<p>Thanks for the heads up! Are the advisors at CalSO always the same? If not, I really hope I get a good advisor because otherwise, that person really wouldn’t help me. I would expect the advisor to advise taking a very easy first semester since not everyone can succeed in a hard first semester schedule, and they would want to be most helpful to the majority (the average) and not necessarily to each individual (which I would assume to be counterintuitive for all the exceptional students at Berkeley).</p>
<p>Basically, what happened at my CalSO was that all the students split into 4 groups
- Econ/Pre-Haas
- Pre-Health
- Math/Science
- Humanities/SocialScience/Undecided</p>
<p>All of us math/science people were put into 2 rooms. The advisor I had made comments such as “Don’t take Math 53 unless you are sure you are a genius. Don’t take Econ 1 unless you understand Calculus very very well. Don’t take Bio 1A/1B. Don’t take CS61A unless you’re a master at programming.” Amusingly enough, everyone around me were already into Math 54/55 and most seemed to also completely ignore the advisor’s advice. </p>
<p>However, I understand the advisor’s point of view. He has no idea how strong each individual is, but he does know that there are many overachievers and so he encourages us to slow down. So when you tell him you want to take upper division math courses your first semester, he’ll probably advise you against it. Perhaps he will be right, perhaps he won’t. Idk</p>
<p>Calso people give you the worst advice possible.</p>
<p>I’ve heard very bad things about H7A’s workload, though. Math 55 should be quite a bit easier than 53/54.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the advice guys. I’ll be heading out from my dorm to CalSO in a couple minutes and I’ve learnt so much from this thread. If you guys are curious about my situation or something, I’d be glad to talk to you about it after my CalSO. Anyways, I’ll probably be sticking with Option C since it really is the best of both worlds (3 easy classes, 2 hard classes, and a little harder spring semester if I choose to continue). Again, thanks a bunch.</p>
<p>It seems there are a couple people going to CalSO from summer sessions. You’ll probably be bored to pieces the first day (save for maybe an 10 minutes of advising)</p>
<p>I’m doing something similar except I opted not to take math until next semester. So I’d take Math 55 and then 110 next fall. Mainly because I want to get humanities reqs out of the way and get started on my EE courses after I finish lower level CS courses in the spring.</p>
<p>I’ve found that technical classes have been much easier than humanities, especially over the summer. If you want to get an A in physics, you put forth a certain amount of time and effort and you understand all of the material. If you want to get an A in English you spend days writing papers, and then you keep rewriting them until the deadline, at which point you write more.</p>
<p>My CalSO advisers just agreed with what I said, so I’m hoping my schedule works out. It puts me ahead in Physics and CS (finishing 7C in Fall, and 61C in spring) so I can start up upper division EECS courses sooner (EE20,40 are spring and next fall). I wish I could start off like you in math, but I didn’t want to start with 18 units including an English course.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>You were completely right Ramblinman. The first day of CalSO was absolutely boring. I didn’t learn a single thing (I’m not joking) since it’s all repeated from either summer session info or because you guys have told me about it on this topic. The only benefit was just the social interaction and getting to meet new people. They talked a lot about scheduling and specific classes in general, and it was definitely a repetition of a lot of what was said in this topic (ie. take easy classes for a strong foundation, opt out of hard classes, etc.). </p>
<p>@Ramblinman: You’re making great progress in Physics and I wish I was like you. Even though I’m way ahead in Math since I’m a math major, I’m a bit behind in Physics comparatively. Obviously taking H7A fall semester freshman year isn’t “behind”, but a lot of exceptional physics majors out there will already be starting at H7B or H7C. Then they’ll be taking quantum mechanics and analytic etc. almost a year ahead of me. </p>
<p>This is especially considering that many H7A students will probably be taking Math 53, and if someone was taking H110, they’d probably already be starting their first quantum mechanics or the analytic course.</p>
<p>Oh, and I’ve decided to take Option C. If it’s too much work, I can always drop one of the breadth classes. If I think I can handle a bit more, then I’ll continue that Option C track spring semester. It’ll be kind of weird taking H110 and then taking 55 afterwards, but we’ll see.</p>