| It depends on how good you are with this stuff. As I've said in another thread, some people find this class exceedingly easy, yet they find CS courses challenging. Others are the complete opposite. And of course, there are the top-tier students who simply ace every single class they take.
EE 40 is a four-part course, with an exam after each:
1. Physics 7B review (first 4 weeks)
2. Transfer functions, phasors, circuit analysis (next 4 weeks)
3. Intro to semiconductor physics, p-n junctions, diodes, op-amps (next 4 weeks)
4. Intro to MOSFET structure and MOS amplifiers (last 4 weeks)
The class is definitely "up there" in terms of workload -- there's one weekly problem set (usually 8-10 problems requiring 2 or more hours to complete), 4 exams (one every month), and a final project+writeup (at least 10 hours).
Conceptually, the material should not be too difficult until the latter half of the course. The first unit is Physics 7B review, so if you did well in Physics 7B, you should find it very easy. If you didn't do so well in Physics 7B (as was in my case), you can still brush up on your skills by doing lots and lots of practice problems. There won't be any convoluted integrals or fancy math or anything like that -- just mainly algebra and exponential decay functions for first-order circuits.
The second unit is just an extension of the first part, adding AC analysis. The transfer functions and plots can be a bit tricky at first, but you'll get it after some practice, because there are only so many different patterns that you'll be responsible for (Lowpass, highpass, bandpass, etc.)
The third unit is probably the most theoretical, so it's not so much about number-crunching as being able to understand qualitatively what's going on in a semiconductor, and being able to draw graphs and energy-band diagrams.
Finally, the last unit is difficult, but it's what you will be using in EE 105, 140, 141, etc. (i.e. all of the major circuit courses) to design more complex circuits. In 40, you don't have to worry about the design aspect yet; you're only concerned with circuit analysis. It can be mastered with practice.
Overall, to succeed in the class, you'll want to be able to understand all the homework problems and their solutions, and probably pick a few additional book problems (especially among the ones with answers at the end) to do on your own. If you can stay on top of things this way, you will definitely do well.
Personally, I'd rate the class a 6/10 in difficulty, but keep in mind that
(1) this is relative to a bunch of upper division classes, which are substantially harder and more workload-intensive than any of the lower-division classes
(2) everyone's skills and talents are different (so far, I've been stronger in EE than I have been in CS), so this varies quite widely between students
By the way, I'm not sure why you'd want to take a "moderately difficult" English course. For R&C, you can always pick "easy" classes like South Asian R5A-R5B. There are South Asian instructors who grade so generously that their class averages are above 3.8 (check pickaprof.com to find out who they are, and register for their classes.) For the six humanities courses, you can take psychology, economics, or whatever -- preferably something that is both relatively easy and interests you at the same time.
Hope this helps. | 
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