<p>Hello, I am a prospective student of UC Berkeley. I have been looking up a lot of information on college confidential, and Berkeleys website to see what my first semester class schedule at Berkeley would look like as a Chem E major. So far, I have seen that I could take Math 53, Chem 4A, and Physics 7A, but some people on this website have posted that taking these classes all in the same semester would be extremely difficult. However, many of these posts regard schedules which include other classes such as the AC requirement, and R1A/R1B along with those three tough classes. My question is whether it is still possible to get good grades (As) in those classes (without being really overwhelmed) if those are the only classes I take (including Chem E C96 for a 13-unit semester)?</p>
<p>My estimation is that lab (or big project) courses are almost twice the work of non-lab courses.</p>
<p>Non-lab course work:</p>
<p>Read the book(s).
Go to class.
Do the homework.
Study for tests.</p>
<p>Lab course work:</p>
<p>All of the above as for non-lab courses (unless the course is only lab).
Read the pre-lab notes.
Go to lab.
Write up the lab.
(Though you at least don’t have to study for additional tests.)</p>
<p>So the three courses listed would be almost five courses’ worth of work, since two of them are lab courses. Five or six courses worth of work in a semester is doable if you have reasonable study and time management skills. But it may be a shock to a new student who is used to acing high school courses with little effort.</p>
<p>Thanks for the response! I think this is a good way to look at it.</p>
<p>My two friends and I (all ChemE freshmen) took basically this exact schedule last semester and got 4.0s. It’s definitely doable, and not an outrageous amount of work, provided that your AP Calc BC, AP Physics, and AP Chem courses in high school were fairly rigorous.</p>
<p>^Congrats! That’s amazing. How much free time did you and your friends have to socialize and participate in extracurriculars?</p>
<p>If you scored 5s on the AP tests for Calc BC, Physics, and Chem, you stand a chance of getting a 4.0. If lower than 5s, you would have to put in a lot of work for your classes if you want A’s… but it would still be possible. </p>
<p>By the way, Physics 7/8 are not considered lab classes. You don’t actually have to do any out-of-class work like lab reports… you just fill out some worksheets during class and hand them in at the end. Everyone gets full credit. Chem 4 labs are a different beast entirely. But in math and physics most of the work you’ll be doing is homework.</p>
<p>We had lots of free time. The only class of those three that actually took a serious amount of time was Chem 4A, and not because it was hard, but because of the tedious labs. My lab was on Thursday, and I spent about 8 hours each Wednesday night writing the lab reports. Chem also had a problem set due each Monday that took about an hour. Aside from that though, math and physics for the entire week took three hours or less each (physics labs are completed in the lab itself, not after). I completely finished my math and physics on Saturday each week, and the chem problem set on Sunday. I didn’t have ANY work during the week, aside from the lab and preparing for the exams (which weren’t that hard).</p>
<p>oh wow that’s crazy. I am definitely going to take that schedule if I am admitted and get 5’s on AP Calc BC and AP English Lit tests (to get out of R1A/R1B & Math 1A & 1B). Thanks!</p>
<p>I would double check if a 5 on AP Lit gets you out of both R1A/R1B. In the college of engineering, we only get out of R1A, but CoC might be different.</p>
<p>Actually its better than I thought. The announcement for CoC says: “For the chemical engineering major, only a first-level Reading and Composition course is required.” </p>
<p>With a 4 or a 5 on the AP English Language Exam: “***Entry-Level Writing and a first-level Reading and Composition course (e.g., English R1A) with 4 units of credit toward the Breadth requirement (Group I)”</p>
<p>With a 5 on AP English Literature Exam: “***Entry-Level Writing and first- and second-level Reading and Composition courses (e.g., English R1A and Rhetoric R1B) with 5.3 units of credit total toward the Breadth requirement (Group I)”</p>
<p>Yup, ChemE only requires one semester of English.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Hmmm, must have changed since I remember it. If so, then that schedule is certainly manageable since the physics course will not be much more work than the math course.</p>
<p>If you are ambitious, perhaps even consider adding another non-lab course (but be prepared to drop it before the deadline if it results in too much work). If you do, probably such a course would be a humanities or social studies course (breadth requirement), since the only other technical course you could take is Engineering 7, a computer / MATLAB course with a lab (though it may be easy if you have good computer programming experience).</p>
<p>^I definitely could try filling the American Cultures requirement with a humanities or social studies course during this semester (and if it does result in too much work, I can always drop it before the deadline like you said). But I think that Engineering 7 along with this schedule would be way too hard, considering that some people on this website have said that it is extremely time consuming. Having both Chem 4A and E7 the same semester would be nearly impossible. However, I am thinking about taking it the 2nd semester of my freshman year (as early as possible) because people have said that it is important for other lower div and upper div courses.</p>
<p>^ The only problem with that idea is that you would be stuck with Math 54, Chem 4B, Physics 7B, and E7 second semester, which doesn’t sound like much fun either haha.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That would make your second semester be:</p>
<p>Math 54
Chemistry 4B
Physics 7B
Engineering 7</p>
<p>Hmmm, sounds familiar?</p>
<p>Seems like if you want to take Engineering 7 in your freshman year, you will have to take it along with a math, physics, and chemistry course. On the other hand, it may be reasonable to do it the second semester, since you may be adjusting to university life in your first semester.</p>
<p>Alternatively, you can take humanities or social studies courses for your fourth courses each semester in your freshman year, and take Engineering 7 in your sophomore year (though you may then have to take it concurrently with Chemistry 112A or something like that).</p>
<p>Note, however, that some humanities and social studies courses have large term projects that may be more work than expected.</p>
<p>I think what it comes down to is whether it is better to have a tougher first semester or a tougher second semester. Chem 4B is supposed to be easier than Chem 4A. Physics 7B is supposed to be harder than 7A. I think (correct me if I’m wrong) that Math 54 is not much different in its level of difficulty and work than Math 53. The end result is that both semesters will have about the same level of difficulty and work load except in the second semester I will have E7 instead of Chem E C96. I think that going from high school to UC Berkeley will be quite a jump, so I should ease my way into college by first taking 3 of those hard classes, and then the next semester just add E7 to make it 4.</p>
<p>There is no need to take E7 your first year. Taking it second semester would be quite time-consuming. I would say there is little difference in terms of time consumption between Math 53/54, Physics 7A/7B, and Chem 4A/4B (considering the special project in 4B). Ultimately, how much time you spend on your classes in a way matters more in terms of planning out courseload than their relative conceptual difficulty. </p>
<p>If you really wanted to get it over by sophomore year, you could take E7 in the summer. If not, I would wait until second semester of sophomore year. First semester you’ll be plenty busy with Chem 112A and Chem E 140, which are the respective introductory classes to their subjects.</p>
<p>By the way, have you even been accepted to Berkeley yet? Just curious.</p>
<p>No I haven’t been accepted yet.</p>
<p>Is E7 less important to Chem E majors than to other Engineering majors?</p>
<p>my roommate who’s a chem major took all those classes (Fall 2010 semester) plus a writing class and got straight A’s and he didn’t study very much (except for chem 4A) and he got all A’s, maybe one A-. So based on that, yeah it’s possible, it just depends on your personal ability and work ethic.</p>