I would've gotten at least an A-..</p>
<p>Again, I think it's good to just jump right into 61a, unless maybe if you're a CogSci major and 61a is your terminal CS course... After all, CS courses only get tougher after that... I thought CS61c was 10 times tougher...</p>
<p>I would say take CS3 before taking CS61A if you don't have programming experience. The course goes too fast and you will be confused. I think you would learn better because you'll be at least somewhat familiar with Scheme so you'll be learning the concepts more than trying to figure out how to use emacs.</p>
<p>commonsense: you don't really need to copy hw because they don't grade them and labs and discussions really aren't worth going to...</p>
<p>This thread has been asked many, many times and I'll just repeat what I've said: you don't need CS 3 for 61A. Doing so will put you a semester behind the rest of your peers, and if you squeeze in one upper-division CS course in your fourth semester, you could gain a significant advantage when looking for summer jobs.</p>
<p>It doesn't really matter how good of a student you are, because the simple fact is that you're going to exhaust everything you've learned from CS 3 by the time you've hit week five in 61A. The only benefit you could get out of CS 3 is a high score on the first exam, which you could easily study for on your own. Brian Harvey has taught the course for some 50 times now and all of his previous exams are on hkn.eecs. And since the first exam only accounts for 40 out of 300 course points, it's ultimately inconsequential.</p>
<p>misterreach, I took the course this semester, and my programming experience was limited to 1 year of Java in Sophomore year in High School; I'm currently on track for either an A or an A- (depending upon how the final I just took goes). However I'd judge myself to be fairly comfortable with programming, I enjoy it, and am quite interested in CS as a whole. (and in Cog Sci as well, but that's another story).
Just a note re: labs, homework and discussions. The labs are worth doing, perhaps not at the lab but definitely worth doing at some point (ssh-ing in, and so on). The homework and discussions though, are the most critical portions of the class (I'd say the lectures as well, but a lot of people webcast those; although they may not be as vital as some other classes' lectures, Harvey's still an excellent lecturer and the discussions during lecture along make it worth going). The homework's quite uniformly interesting and well worth thinking about (even though it's graded on effort). The discussions however are my favourite part of the course. They're extremely useful and particularly if you don't have much prior experience, highly recommended.</p>
<p>It's an absolutely brilliant course though :).</p>
<p>Student: one reason to take CS3 the first semester is so that your first time at Berkeley is easy. I know that's why some students take it instead of 61A directly.</p>