I got the computer science major, which I heard is in the college of letters and science at davis, unlike CSE. does it mean that CS majors have less of a workload than other engineering majors? Fill this even affect freshman year workload? thanks!
CS is a very difficult and time consuming major at every campus. Rest assured, you’ll be studying/working alot.
I’m a CS major. Let me put it this way: I had a project due for operating systems yesterday at midnight. Me and my partner (also CS) started working on it the day it was assigned, 10 days earlier. We put in around 25-30 hours into it. Everyone we know in that class put in around that amount of time, regardless of if they were CS or CSE.
I’m not saying this to scare you. But be prepared for very time consuming projects if you’re in a project-based class (all lower div CS classes except ECS 20). Some professors will be more time-consuming than others, but it’s reasonable to expect at least around 8-10 hours per week for each project-based class. For certain classes with certain professors, that goes up to around 15-20 hours per week expected depending on the project and how intensively you’re working on it. For theoretical classes (ECS 20, 120, 122A and B, others that aren’t required), for most professors it’ll be around 5-6 hours per week typically.
As far as CS vs CSE workload, there’s no practical difference. CSE has more required classes, but the actual time put into each class is about the same as a CS major. Plus CS can take CSE requirements that aren’t required by CS as electives. In other words, in a given CS class you’ll find a good mix of both CS and CSE majors. And in freshman year there’s no real difference between the majors in general because you’re just completing lower division requirements and GEs.
@PhantomVirgo thank you!