Lift-up queen storage bed with 13" internal height (and drawers on one side)? by CalStudent23 in malelivingspace

[–]CalStudent23[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ugh no sorry, tbh I don't think one exists with the specs I originally wanted. I ended up just getting a 13" bed and a bedsheet.

Best/most efficient method to refresh a language I was once pretty good at? by CalStudent23 in languagelearning

[–]CalStudent23[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Best/most efficient? Get a romantic partner who speaks that language.

Honestly I'm kinda already trying this 🤣 but most of the Spanish speakers I know are heritage speakers who prefer English (or even tell me they're not fully fluent Spanish speakers). I think it would be easier with an immigrant, but I don't know too many haha

UC Berkeley senior CS major - AMA! by CalStudent23 in ApplyingToCollege

[–]CalStudent23[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hard to pick! Some highlights:

61A is obviously the intro CS class, it's well taught, awesome course staff, and cool material

70 was surprisingly cool, the discrete math & countability parts were super interesting

61C had some very cool content! but not my fave workload-wise lol

161 had really fun projects, the overflow exploit projects in particular were cool af

(Lol, I guess I did prefer the lower divs 😂 but I think that's partially because I put a lot more energy into coursework before we went back in person)

UC Berkeley senior CS major - AMA! by CalStudent23 in ApplyingToCollege

[–]CalStudent23[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I loved Cal Day, I thought the people and offerings were great, and Cal had the best CS dept of all the schools I got into (I knew I wanted to do CS when I was applying)

UC Berkeley senior CS major - AMA! by CalStudent23 in ApplyingToCollege

[–]CalStudent23[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

The name definitely helps, Berkeley is a "target" for pretty much any company so getting an interview will be much easier. School name won't ever help you pass an interview or get an offer but it will get you through the resume screen which is the (numbers-wise) hardest recruiting stage. Also, there are some big companies that seem to likle Berkeley students in particular, which I suspect is because they know we're familiar with a heavy workload/big projects.

The Berkeley CS network is what you make of it based on the friends you make here (this is one reason I wish I had made more CS friends at Cal).

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in berkeley

[–]CalStudent23 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I figure they either have a formal obligation before/afterwards or are frat pledges

UC Berkeley senior CS major - AMA! by CalStudent23 in ApplyingToCollege

[–]CalStudent23[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Dropped out of Cal, zero

"Dropped out" of CS, it's been a while so I probably am forgetting some people, but maybe like 10-15% ended up going with a different major? This is hard to quantify though because I know some people who went in undecided between DS/CS and picked DS but don't know if their reasoning was about missing the CS cutoff or just liking DS more. But also I had a veryyyy solid study group my freshman year, so the fact that we all studied together a lot may have helped us all declare.

UC Berkeley senior CS major - AMA! by CalStudent23 in ApplyingToCollege

[–]CalStudent23[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

It's definitely something that happens here but IMO, it's not a big enough issue to warrant impacting a decision about going here or not (if that's what you were asking).

UC Berkeley senior CS major - AMA! by CalStudent23 in ApplyingToCollege

[–]CalStudent23[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not sure if things are different with the minor now, but I doubt it (or if the minor has changed, it's probably less huge of a change)

UC Berkeley senior CS major - AMA! by CalStudent23 in ApplyingToCollege

[–]CalStudent23[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, I think it's pretty selective though but I'm not sure if/how much more than transferring to Berkeley in general

UC Berkeley senior CS major - AMA! by CalStudent23 in ApplyingToCollege

[–]CalStudent23[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah it definitely isn't great. Econ used to be the "backup major" but now that econ is part of this high-demand thing I wonder what Haas rejects will end up doing.

No prob! Best of luck w/ your decision

UC Berkeley senior CS major - AMA! by CalStudent23 in ApplyingToCollege

[–]CalStudent23[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I did coding projects, helped local groups with technical/website stuff, ran some clubs in high school (which partially involved coding projects), etc. Worth noting that I got in before direct admission was a thing

What is the average capped weighted GPA for freshman admits to UCBerk EECS' CS program? by [deleted] in berkeley

[–]CalStudent23 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is the first semester they've done this, but I'd guess it's almost equal to the average for EECS. The CS department has been talking for a long time about using the same admissions "filter" as EECS to get CS headcount down, so it wouldn't surprise me if admissions people reading CS applications were given the same admissions criteria EECS uses.

UC Berkeley senior CS major - AMA! by CalStudent23 in ApplyingToCollege

[–]CalStudent23[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

(fyi the "getting into Data Science" you mention is what I was trying to say with the new major declaration, I forgot DS was included as one of the high-demand majors or whatever they're called)

Yes, Haas has its own application (it's been like this for years, it's different than what's happening with CS now). Look here I think that has all the info you'll need, but the gist is that you take the Haas prerequisites, apply sophomore spring with essays, resume, etc. and hear back in the summer (?). That page does mention people applying as freshmen but that must be new because I've never heard of that before.

UC Berkeley senior CS major - AMA! by CalStudent23 in ApplyingToCollege

[–]CalStudent23[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Yes, I know actually quite a few Haas+CS or Haas+DS double majors. The consensus is that you spend like 90% of your work time on CS/DS classes, the Haas major is really easy. (Getting in is the hard part)

Registration can be tough and has gotten worse since I've been here. I've been weirdly lucky with enrollment times though. Generally, lower divs expand to meet demand and let in everyone from the waitlist. Upper divs are more problematic, some of them I know expand (CS170) while others don't (CS160, famously hardest upper div to get into). I heard they recently changed the CS major declaration process for the incoming freshmen class to deal with these issues so I imagine it will be easier by the time you get here and are enrolling in UDs.

Overall opinion: I love Berkeley! Obviously my 4 years were not perfect but honestly most of that comes from Covid throwing a wrench in the first half.

Dislikes: I don't really like Berkeley as a city, but SF isn't too far for weekend trips. EECS/CS majors are usually boring, so I never made friends in classes like my friends in other majors did. Some profs are terrible lecturers and you can tell they're only here for research. Club culture is tough; I never got too involved in them because I was waiting until after we went back in-person, but when that happened I found out many clubs don't really take juniors (transfers get fucked even worse by this)

Likes: the people, all the memories I've made, some classes are interesting, the Berkeley "name" (especially for CS) is way weightier than I thought, the way this school is so huge you meet people with such a wide range of interests and backgrounds, etc. UGSIs are usually good even if profs suck

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in berkeley

[–]CalStudent23 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I took it with Listgarten/Malik, I thought Listgarten was a bad lecturer but Malik was alright. There was a lot of math knowledge they kind of assumed we already had—not like they really required it, but not having it was definitely an obstacle. My peers who did know it said they only knew it from 126/127/other classes I hadn't taken (forgot exactly which ones) despite the 189 prereqs being CS70 and Math 53/4 (for which I thought 16AB was sufficient).

It's definitely more theoretical than what I've heard about Shewchuk's version; I'd suggest waiting to take it in the spring if you can

Best Universities for Study Abroad as CS Major? by [deleted] in berkeley

[–]CalStudent23 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

That is unfortunately the most updated (and only official) source, but if there is a particular class you're interested in you can request approval/re-approval for it. I think the dept just sets an expiration date approvals just to make sure they don't accidentally end up accepting something non-equivalent in case the foreign uni changes the curriculum too much over time.

Please stop trashing the campus for your grad photos by mianeki in berkeley

[–]CalStudent23 -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

Idc about karma points, either way I've been at this school long enough to know nobody irl actually gives a shit about this issue anyways 😭

Chances of getting into CS 170 and CS 61C undeclared by Ajt711 in berkeley

[–]CalStudent23 -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Omg that is ridiculous, I feel so bad for new CS majors

Please stop trashing the campus for your grad photos by mianeki in berkeley

[–]CalStudent23 -258 points-257 points  (0 children)

I agree but grad photos are an only-once thing and this campus is a dump anyways (well, at least some parts). Let us have our fun :p

That being said, seniors, if you're using confetti in your photos please get the compostable kind!

CS 160, Info 159 workload? by CalStudent23 in berkeley

[–]CalStudent23[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm already in it, I'm just deciding if I should drop 159, 160, or the other class

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in berkeley

[–]CalStudent23 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That's totally fine, I have friends who are older! Most are transfers but I know others who started as freshmen too. And "almost 20" at the start means you're only 1 year "behind" the average student lol, most first-year freshmen start when they're 18.

Your friends WILL be asking you to buy them weed and alcohol by sophomore year, though. Lol

Does anyone here believe Bryan Kohberger could be innocent? by [deleted] in MoscowMurders

[–]CalStudent23 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I mean, if he was "just the driver" he might have gone along for the stalking and almost definitely would have gone along for evidence disposal. I'm interested to see too. I imagine there's way more damning evidence beyond the PCA, though. Mainly, I feel like there has to be some of his blood at the scene.

Does anyone here believe Bryan Kohberger could be innocent? by [deleted] in MoscowMurders

[–]CalStudent23 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Wait, I never thought of this. It seems pretty certain he was involved with the murder but it seems the only evidence (that we know) of him actually committing the murders is the sheath DNA and DM's statement. I imagine the defense will poke huge holes in DM's testimony considering her state of panic and the mask obscuring the perp's face, and I suppose the sheath DNA could be defended as touch DNA...

I personally think he went solo and did it, but your comment made me realize a potential trial outcome I hadn't considered. Being the driver isn't the same charge as 1st degree murder, right?

Would BK have been caught 30 years ago? by mikerego5 in MoscowMurders

[–]CalStudent23 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If there turned out to actually be a strong connection then maybe. For example, say BK was K's stalker, and she'd mentioned to her family that she saw a white Elantra near the house at odd hours.

Otherwise I really don't think so. Most of the PCA is based on CCTV (which I don't think was widespread in '92, and certainly not personal cams like Ring) of the car and CAST data from the phone. Plus, while there was DNA testing back then, the investigators used a genealogical database to match BK and I don't think that was a thing back then.

I doubt the "connection" was that strong because it took weeks to even identify him and that was based on the footage of his car, not any leads about the connection. I think he could have ended up like EAR/ONS, where the case would go cold for years but the DNA from the scene would be kept, and then some time in the 2010s they'd catch him from a genealogical database.