<p>I'm currently a Haas undergraduate desiring to work in Finance, and am contemplating a minor in CS. I personally am pretty interested in CS, but the 61 series' reputation for destroying GPAs is pretty unsettling. Does anyone know if its worth doing a minor in CS, versus just taking the 61 series (without the upper divs), or eschewing both in favor of keeping a high GPA?</p>
<p>The 61 series is pretty tough. I don't know how good you are with computer science, but almost all CS classes take much more time and effort than other courses with the same number of units. Doing a minor in CS should be a lot of effort.</p>
<p>My personal opinion is that if you want to learn something, then learn it. College and paying for it is about learning what you need to learn, and not about getting a high GPA.</p>
<p>That being, said, I understand this may not reflect everyone's opinions and is also not realistic for everyone.</p>
<p>I've taken Econ1/100 and ugba10 as well as the entire 61 series and now cs70. The CS classes are definitely much, much harder conceptually and far more time consuming than any of the econ classes I've taken. How well you do depends on how hard you're willing to work and your ability to think analytically (think numbers/quantities/patterns/etc.) So yes, you can maintain a high GPA, but it will require a lot of dedication to time on projects and such. Also, be prepared to cover material at a faster pace and also think about analytical/theoretical subjects.</p>
<p>I highly recommend the 61 series, especially cs61c. I think they're challenging, but very worthwhile courses.</p>
<p>Why is it that the minor program requires a minimum 3.0 GPA in technical courses when the CS major requirement is only 2.0?</p>
<p>[Computer</a> Science Minor | EECS at UC Berkeley](<a href=“http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/csugrad/minor.shtml]Computer”>http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/csugrad/minor.shtml)</p>
<p>It is 2.8 not 3.0. This is because CS used to be capped and hence it was hard to get into. The minor requiring a 2.8 is probably a holdout from that time.</p>