8/12    Is it possible to take 37 units in one semester?
        \_ With approval you are allowed to try anything.  You won't pass
           37 units unless it's mostly crap courses.
        \_ Not sure if it's physically possible, but you have to get Dean's
           approval to go past 20 or 21.
           \_ It's possible if you need them for graduation; a friend of
              mine did 38 his last semester. -calbear
              \_ Are you sure he didn't attempt to slit his own throat?
                 \_ Pretty sure.  He seems happy to me.  He's currently
                    involved in a start-up for a couple of months before
                    leaving to New York to work as an attorney in mergers
                    and acquistions. -calbear
                    \_ Wait a second. Attorney? That explains everything.
                       His units were probably mostly in the humanities
                       and social sciences. I'd like to see someone take
                       38 units of science or engineering. --dim
                       \_ Everyone's different. I would die with that many
                          units of humanities, cuz I can't write worth shit
                          term papers.
                          \_ But clearly you could easily do 38 units
                             of science and engineering classes? Come on.
                             All you're admitting to is being a moron that
                             can't write. I submit that it would be
                             almost *impossible* for an undergrad to take 38
                             units of science and engineering courses
                             and pass with grades of C or better in each.
                             The reason? Problem sets and labs. Papers
                             are not near as time-consuming, ignoring
                             whether or not they are "easier". --dim
                                \- i think if you are one of these amazing
                        people [there were classes it took me 20hrs/week to
                        to the homework, while people i knew took 40 minutes,
                        but they also got 3 digit scores on the putnam ...
                        and didnt ever bring a pen or pencil or paper to
                        class to take notes] it can done. for a normal person
                        this would be impossible. i took 5 problem set classes
                        plus one political science class one semester and i
                        basically sleeped under 30hrs a week for the whole
                        semeser and only went home every few days [it was
                        also my highest gpa semester, but i was in a black
                        mood the whole time]. i think you couldnt physically
                        do the reading for 7 heavy reading classes, however
                        for many of those classes you can do quite well in
                        without doing much of the reading. --psb
                        \_ I guess I didn't have it as bad, but it was still
                           a pretty horrible experience for me.  CS 164 with
                           Hilfinger, CS 184 with Sequin, EE 122, Polisci 2,
                           and project partners that were either lazy,
                           incompetent, or just ditched me half way through
                           a project.  I didn't sleep much that semester but
                           boy did I learn a lesson about choosing classes.
                           --jeff
                \_ I'm currently in my 5th year of EECS however
                   there was a semester in which I thought i should do
                   philosophy instead, so I took 4 philosophy courses
                   philos 12(foundations of logic), philos 25a(ancient),
                   philos 133 (language), philos 132 (mind)
                   and cs61c. This was all without approval from my
                   faculty advisor. Anyways to make a long story short,
                   I didn't do jack shit in any of the philosophy courses
                   and got 4 A's and a B. You can guess where the B came from.
                   I spent roughly 30 hours for the entire semester outside
                   of class for each philosophy course.
                   Compare that with two weeks of an upper div CS or EE class.
                   I now think that any dumbass can get a Berkeley degree,
                   but which kind of degree is what counts. I spend
                   15 hrs a week outside of class for each EE/CS course.
                        \-try taking h104, h113, 115, physics 137a+105.
                        one problem set due on wed, 2 on thr, 2 on fri.
                        you are too wiped out to do anything all weekend.
                        you learn a lot more about fear and trmbling that way
                        than reading kierkegaard.
                        \_ go go math power pack! -- ilyas
                       \_ Of course i don't mean to diss physics. as an
                          eecs major i respect math and physics
                          as more difficult, and realize it requires
                          much more thought. i couldn't do most upper div math.
                          and i know history is alot of work. im just saying
                          generally, that most non-science (anthro, poli sci,
                          bus, econ, etc.) don't know the meaning of blood
                          sweat and tears. i do think english and history
                          are siginificantly harder than other humanities
                          but getting through
                          math/physics/ee/cs/mcb/bio-e/meche/chem-e
                          means you are a bad mo-fo.
        \_ Just to let you all know, the first two years of medical school
           on most campuses is about 30 units or so, and it wasn't that bad.
           A lot of work in amount, but not that hard conceptually. -drex