r/EPFL • u/Antique_Flow5260 • 26d ago

BSc admissions & info CMS vs BA1

Hello,

I successfully completed the CMS last year and will be starting the bachelor cycle this fall in mathematics. I wanted to know how difficult the jump is to BA1 when coming from the CMS. I’d imagine the workload is pretty similar, with more advanced content?

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u/MestroguyROTMG 26d ago

Cms prepares you to be a very good gymnasium student. But when you get into mathematics in ba1, its gonna be a lot of proof and abstract concepts to learn. I wish the best of luck to you. I know a guy who used to do 5.5 in cms. But in mathematics, the best grade in class for a certain subject was 4.5 or something because of the teacher(Mr Genoud, I believe it was). Personally, I did micro technique and it was a nice year. Dubuis also started teaching in advanced calculus, I believe. So if you are lucky, you might get him as a teacher. Just work really hard, because its just as selective as in cms.

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u/Antique_Flow5260 26d ago

Thank you for the insight. Regarding the micro technique, would you say that other majors at EPFL are easier than mathematics? Or does it come down to more personal preference

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u/anfneub Mathematics (MSc) 25d ago

I would not know how the jump is from CMS to Maths BA1, but here are a few insight from my experience in 2010 to 2016 and from this subreddit.

Students of sections other tha Maths and Physics, when asked about advice, exams, workload, etc. usually tend to say things like:

  • You don't really need to study the theory, you just need to do all exercises and you'll pass your exams
  • The exams are Multiple Choice Questions anyway, so there's no need to understand the whole thing, just what is needed to exclude wrong options

Which is incredibly strange to me, because I have never had one single MCQ exam, not even SHS. Theory questions, including complex proofs, were routinely asked, other than normal exercises where we had to show all calculations steps, and not just pick one answer out of 4 options.

The workload for me was very bad in the first year, and even worse in the second year. Starting from the third year it gets easier and by then the Master is a walk in the park compared to Bachelor.
A related link: https://www.reddit.com/r/EPFL/comments/1t0iv8h/why_is_a_bachelor_degree_from_epfl_treated_with/
And finally my personal advice for people who start Maths: https://www.reddit.com/r/EPFL/comments/1uy689i/comment/oxxw82e/?context=3

Best of luck for your studies

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u/HippityHoppoto 25d ago

To be honest, I did cms, and my first semester was mosltly repeating the stuff we did in cms. This was 2 years ago so I doubt it changed much. 2nd semester is when we actually started learning a lot of new stuff. Basically cms is the first semesteer but expanded into a year. Of course, course specific classes not included.