Best classes to take for EECS?

Niivalue · 05-11-2009, 09:01 PM

I'm a newly admitted freshmen for Fall 2009 at Cal, and am enrolled in the College of Engineering as an EECS major.

I was wondering, what classes are better to take for this major and when? Also, what does the typical course schedule for a freshmen look like?

Thanks!

KatyP · 05-15-2009, 01:42 AM

Question seconded.

Looks like we're meant to get something in the mail from the college of engineering pretty soon now, so don't worry too much about being confused until you've reviewed whatever that stuff is. Has anyone gotten that yet, by the way??

Yay EECS majors!!

pinkcherry · 05-18-2009, 10:57 PM

http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Program...t/Chapter4.pdf
there's a chart on there, etc.
very useful site.

JteH · 05-25-2009, 04:41 PM

is there a similar chart for other engineering majors?

killthefifi · 05-25-2009, 06:17 PM

JteH, I believe there's one in the engineering announcement for all of the other engineering majors.

College of Engineering Announcement — UC Berkeley College of Engineering

KatyP · 05-28-2009, 02:22 AM

I just got a flash drive in the mail for school of engineering... and by "just", I mean about a week ago... it's pretty helpful once you sort through all of the different documents. If you got one, you should check it out while you try to schedule classes. If you're in eng and you didn't get one, you should ask them to resend it or something because it's SO COOL!

("so cool" = it says "UC Berkeley" or something on it, and it comes with a lanyard :-) we can walk around wearing our flash drives, looking like extreme geeks with extreme school pride. Anyone interested? Nobody? Really? Come on.)

Azure326 · 05-29-2009, 01:43 AM

The little charts & laid-out schedules in the student handbook are useful. Basically, a good goal is to get through all or nearly all of your core courses by junior year, and from there you can go down the appropriate path if you're EE or CS. If you've never programmed before, it might be a good idea to start with CS 3, otherwise start pounding through the CS61 series. You'll probably have to wait until sophmore year to take EE20 and EE40, which is just fine and even recommended. If it helps any, here's been my schedule so far, semester by semester (it certainly helps if you figure out early that you don't want to do CS or EE, as I knew pretty early that I wanted an EE focus):

Fall:
German R5A
Physics 7A
Math 1B
CS 3L

Spring:
Math 53
Math 54
CS 61A

Summer:
South Asian R5B

Fall:
Physics 7B
History 127AC
EE 20

Spring:
CS 61B
EE 120
EE 126

Summer (this summer):
EE 40

Tissuesan · 07-29-2009, 10:31 PM

Azure326, thanks for posting what your schedules have been. Right now I'm in the process of doing my Telebears phase II and I need a bit of guidance.

Currently I am signed up for Math 1B and CS 3 along with a 1 unit Freshman Seminar (MechE 24, Computer Graphics Tools, it covers a subject I'm greatly interested). When I drafted my original course schedule a while back before CalSO, I had planned to take Physics 7A, but after confusing statements made by my advisor and the counselors I decided on taking physics 7A second semester. The thing is, if I do this, then my first semester course-load would only be 13 units and I would be behind schedule in both CS and Physics.

My question is, how difficult was it to do Math 1B, CS3, Phys. 7A and a humanities? Did you have zero free time? Tons of stress? Or was it relatively easy/manageable?

I took AP Physics in high school and got a 5 on the test, and I took AP Calc and got a 5, so I'm expecting at least some review. Do you think it is silly to be afraid to take Physics 7a? And if i do, should I drop my seminar, even though I'm very interested in its topic?

My CalSO experience really threw me for a loop and confused the hell out of me to say the least, haha. Please, shed some light on my issue?

Thanks a ton in advance!

Azure326 · 08-16-2009, 03:46 AM

My first semester was completely doable. CS 3 is a joke class, first of all. My humanities class was pretty easy (it was only a little time-consuming to do all the readings, but not so bad). Most of my time went towards 7A and 1B, but I also felt that those weren't so bad. Don't be so afraid of 7A if you've taken AP Physics (was it the C exam?) in high school and got a 5. Also, if you can, AP out of 1B. If you can AP out of it there should be no reason to take it (terrible curve that class tends to have...).