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They weren't overly difficult. They were just the same difficulty as the rest of the CS classes at Cal. If you couldn't pass these you wouldn't pass any other

They weren't overly difficult. They were just the same difficulty as the rest of the CS classes at Cal. If you couldn't pass these you wouldn't pass any other CS course.

aripickar 3y ago
I don’t think they were the same difficulty at all as some of the upper divs. Classes like CS 170 (Efficient Algorithms), Cs 189 (ML) and CS 182 (Deep Neural Networks) were all significantly more difficult than any 61 series class.
- jedberg 3y ago
  Of course a computer scientist would call out my imprecise language. :) What I meant was that it's difficulty was in line with expectations for a lower division course given the difficulty of the upper div courses in the same major.
fdye 3y ago
I once saw a young lady in the lab in Soda hall getting obviously frustrated. A few moments later she exclaimed, "Why is it so f**ing hard!" and then as if in a cartoon slammed her forehead into the lab computers keyboard repeatedly before a TA noticed and came over to help. It was like something out of a cartoon. I've taken CS/Programming courses at a few institutions and never seen quite that level of despair/frustration. Maybe its just a CAL thing, I didn't end up transferring to CAL in the end so CS61A was the only class I did on campus, so can't really say.
gamblor956 3y ago
The CS61 series was excessively difficult compared to the upper-level material, and it was absolutely because it was intended to weed people out of the major. I got A's in all of my upper-level CS courses at Cal. Cryptography and compilers were a breeze compared to the CS61 courses. My average grade in the CS61 series was a B-. The semester I took CS61B (data structures), my grade on the final was 21, out of 100. The average grade was 16, and the highest score was 35. (The 35 is a VC now and is fairly active on HN.)
- jdale27 3y ago
  The semester I took CS61B (data structures), my grade on the final was 21, out of 100. The average grade was 16, and the highest score was 35. Hilfinger?
  - mng2 3y ago
    Calls to mind a Hilfinger quote from my CS61A experience: "Mike Clancy makes the tests; I make them harder."
  - gamblor956 3y ago
    Lol yes, it was Hilfinger. He originally tried to flunk the entire class until the administration forced him to use a curve.
  - peterleiser 3y ago
    I took CS61B with Hilfinger in '96. That guy was a character. In one lecture he didn't let a person answer a C++ question because he said "no, you already learned C++ in highschool. I want a virgin". People tried to avoid his classes, but you learn a lot from Hilfinger.
    - aoki 3y ago
      I avoided his classes like the plague. His name was already a verb in the 80s. Which is not to say that I ever held that against him personally. It was kinda cool that you’d be in Evans at 2am and he’d still be randomly wandering the halls.
- jedberg 3y ago
  They aren't intended to weed people out through difficulty, they weed people out through honesty. They don't dumb it down or make it easy just because it's the intro course. It's very clear in the catalog that the course is not for non-majors. It sounds to me like you learned how to study after you did the 61 series, which is why you did better in upper div (I also did better in upper div for that reason). Also, 61B was graded on a curve, and you did better than average. The tests were hard so that the people who truly grasped the material could demonstrate that. Profs hate it when a bunch of people get a perfect score, because then they don't know who the best is (and so do the top students). It's done that way not to be hard and make you drop, but so that talent can be truly differentiated.

They weren't overly difficult. They were just the same difficulty as the rest of the CS classes at Cal. If you couldn't pass these you wouldn't pass any other CS course.

aripickar 3y ago

I don’t think they were the same difficulty at all as some of the upper divs. Classes like CS 170 (Efficient Algorithms), Cs 189 (ML) and CS 182 (Deep Neural Networks) were all significantly more difficult than any 61 series class.

jedberg 3y ago
Of course a computer scientist would call out my imprecise language. :) What I meant was that it's difficulty was in line with expectations for a lower division course given the difficulty of the upper div courses in the same major.

fdye 3y ago

I once saw a young lady in the lab in Soda hall getting obviously frustrated. A few moments later she exclaimed, "Why is it so f**ing hard!" and then as if in a cartoon slammed her forehead into the lab computers keyboard repeatedly before a TA noticed and came over to help. It was like something out of a cartoon. I've taken CS/Programming courses at a few institutions and never seen quite that level of despair/frustration. Maybe its just a CAL thing, I didn't end up transferring to CAL in the end so CS61A was the only class I did on campus, so can't really say.

gamblor956 3y ago

The CS61 series was excessively difficult compared to the upper-level material, and it was absolutely because it was intended to weed people out of the major. I got A's in all of my upper-level CS courses at Cal. Cryptography and compilers were a breeze compared to the CS61 courses. My average grade in the CS61 series was a B-. The semester I took CS61B (data structures), my grade on the final was 21, out of 100. The average grade was 16, and the highest score was 35. (The 35 is a VC now and is fairly active on HN.)

jdale27 3y ago
The semester I took CS61B (data structures), my grade on the final was 21, out of 100. The average grade was 16, and the highest score was 35. Hilfinger?
- mng2 3y ago
  Calls to mind a Hilfinger quote from my CS61A experience: "Mike Clancy makes the tests; I make them harder."
- gamblor956 3y ago
  Lol yes, it was Hilfinger. He originally tried to flunk the entire class until the administration forced him to use a curve.
- peterleiser 3y ago
  I took CS61B with Hilfinger in '96. That guy was a character. In one lecture he didn't let a person answer a C++ question because he said "no, you already learned C++ in highschool. I want a virgin". People tried to avoid his classes, but you learn a lot from Hilfinger.
  - aoki 3y ago
    I avoided his classes like the plague. His name was already a verb in the 80s. Which is not to say that I ever held that against him personally. It was kinda cool that you’d be in Evans at 2am and he’d still be randomly wandering the halls.
jedberg 3y ago
They aren't intended to weed people out through difficulty, they weed people out through honesty. They don't dumb it down or make it easy just because it's the intro course. It's very clear in the catalog that the course is not for non-majors. It sounds to me like you learned how to study after you did the 61 series, which is why you did better in upper div (I also did better in upper div for that reason). Also, 61B was graded on a curve, and you did better than average. The tests were hard so that the people who truly grasped the material could demonstrate that. Profs hate it when a bunch of people get a perfect score, because then they don't know who the best is (and so do the top students). It's done that way not to be hard and make you drop, but so that talent can be truly differentiated.