<p>hi
i transferred and this coming spring semester is my first semester @berkeley.
I think i'm taking,</p>
<p>ENG 100
ENG 117B or 117S
one language course
De-cal maybe?</p>
<p>my questions are,
1) how's my schedule and is it too much taking three eng classes in my first semester @berkeley?
(English is my second language)
(45A is transferred, but I also need to take 45B and 45C)</p>
<p>2) what's the difference between 117B and 117S?
Is anybody have taken Prof. Landreth or Prof. Booth class? how were they?</p>
<p>3)what class do you recommend for the first semester @Cal?
and what was your best(or easy) English class at berkeley?</p>
<p>please respond me, i'll wait for your response.</p>
<p>1) Your schedule looks fine with two English courses. I transferred here Fall of this year and I'm taking four upper divs right now. I would suggest taking 2 English classes if English is not your first language.</p>
<p>I'm doing alright with four English classes, but I would be lying if I said I wasn't doing a lot of work just to keep my head above water.</p>
<p>2) (From the catalog descriptions on the schedule website) </p>
<p>117B: "A chronological survey of Shakespeare's career."
117S: "Lectures on Shakespeare and reading of his best works." </p>
<p>I have not taken courses with either of these professors.</p>
<p>3) I would recommend not taking four English classes. Your schedule looks fine. Hard to pick a best class because they're all so different in nature. If I had to choose based on class discussion I would say my English 160 "Methods and Materials of Literary Criticism".
If I had to choose based on course material I would say English 166AC "Race and Performance in the 20th Century U.S.".</p>
<p>1)I think what you have above is a nice, well-rounded schedule. In my first semester I took three English classes + a DeCal and really appreciated having the extra time to adjust before taking on a more intense schedule. I am in three English classes + a language this semester and am feeling a bit too overloaded. One less English class would have been perfect for me, so I think what you have now is just fine.</p>
<p>2)I took Booth's Renaissance Lit class for a week before dropping it and found him boring and long winded. Yet, from what I hear, he gives an incredibly easy A and a low impact workload. Given that I value quality instruction over easy grades, I would recommend Landreth. I have not taken Landreth myself, but have heard good things about him. There really is no discernible difference between 117B and 117S. Both will fulfill your Shakespeare requirement, and the quality of the class is usually dependent on which professor you decide to take.</p>
<p>3)I really love the junior and senior seminars since they offer small class sizes and personal interaction with the professors. The junior seminars are really varied, so you should pick one according to your own literary interests. I would highly recommend checking out ratemyprofessors.com alongside the course descriptions on the English website in order to make your pick. I usually spend a good amount of time balancing out ratings, scheduling conflicts, and interesting reading lists before choosing my classes for the semester.</p>
<p>Since the above answers covered what you asked pretty well, a few general comments:</p>
<p>Professor Landreth is great. I took my junior seminar with him. He absolutely loves his area of expertise and it shows in the way he teaches his classes. I don't know how big his section of Shakespeare is, but if it's relatively small (<75) I heartily recommend it; if it's bigger, I hesitate only because I don't know his style in dealing with lecture, just discussion.</p>
<p>I think it isn't the English classes that are going to bog you down, but the language. I've taken 4 English classes in a semester before and had no problem, but the second I throw in a language (or 2), everything suddenly becomes overwhelming. Language classes at Berkeley have a LOT of work associated with them. It really depends on which one you're taking and what your familiarity with it is, though.</p>
<p>I love the smaller classes, ~30 students, so if you can find one of those I really recommend it. English is nothing but discussion about literature, so it's silly to take lecture and pretend that you're going to learn everything you need to know that way. I'm a personal fan of the medievalists -- Professors Justice, Nolan, (Jennifer) Miller, O'Brien O'Keeffe -- but since that's my area of study, I imagine that's not horribly shocking. Still, big recommendation for taking a small English class. Much more enjoyable, and I get a lot more out of them.</p>
<p>Please don't try to overload yourself. You have 4 semesters at least to get in the things you need and want to do. You do want to get your requirements out of the way as quickly as you can, but taking more than 2 in a semester is just silly unless you really have to (you might; look at how many classes left you have for the major).</p>
<p>Decals are student run classes. They cannot give you a grade, they don't count towards any requirements, other than pure units toward graduation.</p>