EECS student taking classes in the summer, need suggestions

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Berkeley
1

I’ve been admitted to EECS for fall 2015 as a transfer, and i have already signed up for the following classes:
61A (waitlisted with position 1, thats good right?)
61BL(waitlisted with position 24)
61C (in the class)

  1. obviously i dont want all of the, i just need two so i can receive aid. Now if i get 61A, the time is a bit of an issue since one ends at 11 and the other starts at 11. is this doable? maybe ill leave class a bit early…etc

  2. is it a bad idea to take 61C before 61B? i have decent experience with python, c, c++ and java. by no means an expert but not a noob either.

  3. are the people teaching these classes TAs? how does it work, im trying to see if the teachers are too painful or not.
    heres a link to the schedule:
    http://osoc.berkeley.edu/OSOC/osoc?p_term=FL&x=47&p_classif=–+Choose+a+Course+Classification±-&p_deptname=–+Choose+a+Department+Name±-&p_presuf=–+Choose+a+Course+Prefix%2fSuffix±-&y=5&p_course=61A

  4. is there any class you would recommend me taking to take care of some lower divison/GEs?
    i know i need EE16A-B, but it is not offered. anything else that can count toward my major?

2

Since a summer session is half the length of a regular semester, 8 units would be a full time course load in the summer.

You can take a look here to see if your previous experience or non-equivalent course work is sufficient for you to handle the first few classes of readings, lectures, and assignments for CS 61C:
http://www-inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs61c/archives.html

More course web sites here:
http://www-inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/classes-eecs.html

Typical courses will have a faculty member doing the main lecture, with TAs doing the discussions and labs.

Other courses that you may need, assuming that you have all of the math and science prerequisites complete:

3

I don’t think it’s a good idea to take them out of sequence, particularly in the summer.

4

@DrGoogle im going to try and get 61 A and B, still waitlisted but regardless, i need to take certain classes to catch up. any suggestions?

5

No but someone posted here last year that he did take the same too courses and it was very tough, particular in the summer. I forgot his screen name. But I understand you need to catch up but give yourself time to adjust to UCB. It looks like you might get into the first course because of your wait list number.

6

Most people suggest only taking one of those during the summer. Also, you’re not allowed to take 61A and 61BL concurrently.
http://www-inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs61bl/su15/

Although… since you’re a transfer, it could be different. You may want to ask the professor directly.

I know that 61A will have two current TAs teaching it this summer, but they are highly ranked. CS70 will be taught by a former GSI who is known by the regular, full-time instructor to be a good teacher.

7

Taking CS 61A, 61B, and/or 61C out of sequence may be doable for transfer students who have some knowledge of the subject matter of a course or its prerequisites through non-equivalent courses taken previously or other programming experience. Indeed, some transfer students come in with CS 61B complete through transfer credit, but need to take CS 61A (and frosh who got AP CS AB credit back when that test was offered also got CS 61B subject credit but not CS 61A subject credit).

However, these all involve substantial programming assignments and projects, so they are typically considered to be higher workload than most 4 unit courses. In contrast, CS 70 is basically a math/statistics course.

8

I’m not familiar with these courses but just want to make general comment that if theses are foundation courses such as data structures, take your time to learn them. It’s important when you interview with companies. For example, My daughter had an interview with Google and lots of data structures were asked. Same Jane Street, a trading company in NYC.

9

Currently i have 61C in my schedule along with HISTORY 127AC (to satisfy one of the upper GE breadth).
I’m waitlisted on:
Course Position
COMPSCI 61A 1
COMPSCI 61BL 9

Assuming i get into 61A, i will drop 61C for sure, and if i get 61BL as well i might drop History 127AC. The 61BL is nice since everything is done in groups, and i think i will be ok there. Only reason why i dont want to take 61B in Fall is the teacher (Hilfinger) is known to be horrendous (can anyone comment on this?)

Also, is it likely that i will be getting in to 61A? and if so, will i be able to change the lecture/discussion as they have a time conflict with the history class.

10

Hi shishand80

I was just reading through this thread and wondering.
Did you end up taking both 61a&b in the summer?
And if so, how did it go?

11

I’m in a similar situation, and just wanted to hear if this was doable for you

Cheers

12

@shishand80 did you end up taking 61a and 61b together over summer? How did it go? Would you recommend it?