qscgy

I would like to get some inside experience about Bio/Eng or Bio/Create Writing minor. The courses load? amount of work in English? Their experience with Writing or English classes?

staticsoliloquy

The english department is easy. I took two english classes (English 160 the WIM and a senior seminar) last fall along with Bio 41. It worked out fine. And yes, I also wrote all my papers the night before they were dude.

staticsoliloquy

by dude, i mean due.

qscgy

Any recommendations of taking Chem 35, chem 36 Bio Core and Fiction Writing in ne quarter. The Fiction Writing is the pre-require for "creative Writing" minor, however I concern abut the work load.

For people with double majors in Bio and English, or Bio with minor in Creative writing as for Pre-med, do they finish in 4 years?

celestial605

Yes, they can finish in 4 years. I highly recommend talking to a UAR advisor, bio department advisor, and/or English department advisor about workload and planning your schedule. They know more than we do.

staticsoliloquy

You can drop 36 and take it in the spring if you worry about the courseload. Don't worry about finishing your orgo labs early.

celestial605

Agreed. I do think it's handy to have taken the labs before you take the MCAT, though, because there may be questions about chemical tests or lab technology.

jwj

Meh, the only thing that "may" come up is chromatography, which can be learned in about five minutes; I've looked at 7 MCATs from the AAMC now...orgo is considerably less emphasized now than it used to be, and just about everything you need is given in the passage. :-/

celestial605

jwj... not true. I just took the MCAT in April, and there was an entire passage (~5 questions) regarding lab techniques. It was an awful puzzle that involved things like "Start with this molecule. Do a Tollen's test and get compound B. Do another test and get compounds C and D, one of which is an enol. Do more things to it and you eventually get compound G. Question: what is compound F? Question: What reagent is used in a Tollen's test?" Evil things like that. Not all tests have o-chem lab questions to this degree, but my point is that it is a real possibility.

jwj

Orly? Weird. I haven't heard anything near that freaky for any of the summer MCATs, and mine definitely didn't have anything that complicated--just a few acid-base questions and some basic redox. Then again, I'm prolly biased cuz I think orgo is easy... -__-;;

celestial605

OH!!! You're so lucky to not have had any evil o-chem lab questions. I didn't know you already took the MCAT - hope it went well!

I'm also sorry I keep missing your calls You keep calling me when I'm at home.

TJ_03

how much work is involved for beginner language courses? say, if i wanted to start learning chinese while i do chem 31, a basic calc class and ihum in a quarter...does anyone know how that schedule would be?

celestial605

Hmm... I haven't taken Chinese, but my freshman year roommate took the beginning Chinese classes for the whole year. It seemed to be a lot of work, but she handled it well. I'm not sure if she had 2 or 3 other classes. I think you should be able to handle your schedule, but I'm sorry I don't have more concrete info for you.

Was this a premed question...?

docketgold

TJ_03: What calc class did you have in mind? Four classes is always going to be a lot of work, and I think I would advise against doing it first quarter of your freshman year.

jwj

Not really. Just do it. The workload for those 4 isn't particularly bad. At the least, try it for a week or two and see how you manage. Chem 31A/B/X isn't bad if you have some basic background and keep up with the reading, Chinese is a lot of memorizing characters and then just trying to speak in class, IHUM is, well, IHUM, and neither the math 20 or 40 series is difficult--they're ridiculously elementary, actually.