<p>I'm going to be a freshman next year, undeclared, although I will almost certainly be doing computer science. I got a 5 on AP CompSci my sophomore year in high school, but when I took the advisory exam it recommended CSE 11 and then recommended strongly that I take CSE 11 multiple times. How much more difficult is CSE 12 really?</p>
<p>I’m an incoming freshman like yourself so I can’t say from experience, but from looking at the CSE11 website ([CSE</a> 11 Home Page](<a href=“http://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~ricko/CSE11/]CSE”>CSE 11 Home Page)) and CSE12 website ([CSE</a> 12 - Course Information](<a href=“http://ieng6.ucsd.edu/~cs12x/]CSE”>CSE 12 - Course Information)), CSE11 seems like it would just be a repeat of APCS.</p>
<p>Which AP Comp Sci did you take? If you got a 4 or 5 on AP CS AB then you’re exempt from CSE 11, which means you can skip it and directly enroll into CSE 12. With a 5 you can actually skip 12 as well if you let the department know you want to.</p>
<p>Otherwise, you can ask one of the CSE counselors or the class instructor about skipping 11 and jumping directly into 12 your first quarter. CSE 12 teaches linked lists, binary trees, hash tables, etc. ([CSE12</a> - Basic Data Structures and Object-Oriented Design | Computer Science and Engineering, University of California San Diego](<a href=“http://cse.ucsd.edu/cse12]CSE12”>http://cse.ucsd.edu/cse12))</p>