Current UCSD student willing to try and answer people's questions

UCSDcompEng
Tue, 01 Apr 2014 18:08:47 +0000

@stevoleeto
So I have loved the program… but many don’t. Quick overview why
Pros:
You learn higher level stuff about computers, like how bits are stored and used via electricity. To me this stuff was very interesting. If you think you might want to go into hard ware, you still can. CS students don’t always have that option. As much as I like programming, its also nice to have classes that feel more classical College engineering. Having 3 programming courses can get frustrating. Lastly, you don’t have to take compilers (amongst a few other classes). Compilers is the most time consuming cs course. Apparently its not the most dificult, but requires hours and hours on end of programming. To me that’s huge. I rather take a difficult class and get a poor grade, then spends hours at a time consuming class. Because then you just become the code monkey everyone loves to hate on. Plus it is time I could spend drinking :)

Cons:
The ECE classes is much harder, and the EE (electrical engineering) students tend to score much better than the CE students. Being graded on a curve, that can get very frustrating. Also most CE students end up just getting programming jobs anyways because of the abundance of them. They pay better and they are easier to get. Hardware jobs are extremely scarce for people without an MS or PHD. That being said, all the time spent learning ECE stuff goes to waste, and could have been spent on CS classes. I also heard that companies prefer CS because of that. However form my experience that does not seem to be the case. Oh and you have a few extra physics courses (and one extra math course). My freshman year most people transferred out of CE to CS purely because of this. CS students can CHEM or BILD instead if they so choose. This was before CS was impacted, so I don’t think that is an option for you :(

@bolandgoo
Classes have 200 students, so you can definitely sit in without being enrolled in it. However, to do the assignments I’m not sure how your credits will transfer, but if there is a chance to retake CSE11 (the slightly more advanced beginner course) and get credits for it. To become a tutor you need above a 3.0 and apply. They hire lots of them, but they do deny people. If you go to office hours, show interest and skill, you will definitely get a position. Also you need to have gotten a B or better in the course… maybe even an A, I’m not entirely sure.