That first semester I only took 12 units of classes. I had always heard that the first semester is a shock so you shouldn't try to take a full load right away. The only problem being that Berkeley is geared for you to take 15 units a semester, having a light semester means a heavy semester later on. But I had my AP credits and I would also take a summer class at American River College which would satisfy another requirement. So that first semester didn't hurt my progress.

I've already mentioned how my college career was already scheduled out in advance. Once I decided to go the full CS track it was quite clear what specific classes I had to take. There were slots for "general engineering requirement" or "upper division math" and other things. But engineers at Cal have few truly free units that they can spend on anything, less than 15 for me. And most engineers would use those credits on more engineering courses, which is why our non-engineering curricula was strictly regulated. We *had* to take so much English and upper division literature and math and physics and chemistry. I had the notion later on to try to get a minor in something, anything. But I couldn't find anything. I just didn't have enough credit left at that point.

Berkeley is a bit weird in that there is a Computer Science Department, along with an EECS Department. CS is in the College of Letters and Science and has significantly easier requirements for a CS major. Back when Computer Science was starting to take off, both the Electrical Engineering Department and the L-and-S college wanted to own CS. EECS won that battle, though it couldn't eliminate the CS Department, so it now provides all of the curricula and professors, with CS being administered by the L-and-S college.

Anyway, in Fall of 1989 I took Computer Science 60A, Math 1B and Physics 7A. CS 60A, that famed class taught then and still taught now by Brian Harvey, one of the best lecturers on campus. Brian Harvey then had a barrel of a stomach and an infectious enthusiasm for computers. He'd regale us with anecdotes about life in Berkeley, where the best potstickers could be found and the various computer clubs around. He's a great person to have as your first CS professor, and I'm sure he's personally convinced many a student to make CS their choice of Major.

CS 60A is a big class, when I took it there were some 600 students crammed into the round edifice of what is now Pimentel Hall (I swear I remember it having a different name). This is also the place where many a BMUG meeting was held. From the upper seats you had a view of a small figure talking to the students and drawing on the blackboards. Luckily, then and probably now there's a certain percentage of students who refuse to attend lectures, so there was plenty of room to find a seat close to the front. I remember professor Shugart teaching one of the undergrad physics classes in that room. He could never pronounce unknown correctly, saying un-know-when throughout the semester until someone finally complained. He tried to pronounce it correctly for one lecture but that didn't work.

CS 60A was a simple class, mainly trying to teach us some basic concepts like abstraction and modularity and information hiding. Principles that every CS person uses. We used Scheme (a simplified version of LISP) to write programs. One project was to write a simulator of a small town, really parts of the Berkeley campus. You had some of the buildings and some locations like Sproul Plaza and a chinese restaurant. Then you put agents in random locations, with each agent having behaviors preprogrammed (like Brian Harvey having to stop at the chinese restaurant for potstickers). Then let the simulation run and see what happens. That was fun.

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