<p>Math 53 - Multivaraible calculus (4)
CS61A- Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (4)
BioE10- Introduction to Biomedicine for Engineers (4)
Physics 7A- Physics for scientists and engineers (4)</p>
<p>I will be having a federal work-study thing going on as well, so I guess I will be working too, so are there enough hours in the day (assuming at least 6-7 hours of sleep a day) for me to be able to maintain at least a 3.8 (preferably 4.0 but I realize how extremely difficult that is in college) GPA that semester?</p>
<p>I will be BioE as a freshman this fall but my 4 year plan actually fulfills both the EECS requirements and BioE requirements, so I plan on applying for a double major after my second semester (which is the rule for applying for double majors). Thanks UpMagic! So I will have time to study even though I’ll be working too right? yeah I guess it’s prolly all about time management. No more high school procrastination lol.</p>
<p>This semester? Depends on what you learned and remember from high school.</p>
<p>Later on? Possibly, but either:
A) You will not sleep, will be completely burned out by the time you graduate, and will likely have a far-from-perfect GPA.
or
B) You belong at Caltech.</p>
<p>I encourage you to at least attempt this - I did something similar - but I also encourage you to make sure you have a realistic assessment of the difficulty involved. Computational BioE, a few relevant/interesting CS electives, and a steady internship/research position (depending on where you want to go) is likely to do almost as much for you career-wise - if not more, given that you’ll probably get much higher ratings from whoever you’re working for, and a higher GPA.</p>
<p>I see thanks for the advice but what did do you mean by “you belong at Caltech”, I’m probably going to sound like a noob but I truly don’t know what you mean by that. Could you explain please?</p>
<p>and the reason for my double major is because I want to go on to a good engineering grad school and pursue research relating to neuro-engineering, primarily neuro-prosthetics. Also it truly does add much courses to my 4 year plan since I’m still taking 4 courses a semester but I will be taking 2 courses each summer for two summers to fullfill the humanities not granted by my AP courses. So overall the courseload for the double major is actually the same as the single major so it seemed like a good choice. And if it isn’t I could always just not do it. At this point I knew the engineering courseload def won’t be “easy” in any sense of the word and the workload will be intense, but I guess I won’t know how intense until I actually start to go through the program. Thanks though!</p>
<p>Click ‘Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences’ and you will see someone who pretty much experienced your schedule first sem(fall 09), tho he took a 2 unit seminar instead of BioE10. He also had to balance the marching band, and noted that he performed somewhat poorly in his classes at the beginning because he devoted too much time to the band, so this will give you an idea of the life/rigor that lies ahead of you.</p>
<p>Btw, I found this guy 'cause he gave a super funny speech regarding his first year experience at Berk during CalSO.</p>
<p>I just wanted to put this out there, Diivo, but I think you ought to consider the fact that your interests might change or your class schedule might not work out the way you want it to or maybe other opportunities might come along. My point is that you should keep an open mind and take this opportunity in college to explore other ideas, subjects, and choices. While your double major is doable and no doubt worth the effort, I think you should think about the opportunity cost of your double major.</p>
<p>Do you also know what instructors you’ll be taking your courses with?</p>
<p>That looks like a schedule that I would want to have. I’m double majoring EECS and Engineering Math and Stat with physics minor (basically I want to do EECS and fill in all of my electives with math and physics courses, lol).</p>
<p>I got stuck with a 13 unit first semester because I’m taking CS 61A, CS 47B (self study 61B), Physics 7C, and an AC or R&C course (the one I wanted was waitlisted).</p>
<p>I just wanted to say that even though your interests might change, there is nothing wrong with planning out all of the classes that you’re going to take in college. </p>
<p>I’ve done this twice (for two different situations, a double major and a double minor, one I get to take two extra physics courses instead of the required statistics courses of the double major).</p>
<p>Only after planning this all out did I see on the CALSO thing that it said you don’t have to plan out all 4 years, but I’m very glad that I did. I know that to keep a 4.0, I have to well in all my classes, and if I decide to change an upcoming class around I can see how it effects my entire schedule. Then I can say, “maybe I’m risking my GPA if I take 2 Upper Division Physics courses along with an Upper Division Math and an Upper Division EE courses for 17 units in one semester”.</p>
<p>I just want to point out that while you definitely should be very flexible with your schedule as you’ll want to do lots of research and internships, it is not a bad idea to plan out all your classes or at least have a very specific idea of what you want to do. That way if you change your mind about one thing it is fairly easy to do so without throwing off your other goals.</p>
<p>Haha Yiting was my counselor for CalSO. The reason she had to take so many units is that she’s an international student, so she’s paying a ridiculous amount of fees. She’s trying to graduate in 3 years to save money. I believe she took 21 units her second semester</p>
<p>The Caltech comment is…well, what you’re planning on doing would be regarded by many as unwise unless you’re very committed to it. Getting into a good grad school for NeuroEng and NeuroProsthetics is very doable without the EECS on the side, and you’ll likely graduate with better grades and better reviews than you would with the double. It’s not impossible that you can get said grades, reccs., etc. with the EECS on the side, but it seems likely that if you can do that, you’re smart enough that you’ll succeed in virtually anything here (and, thus, “belong at Caltech”).</p>
<p>I’m not saying that what you’re proposing is a bad idea, but it is worth bearing in mind that EECS has an extremely high workload and is packed with people who are extremely competitive (…and smart, obviously). BioE, to my knowledge, isn’t quite as intense, but it’s still hardly a walk in the park. Thus, I can see this plan going badly unless you’re naturally gifted with both fields (…which, again, means you’re probably smart enough that you don’t need to worry).</p>
<p>EDIT: …that said, it’s a pretty decent freshman year schedule, as I think I mentioned above. It’ll be rigorous, but you should be ok.</p>
<p>The first semester is a time to get a new yardstick to measure yourself - not by the competition and academic rigor in your high school or community college, but by the grading standards, competition and level of work required here. </p>
<p>It can be humbling to move from being the absolute smartest and highest performing person in the classroom to the middle of the pack. It may take a lot more effort to pull back up to the high end of the grade distribution. Once you get a feel for how you do here, decisions about how many hard courses to stack together are less likely to lead to doom and disappointment.</p>
<p>yeah I applied for BioE instead of EECS because the told me it’s easier right now to get a double major approved if your accepted into the impacted major which they (the advisor) told me that BioE is now more impacted that EECS (this was several months ago, around October), so that’s why I applied BioE instead of EECS.</p>