Getting CS classes at Davis, and UCD vs UCSC CS

PhantomVirgo
Fri, 15 May 2015 21:01:05 +0000

It’s hard to get classes during pass 1, depending on your class standing. I just registered for fall on Wednesday morning (third day of registration), and it’s the first time in a while that I’ve gotten all my classes during pass 1…even then, I got one of the last seats in one of them. I’m going to be a senior in the fall.

I just looked to see how open seats are doing, and it’s largely full. ECS 120, 140A, and 154A still have seats. Everything else is filled.

BUT! Once pass 2 hits you can waitlist. The department has proven to be pretty accommodating of the waitlists; they’ll expand classes if at all possible if there’s a large waitlist. This quarter I was waitlisted for ECS 150 (required class), I believe I was #13 or so. There ended up being 130ish people on the waitlist, and the department managed to expand enough to let everyone in. The main thing here is to waitlist ASAP, so as soon as your pass 2 time comes up you need to waitlist to have the best chance. Even if a class doesn’t get expanded, keep going to class and keep in contact with the professor and many of them will do what they can to work with you. That happened to me last fall with ECS 120 and the professor eventually gave me an add number because I’d been keeping up with the class and going to office hours.

So honestly, it shouldn’t be much of a problem for you once you’re registering for your second quarter. Especially once you hit senior standing, you should be able to get your classes either during pass 1 or by getting in off the waitlist. You might have some issues getting in for fall because you’re registering after everyone else, but your pass 2 will be in line with everyone else’s and you can waitlist then.

I don’t know how it is at UCSC, but one potentially big negative here is that classes are getting pretty big. A few years ago the classes were a more reasonable size, but now we have around 1100 students in the department (according to the department website) and the class sizes reflect that. Professors for the most part do genuinely care how their students are doing, but with the class sizes it’s on you to actually talk to them. Again, I don’t know how it is at UCSC to know how class sizes are there.

On the plus side, the environment is very cooperative. For me at least, that’s been a big plus; I’d hate to be in an overly competitive/cutthroat environment. There have been several times where I’ve been working with a group on a project in Kemper, and either we overheard another group having trouble and went over to help them, or the other way around. There’s competition, but it’s much more cooperative than it is competitive.