Why would someone take advanced courses? (i.e. Skipping Math 1A/1B for Math 54)

Colleges & Universities A-Z University of California - Berkeley
1

<p>I'm an entirely new to enrolling for college courses and I'm trying to prepare for Calso, so please bear with me.</p>

<p>In high school everybody took the most advanced AP courses. What are the reasons why someone would do this in college? The focus in career employment seems to be on GPA rather than the rigor on the courses you took (?, not sure) so is there any point in trying to skip courses like taking Math 54 instead of 1A/1B and adding on what would be unnecessary stress?</p>

<p>I'm also planning on LS Comp Sci if that helps. Thank you guys :)</p>

2

<ol>
<li>So you’re not bored with stuff you already know</li>
<li>Because you find multivar or linear algebra more interesting and perhaps easier than 1A/1B</li>
<li>So you can graduate earlier or take advanced classes earler</li>
</ol>

3

<p>If you skip courses you already know and have credit for, then you effectively gain free elective slots for other courses of interest (e.g. additional advanced courses, out-of-major interesting courses, etc.). Or (if you have enough skippable courses) even graduate early if you desire that (or reduce the risk of graduating late).</p>

<p>Better to do that than waste time and tuition boringly repeating what you already know. Also, many students do repeat their AP credit, blow it off “because they already know the material”, and do not get an A grade because they do not take it seriously, getting the worst of all worlds.</p>

<p>However, be aware that Math 1B does contain some introductory differential equations material that may not have been in your high school calculus course. If you skip Math 1B with a 5 on AP calculus BC, but have not had that introductory differential equations material, you need to self-study that material. You can find more information, and links to old Math 1A and 1B final exams to check your knowledge, in the <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-california-berkeley/1305840-freshman-math-faq.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-california-berkeley/1305840-freshman-math-faq.html&lt;/a&gt; .</p>

4

<p>i took ap calc AB in high school, and when I came to berkeley I took math 1a.</p>

<p>It was a completely different course, but I think it was cuz of the professor, Arthur Ogus. Our exams were 90% proofs, and proving theorems. It was lame.</p>

5

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</p>

<p>1)Math 54 is needed for LS CS
2)Don’t worry about not taking rigorous courses; every CS course is rigorous and you need to take a lot of them</p>

6

<p>Skipping Math 1A/1B will free up your schedule, so you can take the other LS CS prereqs to declare your major sooner. They have recently changed the registration priorities, so it’s incredibly difficult for undeclared CS majors to get into upper div CS classes. </p>

<p>See: [Getting</a> Into CS Classes | EECS at UC Berkeley](<a href=“http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Policies/enrollment.shtml]Getting”>Getting Into Computer Science Classes - Google Docs)</p>