<p>We all have heard that the program is amazingly tough. How true is this? (i.e. After you started, would you say it was more difficult, less difficult, or exactly what you thought it would be). One recent grad told me that in his last year (or semester, maybe) he spent an average of 100 hours a week on campus studying, doing projects, etc. Is this the norm? I know I'll have to bust a** if I want to do well, but are all the horror stories for real, or just urban myth? Finally, would you recommend the program to others, and not just because of the fact that a Berkeley engineering degree is a world class degree? Let me know what you think.</p>
<p>Be afraid. Be very afraid.</p>
<p>Lower division courses are always difficult primarily because they serve as "weeders". Once you get into the upper division courses of your major, there is slightly less pressure. </p>
<p>The most notorious aspect of the program (from fellow prospective engineering friends of mine) seems to be the "major trap". You can't switch majors if your GPA is bad. One of the reasons I signed up as undeclared in engineering is that I'd be able to switch up until my junior year.</p>
<p>LIES. All lies. I'd heard the engineering program is amazingly tough, and now that I'm half-way through it, I can tell you it is almost ALL exaggerated. If you're spending 100 hours a week studying, you SUCK at engineering (or studying). There are only a small handful of classes where it is justified to put in dozens of hours a week, and those are because of major projects.</p>
<p>I would highly recommend the EECS program. I can't comment on others. They give you a lot of flexibility in choosing courses, which is the biggest benefit. We also have a 5-year masters program and some quality research groups to join. EECS isn't easy, but it also isn't as hard as everyone claims (though probably not as easy as I claim--take an average or something).</p>
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If you're spending 100 hours a week studying, you SUCK at engineering (or studying).
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<p>In actuallity learning only happens over certain instances of time during study time; the rest of the time you're not really learning everything. In fact you waste a lot of time doing nothing while studying. It's all about mental agility and dexterity.</p>
<p>100hrs of studying? 24hrs*7days = not that many hours - 100 = no time to sleep!</p>
<p>That's basically holding a book whenever you're up. What an exaggeration!!! People love it when others think their majors are hard, understandable. But say something closer to the truth!</p>
<p>Here, I'll give you a basic idea of how my last semester was. I took EE130, EE140, CS70, Music 141, and CS198. The last two are 2-unit courses I take for fun, so I won't go into those.</p>
<p>For CS70, you're looking at 1 problem set per week. So outside of lecture and discussion, that's all that you have to do. It was due Fridays at 4PM. I typically started Friday when I woke up (maybe 10 or 11AM) or Thursday when I got home (10:30PM, after rehearsal) and had no problem finishing on time. Studying for exams, I probably studied 2-3 hours per exam. Got an A.</p>
<p>EE140 we had only 6 problem sets the entire semester, so much less than one per week. The problem sets were tough, though. Three questions could take 4-5 hours. We also had two projects. The first we spent a lot of time on. Over about 9 days we probably put in 40-50 hours of work. Didn't quite get it working, though. On the second project, we put in probably 30-40 hours over the course of 3-4 days and got it done. When I say we, I'm referring to me and my partner--however, my partner did almost nothing, so these times are probably longer than if I had a decent partner. For the exams, probably 1-3 hours of studying (studied longer initially, then realized his exams were so non-computational I didn't need to work so hard). Got an A-.</p>
<p>EE130 was another problem set a week course. Very much like CS70 in terms of workload. We also had a project, though, which took maybe 15 hours. Most of the time was spent writing it, though, unlike the EE140 project, where 95% of the time was getting it to work and 5% was writing the report. Got an A-.</p>
<p>So, I probably put in 100 hours over the course of a semester in these classes. Not even close to that amount in a week. Of course, these courses aren't even closer to the toughest set in EECS, but they make up a rather typical EECS schedule I would say.</p>
<p>eudean, out of curiositiy - which year are you in?</p>
<p>I know a person with straight As in highschool & a 1550 SAT that dropped out their first quarter because it was so tough. I believe it was a brutal 1B class and Physics at the same time. They went to another lower ranked school and are now dominating that business program and getting out in 2.5 years.</p>
<p>I know others who had a 1450 SAT, straight As as well, and are getting a 3.55 GPA. This is a person that I would consider very intelligent and I believe they got 5s on all their AP tests, which included BC, Phys B, Chem, Bio, etc.</p>
<p>I'm going to be a 3rd year.</p>
<p>eudean, did you get a lot of your introductory courses waived because theres a lot of upper-division courses you've taken? </p>
<p>I'm an EECS major and I know this sort of stuff varies from person to person, but which courses have you so far enjoyed the most and which have you enjoyed the least?</p>
<p>I had Math 1A, 1B, Physics 7A, and CS 61B waived. I found out I could've had Physics 7B waived, too, but only after I had already taken it. Oh well. So yes, I had quite a few courses waived (basically every course you can get out of via AP tests). I'm about a semester to a year ahead of most people I know.</p>
<p>In terms of courses, well EE20N is the only course I truly hated. Could not stand it. Math 53/54 weren't very enjoyable, but not terrible. The rest I've had a pretty good time in. The rest of the lower divs were all pretty enjoyable. CS61A was good initially, but got worse as we all realized how much Fateman sucked, and CS61C was good but quite tough (Garcia makes pretty challenging exams). EE40 was so-so initially, but gets much better toward the end IMO. CS70 with Vazirani was also a good course, and a big reason I'm taking CS170 (also with Vazirani) next semester.</p>
<p>As for upper divs, EE120 with Gastpar is great, EE130 with Hu, EE140 with Subramanian, EE105 with Nikolic (didn't like it at first, but it got better). As you can probably tell, my interests are pretty broad. I usually go for the good professors (always, always check HKN's course surveys) and will wait for a class until a good professor is teaching it.</p>
<p>I would say the course I enjoyed most upper div was EE120. I really liked how Gastpar explained Fourier Transforms. It just made so much more sense than how it was taught in EE20N. This is why I recommend people take EE120 even if they hated EE20N, because even though they're related, hating 20N does not mean you'll hate 120.</p>
<p>For more general advice, take a well-rounded set of courses in upper div. 105 (circuits and devices overview), 120 (signals & systems), 130 (devices focus), 140 (analog circuits focus), 141 (digital circuits focus). Everybody should also take 150 (I haven't yet, but I will). It's supposed to be a very hard, but very good course. If you're going to be more CS focused, I don't have any specific advice since I'm a EE focus. I have heard great things about Kubiatowicz and CS162 (which is why I'm taking that next semester), and again Vazirani should be good for CS170.</p>
<p>Eudean, how can you get Physics 7B waived? I'm planning on taking it next semester but I want to waive it if I can...</p>
<p>Community college course. I didn't think it was technically equivalent, but apparently my advisor did. I took it because physics C wasn't offered at my high school but I wanted to learn more physics anyway (I was debating between studying physics or EECS in college at that time, as I was only a junior in high school). It wasn't a huge loss, though, since I took H7B which really was 10X harder than the community college course.</p>