kyle808

For those who care to comment, should I enroll in Core or Divisional Studies if I want to aviod mathematics and science classes as much as possible. I will be a history/political science major and I just wanted to know whether Core is more inclined to humanities while Divisional may have a wider breadth. I was never any good at math in high school, so avioding math classes, for me, would probably be best.

astor

Well, Divisional Studies is nothing special, it's what everyone has to go through where you need to take 2 courses in each of the departments like Social Sciences, Humanities, Math, Science and a Language. One of the two required science courses has to also have a lab.

Core, on the other hand, is a way to fulfill your divisionals by just following the core curriculum. I have heard from a few in the Core program that the Core Sciences is not as easy as people think so it's not exactly the easy way out. The way it appears is that the Core Sciences encompasses many different sciences, and so it's essentially a survey course. The Core Humanities is 2 years long and so it covers both the WR100/WR150 track as well as the humanities track.

You don't necessarily have to take math courses to fulfill divisionals. If you scored above a 580 Math or something like that, you don't have to take a math course, but you still have to take a course under Math/Computer Science. Many kids take CS101 to fulfill the math requirements and either Geology or Earth Sciences to fulfill the science portion.

Unless you have AP credit for math, you can't really avoid math and sciences all together, although you can take one of the less intense introductory courses to fulfill each one (CS101, Earth Sciences, Astronomy, Geology, etc.)

PureWhispers

There are a lot of "fluff" computer/math and science courses that you can take to satisfy those requirements, so I wouldn't fret about that. However, the Core Curriculum's science program does indeed seem to be more difficult than it lets on. I had a lot of friends this past year who were in Core and got out of it for one reason or another, so based on that (and my satisfaction with being in Divisional Studies), I'd personally recommend against doing Core.

Nickel Xenon

I'm really good at keeping up with reading and literature in general, but I'm terrible at labs and sciences. I'm so worried. I picked to take core.

precocious

i would think it's easier to do divisional studies if you wanted to avoid taking that's -TOO- intensive in any one area, since core requires you to take exact courses and divisional studies lets you mix n match, pick n choose which courses you want.

divisional is basically where you have to take two courses in each of the departments (math/science, social sciences, languages... etc), and you can choose any two from a list of many. so if you HATE lab/sci courses, i would take something like environmental sci, or beaches and shores. i heard it's the most fluff science class ever, you basically JUST study beaches. and shorelines. divisional is also easier if you want to dual-degree or minor in something from another school, since courses are more interchangeable.

astor

You can always do the partial core-curriculum where you just follow their core humanities freshman and sophomore year (total of 4 classes, one each semester). That fulfills both your humanities and writing requirements (WR100&150). Then you can follow divisional for the rest such as social sciences, math, science & language.

Nickel Xenon

I think I might just stick with it first semester and see how it goes. I've never failed science or anything. I've never made anything less than an A, but I'm not very good at it and have to work really, really hard.