<p>So many bad reviews about this guy I'm kind of scared to take it. If I take it on the spring, my schedule will look like this:</p>
<p>CS 61B, CS 61C, EE 122 or CS 170, 1 upper division elective</p>
<p>The prerequisites for some of the classes require CS 61B but I heard that prerequisites are not really enforced.</p>
<p>I decided just to bite the bullet.
The people with whom I spoke basically said that he’s a very good teacher, and you will learn the most from him; his tests will just murder you.
Somebody told me (I’m not sure if this is accurate) that he failed 40% of his class the last time he taught it. I’m also second-guessing myself, but it is a really important class to get out of the way.
Also, I have been warned by a lot of people to NOT take 61c and 61b at the same time.
Good luck.</p>
<p>Well, here is the course home page from Hilfinger’s CS 61B of fall 2009:</p>
<p>[CS61B</a>, Fall 2009](<a href=“http://www-inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs61b/fa09/]CS61B”>CS61B, Fall 2009)</p>
<p>Note that the general course information indicates that grading is uncurved.</p>
<p>^ Which means that it’s quite feasible that 40% of the class could fail, if he makes the exams really hard.</p>
<p>I think you mean that 40% fail only the exam portion right? I heard that projects always bring your grades up and that he gives out alot of extra credit too. 40% seems a bit excessive.</p>
<p>Should I just take CS 9G this Fall and CS 47B on the spring? I’ve already taken a data structures class in C++ from my CCC but that was from last Fall semester. I don’t have any Java experience so I thought about just taking the whole thing CS 61B…but I guess it’s a bad idea with Hilfinger?</p>