<p>I am torn between choosing CSE8A and CSE11? If I get CSE8A, I lose a quarter, and I do not know how much harder CSE11 will be. I know a bt of Java, know about if/else loops, very little about arrays, know about recursion loops and strings. I want to know if I can survive in CSE11 or should I just say **** it, lose a quarter and choose CSE8A but not blow my brains out.</p>
<p>Edit: One more thing, should I take the CSE91 Seminar in the same quarter as CSE11 if I do decide to take it?</p>
<p>If I do pick CSE8A, what is CSE8AL, do I take either 8A or 8AL or do I have to take both of them in the same quarter?</p>
<p>I never took CSE 11, but I took CSE 8A+8AL. I had absolutely no experience with programming, so I figured it was better to take the two quarter sequence. It was REALLY easy, so easy that I wish I had just taken CSE 11. It might depend on how quickly you catch on to it, but if you have some experience with JAVA already, then I would just do CSE 11. My professor (Ord) described CSE 11 as the sort of traditional intro to programming, where they just let you hit the ground running, and CSE 8A+8B as the slower, gentler introduction to CS. My understanding is that it’s the same material, so CSE 11 isn’t necessarily harder, it’s just faster.</p>
<p>You have to take both 8A and 8AL concurrently, if you go that route. CSE 8AL is just the lab that’s associated with it. You basically just do some simple computer labs and take a quiz. Then you would have to take CSE 8B the next quarter.</p>
<p>I’m assuming you’re a CS major. That being said, you have two paths:</p>
<p>CSE8A+8AL + CSE8B -> CSE12/15L
or
CSE11 -> CSE12/15L</p>
<p>CSE11 may seem better since it’s only one class, but it is HIGHLY accelerated. Think of it as 8A and 8B squeezed into a quarter. Since you have some knowledge of basic programming, I’d advise you to take skip 8A/AL and take 8B. For some reason 8B doesn’t require 8A as a prereq and you can literally just take it and it’ll count for the CS intro courses. This is what I did last quarter and it worked out just fine. I had minor programming experience from a previous class and I ended up doing really well in 8B.</p>
<p>Oh wow, I could have swore that 8A was a pre-req. I will check if I can just take 8B, thank you very much.</p>
<p>Edit: I will email the CSE department and see if I can just do this, but either way I lose a quarter, but just get to take fall quarter easy, because 8B is only offered in Winter and Spring.</p>