<p>I'm in at College of L&S undeclared and for now I'm interested in doing CS or business at Haas. If possible, I would like to graduate in 3.5 years or even 3 years (and take Master's in CS if I do end up taking the CS). That would definitely save quite a sum of money in my case, since I'm an international student. According to the Cal website I would already have 32 units done from A-level exam, leaving me with 88 units to do. My question is: How hard is it to do 18 units per semester? How about doing more than 20? Has anyone done such a thing before and lived to tell the tale?</p>
<p>"How hard is it to do 18 units per semester?"</p>
<p>For CS, difficult. For CS and Haas, very difficult.</p>
<p>"How about doing more than 20?"</p>
<p>It will be even more difficult. Only do this if you draw gratification from pain or if you're into sadomasochism.</p>
<p>"Has anyone done such a thing before and lived to tell the tale?"</p>
<p>Yes. Behold, Ankur.
05.05.2003</a> - Innovative engineering and business graduate Ankur Luthra named University Medalist</p>
<p>He's not the typical student though. Keep that in mind.</p>
<p>But how difficult is difficult? 40+ hours per week? At least a few late-nights on a typical week with no social life whatsoever to boot? I'm curious because the average no. of units that my seniors took (from where i studied from at least, ie. Singapore) is 18 as indicated on their student association website. Btw it's either Haas or CS not both :) (maybe a CS minor but I've yet to decide).</p>
<p>I'm doing MCB and enter with 30-35 AP units, and I'm thinking of graduating in 2 years with 18 units/semester. So I'm in the same boat - to save money. What do you guys think?</p>
<p>I'd also like to get an idea of hours per week. Including homework/studying and all that - not just in-class time.</p>
<p>I'm doing a social science major so it's nothing as intense as MCB, but I'm also planning on graduating in 5 semesters, using AP credits, to save money. Expecting to take roughly 16 units a semester. A typical 4 unit class is 3 hours of lecture and 1-2 hours of section discussion, so taking four of them is roughly 20 hours a week. I'd guess you'd have to spend an equal amount of time doing homework.</p>
<p>"I'd guess you'd have to spend an equal amount of time doing homework."</p>
<p>Some classes require a lot more time with homework and studying.</p>
<p>20 hours per week still looks manageable. I'm looking at around 25-30 hours. I don't really buy the notion that homework and studying can cost you another 30 hours though.</p>
<p>For CS, 18 units is going to be difficult.
For Haas, it's easier and manageable.</p>
<p>I have taken some lit courses in which I did nil for homework and managed to pull a straight A by studying lecture notes for the midterm, writing a decent paper, and studying notes for the final. I didn't even purchase the books. </p>
<p>So yes it varies by class. But for CS, you probably won't get too much free time. </p>
<p>For Haas, more free time.</p>
<p>But still 18 units is above average and if you want to maintain a high GPA (3.8+) then you may not have too much down time.</p>
<p>It all depends on what your major is and what classes you are taking.
If you want to take Chem 3B, physics 3B, engineering 7 and Math 53 at the same time, it's going to be very very difficult because these classes are all really time consuming. It's 16 units but it's going to be much much harder than taking 20 units of business classes or something. </p>
<p>Also, a lot of times, the units a class has do not really reflect how many hours you are expected to put into it.</p>
<p>Let's say...... ochem lab, which is 2 units but it's going to take a lot of time (1 hr lecture, 4 hr actual lab, 2-3 hrs lab write up, answering problems, 1-2 hours studying the material, 1-2 hrs prelab)/week </p>
<p>Besides, do not forget that you probably want to do some activities that do not award you units as well such as research, work-study, student groups, volunteer...etc etc which eat up your time.</p>