My Web Log

A review of classes I have taken this past year

Date: July 17, 2025

In my freshman year at Cal, I have taken interesting classes. I've decided to write a bit on each class as a way to remember some of the things that happened. Obviously, my opinions and views are only mine, and as such, are very biased and limited.

• Physics 5B: Honors Introductory Electromagnetism, Waves, and Optics
  Difficulty : 2/10
  In 5 words: Interesting, fun, easy
  This class is amazing. Professor Orenstein is an amazing lecturer; he goes at a speed that feels slow, but is actually pretty fast! As a disclaimer, I did enter this class with a very significant amount of knowledge about E&M. The 5-series at Berkeley is more focused on theory, and as such, prepares one better for physics upperdivs. I felt that 5B is a must-take if you are a freshman who has taken Calculus III and have some experience in E&M. I would also say this class is perfect for anyone who has aims to do anything EE-related. Homeworks were short, roughly 4-5 problems from Purcell and Morin, but at the end of the class, when it gets more into optics, Prof. Orenstein gave his own problems. I have very fond memories of this class; many times, I would come and just absorb the new physics (especially the optics part) that he was teaching. I also learned the trick to solve many differential equations: just guess e^{i (k dot r - omega t)}.


• Physics 5BL: Honors Introduction to Experimental Physics I
  Difficulty: 8/10
  In 5 words: Intense, unforgiving, trauma-inducing, nightmare-inducing, worth-it
  The hardest class I've taken so far. It maybe only 2 units, but this class took up most of my time. Grading is often unforgiving, and deadlines approach very fast. The first 1.5 months the class moves at break-neck speed. We would do labs on Tuesday, and by Thursday, we'd have to submit a lab report, written in LaTeX, that was often longer than 20 pages, along with hundreds of lines of code for data analysis. After the initial sprint, the class slows down a bit, before becoming insane the last 3 weeks. During that time, we worked on our capstone project. As a word of advice, do not pick a capstone project that does not have a clear aim or one that is very difficult. Our initial project was to build a radio transmitter and reciever, but despite hours and hours in lab, we weren't able to get it to work. Last minute, we started working on analog filters, but that too was not much easier. One of my partners had to spend 8 hours a day for a week and a half in the EECS16B labs trying to build the high-order filters. Instead of studying for my final exams, I was working on the report, which, in the end, totaled over 50 pages. We wrote something on the order of a thousand lines of code for data analysis. The saving grace about the capstone project is that you are in a group of three, instead of two. I barely made out with an A in this class. I still think that this class is a must-take. It really "whips" you into shape for Berkeley, and it taught me how to actually code in Python with NumPy, SciPy, Pandas, and other libraries. It might have been a bad idea to take it so early, however, but I met some of my closest friends through this class. This class also gives you knowledge that is very useful in EE classes, particularly EECS 16B.


• Physics 137A: Quantum Mechanics I
  Difficulty: 4.5/10
  In 5 6 words: Too early in the morning, good
  My biggest complaint about this class was that it was too early in the morning (9 AM) in the worst building on campus (Evan's Hall). As a result, I wasn't able to go to class as much as I liked, and as there were no recordings, I had to read the professor's notes, which thankfully, were excellent. Homeworks weren't very intense; I spent most of my time doing homework writing them on LaTeX. This was kind of needed, as when I took the class, homeworks made up around 40% of the grade. Homeworks were often proving theorems or results that were used in class. Exams weren't very easy, but weren't unreasonable. Most of the time, the class average was around 50-60%, which meant that it would be curved. I think that this class is one of the people in EE should take, as it provides the foundation for why transistors work. For the homeworks, I would reccomend using SciPy, which allows you to write code to compute integrals and derivatives. I think that if this class was later in the day, I would have gotten even more out of it.


• Math 104: Introduction to Analysis
  Difficulty: 5/10
  In 5 words: not for me, strengthens math
  


• EECS 16A: Foundations of Signals, Dynamical Systems, and Information Processing
  Difficulty: 4/10
  In 5 words: foundational, important, and interesting
  


• EECS 16B: Introduction to Circuits and Devices
  Difficulty: 3.5/10
  In 5 words: interesting, not as well managed
  


• CS 61A: Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
  Difficulty: 4.5/10
  In 5 words: excellent starting class
  


• CS 61B: Data Structures
  Difficulty: 4/10
  In 5 words: amazing class, BYOW is goated


• CS 61C: Great Ideas in Computer Architecture (Machine Structures) Difficulty: /10
  In 5 6 words: Maybe computer architecture isn't for me?


• CS 70: Discrete Mathematics and Probability Theory Difficulty: 5.75/10
  In 5 words: fast-paced, amazing, very important

Copyright 2025 - s-n-sharma