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> For students without some previous experiences, CS61A as an introduction can be brutally discouraging. CS61A hasn't been the intro course for inexperienced s

> For students without some previous experiences, CS61A as an introduction can be brutally discouraging. CS61A hasn't been the intro course for inexperienced students for as long as I can remember: What about CS3? I came into CS having never touched or seen a piece of code, and I took CS3 because my understanding was that it was supposed to be the gentle introduction for complete neophytes. I found CS3 to be enormously easy and hand-holdy (it was a little _too_ easy, but that's not necessarily a bad thing for a course meant to be a gentle intro). What was wrong with CS3 that necessitated the introduction of a new course that (AIUI from the catalog) focuses more on things like the social implications of computing and its relevance to society?

theautocrat 13y ago
CS3 was self paced and saw a high rate of failure. CS10 has been the replacement since Fall 2010 and has a continuation rate of over 75 percent. It also opened the scope to instill a CS consciousness in even those who only ever take CS10.
- wutbrodo 13y ago
  CS3 had a high failure rate?? Do you have a ballpark sense of what it was? I could understand it if 61A had a high failure rate, but I thought CS3 was the way to weed yourself out of CS without taking a hit to your GPA (i.e., realizing that you weren't able to do CS while still being able to do decently in the course, instead of taking 61A and having it be so hard that you failed).
snizzysnaps 13y ago
We shouldn't be making things easier just to accommodate a bunch of women who pissed away their time studying foolish nonsense like women's studies, or socialist studies. Women are usually pretty awful programmers and engineers. Sorry, but the cats out of the bag. I don't care how many classes women take, men will still rule the technology world. If it's any consolation there will always be charity positions for under-qualified women, like Carly Fiorina, Meg Whitman, and that clueless simpleton at Yahoo!, who can't even get their email client to work. If I offended any ladies here, let me apologize. Perhaps I can fund the next Spanx start-up.
- carebear 13y ago
  I do take offense to your comment. And I'm not accepting your apology. My mother graduated from Berkeley as an EECS major. As a matter of fact, so did two of my aunts. They all earn a lot more than the male computer engineers in my family, and this is independent of their sex. Every subject has its introductory classes, many of which people have taken in high school. There isn't an option for introductory CS in many high schools. It seems logical to have one, then, in college
- e12e 13y ago
  I'm not a lady (or woman) so I can't speak for them, but you certainly managed to offend me. > Women are usually pretty awful programmers and engineers. People are generally awful programmers. Don't know that many engineers, but I've certainly met a few good engineers of both sexes in the offshore industry. As for female programmers, most of those I've met or seen the work of are on average much better than men -- but that's probably just because I've seen more code written by men (and also more crappy code).

theautocrat 13y ago

CS3 was self paced and saw a high rate of failure. CS10 has been the replacement since Fall 2010 and has a continuation rate of over 75 percent. It also opened the scope to instill a CS consciousness in even those who only ever take CS10.

wutbrodo 13y ago
CS3 had a high failure rate?? Do you have a ballpark sense of what it was? I could understand it if 61A had a high failure rate, but I thought CS3 was the way to weed yourself out of CS without taking a hit to your GPA (i.e., realizing that you weren't able to do CS while still being able to do decently in the course, instead of taking 61A and having it be so hard that you failed).

snizzysnaps 13y ago

We shouldn't be making things easier just to accommodate a bunch of women who pissed away their time studying foolish nonsense like women's studies, or socialist studies. Women are usually pretty awful programmers and engineers. Sorry, but the cats out of the bag. I don't care how many classes women take, men will still rule the technology world. If it's any consolation there will always be charity positions for under-qualified women, like Carly Fiorina, Meg Whitman, and that clueless simpleton at Yahoo!, who can't even get their email client to work. If I offended any ladies here, let me apologize. Perhaps I can fund the next Spanx start-up.

carebear 13y ago
I do take offense to your comment. And I'm not accepting your apology. My mother graduated from Berkeley as an EECS major. As a matter of fact, so did two of my aunts. They all earn a lot more than the male computer engineers in my family, and this is independent of their sex. Every subject has its introductory classes, many of which people have taken in high school. There isn't an option for introductory CS in many high schools. It seems logical to have one, then, in college
e12e 13y ago
I'm not a lady (or woman) so I can't speak for them, but you certainly managed to offend me. > Women are usually pretty awful programmers and engineers. People are generally awful programmers. Don't know that many engineers, but I've certainly met a few good engineers of both sexes in the offshore industry. As for female programmers, most of those I've met or seen the work of are on average much better than men -- but that's probably just because I've seen more code written by men (and also more crappy code).