<p>Does anyone have any thoughts about taking EE20 with Ayazifar or CS70 with Sahai this Fall? Whatever I don't take in the fall, I'll take in the spring.</p>
<p>I'm a transfer student and will be taking 61A fall and 61B spring (then 61C fall) in case that changes anything. Already done with the rest of my lower div requirements.</p>
<p>Thanks for your help!</p>
<p>EE 20 is the prerequisite for EE 120 and 126. One or both of these in turn is a prerequisite for EE 121, 123, C125, and 129. If these courses are of interest to you, you should take EE 20 as soon as you can.</p>
<p>CS 70 is a prerequisite for CS 161, 162, 169, 170 (and 172, 174, 176 through 170), 188, and 189. However, all except CS 188 and 189 list CS 61B or 61C as a prerequisite in addition, so there is less advantage to taking CS 70 in the fall than in the spring, since you will not get to CS 61B until the spring anyway.</p>
<p>You might want to try factoring upper div classes into your planning… you should need 6 of them, and I can’t think of any upper divs that don’t require 61A/61B, many also require 61C… and you really shouldn’t take more than 2 or 3 upper div EECS classes at a time. If you’re not planning to do an extra semester, taking summer classes or something might help with scheduling a bit.</p>
<p>As for CS70 vs EE20, well, are you a CS person or an EE person? If you plan to take more CS classes, having CS70 done early will help you, and vice versa if you’re into EE.</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus @failure622 thank you both for the replies. Right now I’m leaning toward CS only, but circuits isn’t bad (taking it now) so I might take more EE classes. I’ll try to figure out exactly which UD classes I want … But it’s really not up to me cuz it depends on what’s offered and my reg time, right?</p>
<p>If I want to get off to a good start, which class am I more likely to get a better grade in?</p>
<p>You can preview the courses here:</p>
<p><a href=“http://ptolemy.eecs.berkeley.edu/eecs20/”>http://ptolemy.eecs.berkeley.edu/eecs20/</a>
<a href=“EECS 70: Discrete Mathematics and Probability Theory, Spring 2014”>http://www-inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs70/sp14/</a></p>
<p>If you have taken a discrete math course at your CC, you may find significant overlap between that course and CS 70.</p>
<p>Schedulebuilder has grade distributions from past semesters, here’s [url="<a href=“https://schedulebuilder.berkeley.edu/explore/courses/FL/2013/323"]CS70[/url">https://schedulebuilder.berkeley.edu/explore/courses/FL/2013/323"]CS70[/url</a>] and [url=”<a href="https://schedulebuilder.berkeley.edu/explore/courses/FL/2013/1395"]EE20[/url">https://schedulebuilder.berkeley.edu/explore/courses/FL/2013/1395"]EE20[/url</a>]. Statistically speaking, your odds are pretty much the same in either. :P</p>
<p>Personally I think CS70 is the easier of the two, but I like discrete math and proofs and problem solving. EE20 is also a ton of math, but it’s different… I guess it tends more towards calculus/algebra, and you deal with convolution and other terrible things. But which one you’ll get better grades in depends on which subject you’re better at.</p>
<p>Also, most upper divs are offered every semester or every other semester. The draft schedules for [url="<a href=“http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Scheduling/CS/schedule-draft.html"]CS[/url">http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Scheduling/CS/schedule-draft.html"]CS[/url</a>] and [url=”<a href="http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Scheduling/EE/schedule-draft.html"]EE[/url">http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Scheduling/EE/schedule-draft.html"]EE[/url</a>] can help you plan ahead. But even if you don’t know exactly what you’ll be taking (what you’ll want to take will change as well!) you should make sure your schedule has room for all the requirements.</p>
<p>Just a nitpick on ucbalumnus’s post: EE 20 is not a prerequisite for EE 126.</p>
<p>Are you EECS or L&S CS?</p>
<p>A note about CS 70 in general: CS 70 has gotten harder in the last few years; a lot of people I talk to who took CS 70 many years ago mention how CS 70 is fairly easy - this doesn’t seem to be the case any more. A note about taking CS 70 specifically in the fall. In the fall it is being taught by Sahai. Be warned. Sahai is a lot of work. I have him right now in CS 70. Look at the first lecture here: <a href=“http://wbe-itunes.berkeley.edu/media/common/courses/spring_2014/rss/computer_science_70_001_screen.rss”>http://wbe-itunes.berkeley.edu/media/common/courses/spring_2014/rss/computer_science_70_001_screen.rss</a>. Sahai explicitly mentions that he intends the class (including lectures/sections) to take 20 hours / week. He is not, by the way, exaggerating. In my case that is a very accurate figure. I know a lot of people who spend more time than that on the problem sets due to weaker math backgrounds. A reader for the class actually mentioned that Sahai’s version of CS 70 is more work than CS 170 (the upper division class on algorithms that CS 70 is a prereq for). On the flip side, Sahai is a very good lecturer.</p>
<p>Just a clarification for above: EE 126 lists EE 20 as a prereq for some odd reason, but EE 20 is definitely not needed for the material in EE 126. CS 70, though, is useful preparation for EE 126.</p>
<p>A course that takes 20 hours per week should be a 6+2/3 unit course, using the 3 hours per week per unit workload standard (including both in-class and out-of-class time). A 4 unit course is supposed to be 12 hours of work per week.</p>
<p>Hey everybody, thanks so much for the replies.</p>
<p>@brianchu I’m EECS. Thanks for the info about Sahai. That’s really helpful to know. I’ll have to give this some thought. EE20’s a lab class so that’ll probably take up just as much time. </p>
<p>@ucbalumnus I’m glad you mentioned the guideline … I was wondering how much we were expected to study per unit. So for a 4 unit class, the guideline is 12 hours of homework and outside studying per week??? Ok, I’ll take two classes and just plan on taking 6 years to graduate. 
LOL</p>
<p>@failure622 Hey thanks for the draft schedules! Those are great to have. Haha … “convolution and other terrible things”. I’m not a big fan of proofs or terrible things. I guess I’ll have to bite the bullet.</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus PS No, I haven’t taken discrete math yet, so none of it will be review.</p>
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<p>A 4 unit class is supposed to be 12 hours per week total, including in-class and out-of-class time. However, actual workload does vary between different classes of the same unit count. Lab courses are usually higher. The claimed high workload for CS 70 seems unusually high for non-lab course.</p>
<p>Yes, it is unusually high, but I can confirm that it is an accurate workload: I’m taking CS 70 with Sahai right now and I consider myself to have an above-average math background (A in Math 54). Often I’ll spend less than 20 hours (14 hours perhaps) / week on CS 70, but other times, on weeks where we don’t have a midterm, I will hit the 20 hour limit.</p>