<p>to highlight the dilemma of anyone that has to take math/eng/programming vs humanities. consider the following questions that would show up on an exam:
Humanities:
“Explain…”
“in your opinion…”
Math:
“Derive…” oh s**t
“Prove…” oh crap
Programming:
“write a merge sort…” omg</p>
<p>While I applaud humanities, philosophy, etc… you can just see where I am coming from. the stuff we do is frightening to say the least. while the words “term paper” may frighten all the non-science majors, the words “hilbert space” frighten us math geeks. hahah</p>
<p>Look, I am not addressing the wrong people. When I noted your name, I was just referring-in general- that I find it annoying that people have to put others down and claim superiority on internet forums. I was basically supporting a previous poster’s argument that X amount of these people are probably picking easy majors and don’t have outside obligations.</p>
<p>And I think people are overestimating how easy it is at CC. I have definitely had hard teachers at CC that made me want to cry, most notably a PhD from Berkeley. </p>
<p>Don’t take it personal. I agree with you in part.</p>
My CC C++ teacher worked for NASA on the mission to mars project and he holds a dual masters in CS and EE from MIT. My vector calc and DE Math prof switched to a math major in his senior year of college and finished all the requirements in one year with honors (aka he is/was a fricken genius). And my Engineering Physics teacher got her PhD from Amherst. My teachers were all way above qualified to be teaching at my CC. My CC is located in an optimal place to retire so most of them just teach for kicks. CC in general is easy. You currently attend a CC that’s why you don’t understand. Don’t worry I was the same. Once you matriculate to a UC you will understand. Oh, and I currently have a 3,9 at UCLA. But I think it’s pretty sad how you evaluate people on something as meaningless and one-dimensional as GPA.</p>
<p>EDIT: Our physics class at CC ended with 10-12 people every time. Nonetheless, I wouldn’t kid myself. The Physics at any UC, let alone Stanford, would be more difficult than the physics at any CC. To claim your CC’s physics is comparable to Stanford’s is just asinine. I will repeat myself, you will fully understand once you actually attend a UC.</p>
<p>EDIT 2: I must also strongly disagree with this notion of “easy” majors. We all have our different strengths and talents. Lord knows I would be TERRIBLE as an art or music major.</p>
<p>^^agreed, to compare difficulty from a cc to a four year, let alone Stanford, is indeed asinine. Although the majority of people struggled in the e&m class, it really is nothing compared to what they would do at Stanford.</p>
<p>CCC’s are going to be slower most of the time because UC’s have quarters…most CCCs are semester… more content spread over more time. </p>
<p>HOWEVER one of the first posters was right. my calc teacher was a prof at ucla for 20 years… she is still the same teacher, she just teaches at a CCC no instead because she moved away from la.</p>
<p>research your professors and purposely take the hard teachers.</p>
<p>Honestly if you guys continue to work hard at UC you will all do just fine. You’ll just adjust to the new workload and realize “wow, things were different back at CC.” When you’re held to a higher standard, you either perform or fail. And if you already have good study habits, it shouldn’t take that long to adjust and continue performing as well (if not better) as you have been before.</p>
<p>EDIT: Just because a teacher is from UCLA doesn’t mean they will teach the class the same way, with the same level of difficulty, as it’s taught at UCLA, regardless of what they claim. This is true for any teacher at any school teaching at a CC. Both of my single variable calc teachers got their masters and taught at UCLA. I will not kid myself in believing that my single variable calc classes was comparable in difficulty to the ones taught at UCLA.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, I’ve clearly been adequately prepared as I’m doing just fine now. Why is that? Simply because just like pretty much every other transfer, I adjusted to the heavier workload. As will (hopefully) all of you once you transfer.</p>
<p>These are the same words you will hear (just like every other transfer) when you attend your transfer orientations.</p>
<p>“My CC C++ teacher worked for NASA on the mission to mars project and he holds a dual masters in CS and EE from MIT. My vector calc and DE Math prof switched to a math major in his senior year of college and finished all the requirements in one year with honors (aka he is/was a fricken genius). And my Engineering Physics teacher got her PhD from Amherst. My teachers were all way above qualified to be teaching at my CC. My CC is located in an optimal place to retire so most of them just teach for kicks. CC in general is easy. You currently attend a CC that’s why you don’t understand. Don’t worry I was the same. Once you matriculate to a UC you will understand. Oh, and I currently have a 3,9 at UCLA. But I think it’s pretty sad how you evaluate people on something as meaningless as GPA.”</p>
<p>Maybe or maybe not. While I live in a lower income area, we still have good teachers. Our teachers are very qualified too. I have many friends at UC and they say it is harder, but they are doing great. And maybe you think it is sad that I evaluate people on GPA, but I am only using it as an indicator, which is what it is. I don’t think GPA is everything, and I never claimed it was. </p>
<p>“EDIT: Our physics class at CC ended with 10-12 people every time. Nonetheless, I wouldn’t kid myself. The Physics at any UC, let alone Stanford, would be more difficult than the physics at any CC. To claim your CC’s physics is comparable to Stanford’s is just asinine. I will repeat myself, you will fully understand once you actually attend a UC.”</p>
<p>I disagree with you. But you could argue with the girl who used to work at my job, and who transfered to Stanford. Or you could argue with the guy who transfered to CalTech. Or you could argue with the professor with a phd in particle physics. But then again, I doubt you know either. I have known people who transferred to Berkeley as physics majors that are too afraid to take him.</p>
<p>@thebigshow, please show me the post where I put down ANYONE! Also show me the post where I said CC was easy! They don’t exist, you’re addressing the wrong person (i.e. addressing my handle, attributing things to me someone else has said). It’s not cool.</p>
<p>And the nice thing about CC is that you don’t have 500 people in your undergraduate classes, so you get to learn the material better. I would rather take a class at CC be able to spend ample time with the professor. And pay 26$ a unit LOL.</p>
My GPA was around 3.8. I messed up during my last Fall semester when I was taking 25 units including 2 Math, Chem, Physics, and 2 CS classes and received two B’s. I talked in my application about how I overloaded myself that semester, maybe it helped. My essays were just okay, nothing extraordinary. What I think got me in was my work experience. Before CC I actually worked as something like a software developer and network administrator for 1.5 years. And during CC I always worked 20h/week on-campus, even with 25 units.</p>
<p>
Okay, that’s gonna be a long one. First of all, don’t measure yourself against Hilfingers exams. He is notorious for having ridiculously hard exams.
I took Hilfinger for 61B, and the average on his exams is about 7/20 points. One of his exams is dropped, and he ended up giving a 10min online-survey worth 20 points of extra credit (a whole perfect exam grade!) to everyone in order to preserve the correct average GPA in his class. (Lower division CS classes are not curved and must have an average GPA of around 2.8). Thus, don’t worry about not being able to solve his exams.
The contents tested are not really important anyway. I never studied for any of his exams, including the final, I just made sure I basically understand everything, brought all my notes and looked things up on-the-fly. I did very well in his class (A+). If you find yourself needing an algorithm or data structure later on, just look it up on Wikipedia. Knowing them is not the point of 61B.</p>
<p>Then what is the point of 61B and should you skip it? In my opinion, it’s the programming projects. Hilfingers projects (3 of them a semester) took me around ~30h each to complete. And that’s on top of the regular homework and lab assignments. Again, that’s where time management comes in. I mentioned before that I worked as a software developer before, that’s why his projects were nothing new to me (except for their sometimes weird but 100% correct and extremely dense wording…). So I can imagine that it took other people even longer to complete them. But I think that’s the big point of the class. Now in one of my upper-div classes we got a project, which, in short, sounds like the following:</p>
<p>“You work in teams of 2. Programming Language is C. You need to implement a simulation for XXX, graph and analyze YYY, given the following properties and constraints. Turn in Project report and well-formed commented code by ZZZ. Have fun.” </p>
<p>Now, if you’ve taken CS classes at CC you probably need to implement a few lines of smart/tricky code, that’s it and you will never need to work on a project that requires several thousand lines of code, good design, and version control. If you feel comfortable doing something like that from scratch, no code given, feel free to skip CS61B.</p>
<p>One a side node about Hilfinger, something is strange about this guy anyway. I never caught him making any mistake in his lecture (which happens to the best)! Sometimes students tried to correct him but he always ended up being right. I remember one time Hilfinger responded to a student question on the newsgroup and a little bit later someone corrected him by saying “I think you are wrong here, the official Java documents says it is as follows…”. I was really amazed somebody pointed out Hilfinger’s mistake. A little while later Hilfinger came back at him with “Actually, the official Java documentation is wrong, here is how it REALLY works:…”. Not to mention, he was right ;)</p>
<p>
Not really, I never experienced fierce competition. CS61A/B/C are not curved anyway, so there is no competition. In my upper-division courses everybody I talked to was always helpful and happy to form study groups. Yes, I admit that I am happy when people are doing bad on exams since that helps the curve, but that would never keep me from working together with and helping other people if I know them in person. I think other’s are thinking the same way.</p>
<p>
Personal preference. Yes, living on North side is convenient, but, well, there is nothing, not even decent food I’m living on the south side and there are days where I need to walk ~15-20min to class, but I don’t mind since I get up much earlier anyway. Also, you’ll have discussions in random buildings anyway so you might end up walking a long distance even if you’re living on the north side (but yes, in total your walking time will be much less). Therefore, if walking time is a big issue for you, north side. If you want to be close to restaurants, bars, stores, and non-Engineering majors, south side.</p>
<p>
See above. Many people I’ve met were very helpful. I’ve met people were I thought “How could this guy even graduate from High School?” and people were I thought “Wow, this guy might actually be smarter than me, I would never have thought of what he just said…”.</p>
<p>
Sorry, I don’t know anything about internships. I was always working, never had any internship.</p>
<p>
Hm, that’s a long one again. I’ve been doing the following (ever since CC) and it has worked well for me: Keep up with classes, hw and lectures, make a summary of every major topic you covered. Then, don’t study for exams and finals Just look over your summaries and do one or two practice tests. I also recommend the book “How to become a straight A student”. The book is more for Social Science majors, but there are a few good things in there, even for engineers.</p>
<p>Many professors talk about studying in teams but that has never worked well for me. I can’t concentrate as well and get less done whem I’m around other people. What I found really helpful is the following: Study as much and as good as you can by yourself, then before the HW is due or an exam is coming up, meet with a study group and go over and compare HW problem or exams questions and topics. For this to work it’s really important that you and everybody else in your group is prepared and has already done a lot of work by himself.</p>
<p>What has worked wonders for me in terms of time management is the following. This may sound really extreme but it’s not as much work as it sounds: Every weekend, plan your next week. Just list everything you need to do (turn in) and how long it’s gonna take you. E.g. “CS61B: Project Task 3 (3h)”, etc. Then every evening, plan your next day, prioritizing stuff which is due earlier. Then I use a checklist to check stuff of during the day (online). I’m not only using that for academic stuff but also for everything else like Errands, etc. That’s what has kept me sane. If you wanna take it even further, make a few files/folders and organize stuff by class/personal/academic/extra-curricular/etc and keep track of what you have completed and need to do. I know it’s crazy </p>
<p>
Hm, I think for upper-division is completely up to what you are interested in. Well, if you get a chance, take Hilfinger, haha. People say I’m crazy but I actually like this guy. Since I took 61B with him I don’t need another class with Hilfinger. One is enough.</p>
<p>@thebigsh0w
In one post you say there exists a physics class at your CC taught by a professor that people who attend BERKELEY are too afraid to take…</p>
<p>Yet in the next post you argue how it would be better to take this class at CC because you get more private time with your professor, thus increasing your chances of learning more, and you get to pay less money.</p>
<p>Now correct me if I’m wrong, but I would wager that physics majors at Cal are, on average, rather intelligent. Are you telling me that you are</p>
<ol>
<li>That much smarter than them because you, the brave soul that you are, are willing (and eager!) to take this class with this difficult professor. </li>
<li>That much more intelligent because you “figured out” your CC education is much more fruitful and cost-effective (in the long run) than the education at Cal? Thus making these Cal students double fools (in comparison to you of course) for not wanting to take this class with this professor of yours.</li>
</ol>
<p>Please… first you compare your class to Stanford and now this? This argument has turned into farce.</p>
<p>Wow, thanks for the insight. You seem very hard working and intelligent. My friend is in the bio-engineering program at Cal and he said it is very hard. I would imagine that those two are some of the hardest majors there. </p>
<p>It is good to see a lax of competition. My friend at Haas said it is fierce there. I think competition is good, but I would like to see a healthy balance. </p>
<p>Thanks so much, Thomas! I’ve already read Cal Newport’s book. Unfortunately, it was really short on strategy for technical courses, as you’ve noted, and I already did a lot of what he recommends (large problem sets, study breaks, etc.). It was actually disappointing, given he’s a CS Phd candidate at MIT.</p>
<p>I haven’t implemented the scheduling/calendar bit yet, but I’m planning on it. I mostly do checklists and hold my study plans in my head, which I need to stop doing and improve. I also realize how useful the summaries would be, so I’ll try and get in that habit now. </p>
<p>Hilfinger scares me, but he sounds like my kind of prof and I need the expertise he forces one to develop; that is, I don’t have experience coding large, pointedly complex projects. I heard he does code wars or something; I wish I had the skills to participate. </p>
<p>Thanks again, I really, really appreciate it.</p>
I’m living on the south side and there are days where I need to walk ~15-20min to class, but I don’t mind since I get up much earlier anyway. Also, you’ll have discussions in random buildings anyway so you might end up walking a long distance even if you’re living on the north side (but yes, in total your walking time will be much less). Therefore, if walking time is a big issue for you, north side. If you want to be close to restaurants, bars, stores, and non-Engineering majors, south side.</p>
Same goes for you.</p>