<p>Just for fun I would like your opinion as to what your hardest class at Cal has been and why? Was it too much memorization, toke so long, concepts were ridiculous? Some say its Chem 3B, Bio 1AL, Math 1B and other sorts, but what do you guys think?</p>
<p>I haven’t taken any of those Chem, Bio, or Math, but I would like to add the possibility of Computer Science. The 61ABC series isn’t exactly renown for its easiness.</p>
<p>i have heard bad things about E7, physics 7a and cs 61</p>
<p>It really depends on the professor. Math 1b has traditionally been killer weeder class, but with Borcherds, it is not too bad.</p>
<p>the cs 61 series rapes pretty hard :(</p>
<p>the most ■■■■■■■■ lower division is ugba 10, esp if you have a gsi who thought it would be funny to rank everyone in section, esp when your section is the smartest with half the class getting over 75 percentile.</p>
<p>so for those premed weeder classes… any tips how to survive those? Can you still get into med school if you get B’s and C’s in the prereq’s but do well in upper div science classes?</p>
<p>To survive ochem, do all the problems in the book (for vollhardt/frechet) for practice and then do the practice exams given by the professor/internet. It’s manageable if you do it as you go along with the lecture pace but it takes forever if you cram all of them in the week before the midterm. ochem is pretty problem-based. Though 3B is more memorizing all the rxns. To survive bio 1a/1al/1b, memorize everything and know how to take multiple choice tests. I’m not done with physics yet so I can’t say anything about that, but taking AP Physics really helped me. </p>
<p>However, the study strategy common to all these courses is go to lecture (or at least webcast consistently with lecture pace), go over/review material weekly or at least once every two weeks, begin studying for the exam a week before the exam, and get some sleep before the test.</p>
<p>CS 61 series, Physics 7A/7B.</p>
<p>The CS 61 series can be pretty hard sometimes. Even with hardcore studying, there are certain tricks/solutions to problems that some people may never be able to figure out on an exam.</p>
<p>The Physics 7 series isn’t too easy either, for the same reason as 61 series. Studying day and night definitely will not guarantee a good grade. You sometimes need to be clever too, along with having a firm grasp on the concepts.</p>
<p>Based on what I’ve heard, UGBA 10 looks pretty nasty. One little mistake on an exam can be costly because the material is supposedly pretty simple so the curve becomes pretty harsh.</p>
<p>thanks stly,
I’ll be taking pedersen for chem 3A/3B, but I’ll probably be following the same strategy (doing lots of practice problems)… Memorization doesn’t seem as scary as conceptual problems for some reason, so bio 1A shouldn’t be a failure, right? lol… but I’m still dreading Bio 1A/L.
I haven’t taken physics at all in HS, is it still possible to get an A in physics 8a w/ Fajans? (damn, I wanted to take it with Deweese, but those lecs filled up fast!)</p>
<p>Fajans’ exams are actually very easy, I took it with Speliotopoulos this semester and he was way harder so I’m a bit biased (our MT 2 average was 50 while Fajans’ was much higher). He often uses old hw/disc problems (Speliotopoulos gave us Fajans’ old exams). I heard Fajans isn’t the best teacher (check ratemyprofs) so you’d need a good GSI or attend office hours to explain concepts. The curve for Physics is much more generous that that for ochem!</p>
<p>Bio 1A was way better than Bio 1B in my opinion. The material is more interesting (if you’re premed, you’d probably think so also) and the curve less demanding. Bio 1AL is also very fair, labs are much more intense than 1B but much more fun (biased again), you learn a LOT and need to put in your share of work to get the A.</p>
<p>thanks again stly, I feel a little bit better after reading your post… I do like bio, but was pretty disappointed in my final grade for bio 1b… but hopefully, I can do better if there’s a curve and the material actually seems relevant w/ physio and stuff.
Ok, so if I survive O-chem, then I should be able to do ok in physics…got it. thanks for the advice, my freshman year hasn’t necessarily been the best in science classes… so it’s nice hearing the rest of them won’t be killer!</p>
<p>After taking all Chem1A/3A/3B, Bio 1A/1AL/1B, and Physics 8A, Bio1B is the worst in terms of grading. There is no room for mistakes. I screwed up Feldman’s test and have been improving ever since but STILL cannot get a good grade because of the lab portion, because my groupmates did not do their share of the work while I did. (At this point, I’m still annoyed final grades are not up on bearfacts.)</p>
<p>Bio 1A/ 1AL. Although I did fine in both lecture and lab I must admit that it drained a lot of my time and energy. Mike Meighan teaches the lab section and he will always appear inside your head when you study aimlessly to get a 1/5 on weekly quizzes. Don’t worry the class is graded on a curve and your grade is dependant on how poorly your classmates perform. Both lab exams require 20+ hours of preparation so plan ahead. The second lab exam is very interesting…One hour and 15 min of my life I will never forget. Take this class if you want that experience.</p>
<p>Physics 7B for the difficulty of the exams and the amount of material covered.
E7 (Spring 2008) for the ridiculous amount of work (labs + homework).</p>