More than half of the SUTD students this round took this course with good reason.
Reason 1: Berkeley has a very strong Computer Science Department
It is ranked one of the top places in the World to learn CS, and regardless of what CS courses you take, you would pretty much be guaranteed an amazing education. Feedback for courses such as CS61A and CS61C have also been great (according to other students) but do take note of the pre-requisites for different courses!
Reason 2: You can Map this course back to SUTD’s Introduction to Algorithms
Since the content of this course is similar to the one in SUTD, SUTD allows you to transfer credits and skip this module when you come back. So you will have one extra slot to do whatever you want, i.e take more courses, declare a minor or just have a more relaxed term. (Hooray for ISTD especially)
Reason 3: It’s a fun course
The department really does its best to engage students and make sure the course experience is manageable and interesting to students. The projects are fun as well, in the first one we made a working 2D visual of our Solar System. In the second we made a mini version control system, gitlet, (similar to git), and for our last project we made a Map of Berkeley, BearMaps, which could give you directions and shortest paths to different places.
Some information:
The course is mostly run by student helpers in lab format. Lab is similar to SUTD but with more TAs who go around to answer questions when you need them. There is only 1 lecture each week. This format really helps if you prefer a smaller class size learning environment.
Instructions for work are really detailed, and the TAs are really accessible and friendly as well if you require help.
In this course you will learn to have a deep understanding of how many things work in programming. There is also a lot of hands on learning as there are many challenging exercises throughout the course.
There are many fun students in lab as well and we sometimes invite them over to ihouse to eat. (Tip: Berkeley students love ihouse food, and you’ll probably have too many meal points to finish them all anyway).
Parting Comments:
CS61BL will be a big jump from SUTD’s Digital World, and there will be many unfamiliar concepts that you are already expected to know (i.e recursion ☹). So be prepared to do a lot of work, especially if your programming fundamentals are poor, and don’t be afraid to ask questions!
Mentally prepared that you might have lesser time than others who do not take this course. You will contemplate your life decisions when you see your friends who have no Friday classes and you have yet to complete your previous day’s lab. But as long as you are consistent in your work, you’ll definitely be able to play (a lot) and enjoy what Berkeley has to offer in its education.
Cheers,
Group 3
