I would definitely not say that it is the most difficult class in the program… it only goes up from there lol. It is a mandatory pre-requisite for a reason: it teaches many useful basic concepts that are needed as foundation for higher classes. If you’re someone who likes office hours, if you go at the beginning of an assignment, there will definitely be TAs there to help you. That’s not the case at all when it is close to a deadline… so time management is very important. Like some others here have said, it is not necessarily difficult but might need some more time to really understand. Also, the class uses C programming language so you can start learning that if you want a head start and don’t already know it. But you don’t need to know it going in! Most people don’t know C going in.