Reviews for my Fall 2025 classes

December 13, 2025 · 5 min read
Life

This semester was interesting; I don't think I devoted much time to my classes, but I don't know where all the time went. Probably Instagram Reels.

  • CS 270: Combinatorial Algorithms and Data Structures
    Difficulty: 6/10
    Rating: 9.5/10
    In 5 words or less: GOAT CLASS. BEST AT CAL.
    I don't think I can glaze this class enough. It is the best class I've taken at Berkeley. I don't think I've taken any class that comes close to how much content it covers. It is a life-changing class. A lot of the Information that you learn in this class is something you wouldn't really be able to self-study; many of the algorithms we learned were only discovered in the last 10-15 years, and no established textbook covers them, so your only other option is reading some dense CS theory paper. I came into this class with pretty low expectations. I thought CS theory was pretty boring/useless; I only decided to take it because EE 230C was canceled, and I'd heard that Rao was still recovering from his divorce. But I was blown away. This class has probably been the most useful I've taken at Berkeley, and there's a lot of connections with random things in other fields. It definitely is a hard class; I would say the problem sets were the hardest I've seen so far; never before have I written a proof that was longer than a page and required lemmas. Rao's slides can be somewhat confusing, and I'd say that Math 104 might be a soft prereq, but it's definitely doable.

  • EECS 126: Probability and Random Processes
    Difficulty: 5/10
    Rating: 6/10
    In 5 words or less: Don't really understand the hype.
    I don't think I devoted enough time to this class. Some of the topics were definitely interesting, but I thought that most of the class was just a somewhat harder CS 70. The course content is somewhat interesting, especiallly the Kalman Filtering and Markov Chain part. It definitely helps with mathematical maturity, and the topics that are taught in the class have great applicability to many areas of EECS. The labs were somewhat interesting. I thought that the problem sets would be far harder, but that could just be my mind just trying to forget them due to their (possibly) traumatic nature and me missing a decent portion of them. The professor, Preeya Khanna, was new, so I expect that in later years, she will be better, though I thought she was pretty good as a first-time teacher for the class. I would say that the class is about the same difficulty as CS 70. I didn't really attend lecture, and I feel like I could have gotten more out of the class.

  • PHYSICS 137B: Quantum Mechanics II
    Difficulty: 3.5/10
    Rating: 5/10
    In 5 words or less: Not a class of all time
    This class did not make me happy. It was mandatory attendance at 9 AM. I felt that problem sets were often unclear, and I would have prefered for the problem sets to be harder and longer. Some questions were relatively easy, but others, perhaps due to their vague nature (could just be me though), were very difficult. I really appreciated the last part of the class, where we wrote a term paper. I wrote mine on the path-integral formulation of quantum mechanics, which I thought was very elegant. That being said, I don't feel at all prepared for Physics 221, and I think I learned more about things like perturbation theory from Physics 141a than I did in this class.

  • PHYSICS 141A: Solid State Physics/Introduction to Condensed Matter Physics
    Difficulty: 5/10
    Rating: 7.5/10
    In 5 words or less: Now ik why Diamond's transparent
    This class is pretty good. I think people say that solid state physics is one of the dryest parts of physics as an undergraduate, and that might be true. I had Orenstein again, but I found this class significantly harder than Physics 5B. It seemed like everyone in the class was very prepared and smart. I didn't come in with the recommended prereq of Physics 112, which may been a factor in this. I didn't really go to lecture, as the lecture hall was way too far. Thankfully, Orenstein's notes were really good, and the textbook was excellent as well. As far as I know, condensed matter physics is currently the biggest part of physics, so it was good that I took it. I think it's pretty cool to see the applications of quantum mechanics; I learned way more about matter itself. The class covers a decent amount of material; I think it was more than or around the same as EECS 126, but definitely less than 270. We started with basic theories on matter, such as the Drude model, and we worked our way up to band theory, eventually reaching to semiconductor physics. I think the Physics 137AB + Physics 141a series of classes is very good if you want to more deeply understand transistors and devices that make all of EECS possible. Overally, I feel like I should have also devoted more time to this course.