How much harder does UW CS get after first year?

[aoen]

I have made it through the first semester of UW CS (except for exams, but I think my marks will stay roughly the same on average), but I have heard horror stories about 3rd year students who spend entire weeks without showering and little sleep working on assignments, which brings me to my question, what percentage of students that make it through first year graduate (and if these statistics are recorded somewhere where can I find them). My marks are relatively good, but I am finding the workload a bit too much (I spend roughly 5 hours on calc, 6.5 on algebra, and 10 on cs in terms of assignments).

So ya how much harder does it get and how many people make it to the end?

[Tony]

I've heard something like 40% drop-out over the first two years. I don't know what the distribution is. Though "drop-out" means "no longer pursuing CS". UW does have a system where they publish certain statistics; I imagine that some information can be requested. I don't recall much detail regarding that at the moment.

The workload sounds about right though. Some choose to challenge themselves with more involving courses in upper years.

[Prabhakar Ragde]

40% loss is probably a good guesstimate. Of course, people leave a program for many reasons. Some fail out. Some decide they don't like it. Some like it fine, but find something else they like even more.

There is a certain macho attitude in CS through which students like to validate their experiences and seek the respect of others by puffing up how busy they are. This reaches a zenith in the fourth-year project courses where it is traditional to live in the lab, not sleep, etc. Much of this is voluntary. There are also students who do not pick up time management skills in first and second years, or take a shallow cram-for-the-exam-then-forget approach instead of really learning material in depth, and these students genuinely struggle with third- and fourth-year courses (or even second year, where they may be taking as many as three CS courses in a term).

I tried to design CS 135 to be representative of upper-year difficulty and workload, but that also requires you to grow and adapt as you move into upper years. (Also, not being a current instructor, I have only indirect influence over lectures, assignments, and exams.) --PR

[jbking]

While I did graduate a while back, I thought I'd share part of my story. The second and fourth year courses were the hardest for me, with the first and third being a bit easier, but hardly trivial. Oddly enough, I do remember the numbers of all my CS course numbers(130,134,246,241,340,342,351,354,360,370,464,466,486.487). There are a few 4th year courses that had legendary tales where students would spend 40+ hrs a week on the projects and the courses were Compilers, Real-Time, and Graphics as I recall.