This sounds horrifying to me! Is it common at other schools for cs undergrad or other stem, that people in the heart of a major have to take a few classes over?

This sounds horrifying to me! Is it common at other schools for cs undergrad or other stem, that people in the heart of a major have to take a few classes over? I have never heard of this. I'm not saying you are a terrible student (I'm thinking the opposite, to survive that, you or the OP must have a lot of will power and resilience!) it just sounds like a very, very difficult major; what if you don't pass something well enough the second time? I went to a far less prestigious school that you've never heard of. There were some people not passing classes in my cs major, but it was rare, almost unheard of after the first year. After I got to grad school I realized in comparison my undergrad wasn't that challenging. If I had failed a class or even gotten a C in undergrad it would have been pretty devastating. I was the top student in the dept (not bragging, I'm sure at mit or another great school I would have been far from the top ;-)). When I went to grad school to get my phd (at a much better school) it was much more challenging, and I wasn't at the top like I was in undergrad. People did struggle a lot more than at my undergrad school. I was still a good student, I thought. But I also didn't see the undergrads retaking classes where it was a semi-common thing.