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04-21-2008, 07:21 AM
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#16 | | Junior Member
Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: TN Gender: Male
Threads: 8
Posts: 250
| You need to take the basic required science and math. Then what are you going to do with your life. If you are going to be a Doctor, it helps to be able to talk to your patients and others. Most doctors are extremely boring people as all they know is science (which may be a backbone to some of what you learn, but the requirements handle that). You will spend the rest of your life "practicing" medicine. Spend your time now learning stuff that will make you a better person. Learn Shakespear. Learn French. etc. | 
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04-21-2008, 07:24 AM
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#17 | | Junior Member
Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: TN Gender: Male
Threads: 8
Posts: 250
| ps
I hated reading and writing too. So I had double major in bio and chem. (in fact, only person to ever get two BSs at Stanford). All As. Had noble prize professors and taken to seminars in San Francisco with said Professors (who were ****ed that I was going into medicine). Worst mistake I ever did. If you are going to get a phd as well as your md to do research (really need both to get grants) and stay academic, then science/math probably the best for you. Even so. Take as many liberal arts as you can. Make sure you do the overseas program where you will have to do LA (I took Goethe, fun to quote now) | |
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04-21-2008, 07:59 AM
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#18 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2004
Threads: 40
Posts: 3,364
| Quote: |
I think CS is the easiest major at Stanford, the grading are pretty objective and class curve is generally pretty lenient, no reading 200 pages classic literature every day, no 10 pages creative essay writing, no need to memorize all the latin name of biology, no need to memorize jak stat pathway, krebs cycle, no hardcore quantum physics nor math topology, etc etc. As CS what you do is just code and do psets... easy right?
| J mom, I think this was a way to demonstrate that "easy" is not an objective term. What is comes easy to some, others will find impossibly hard.
That said, from what I've heard, social sciences and humanities are "easier" in a way, because the grading is less objective. So if you put in the effort, come to classes, and turn in all the papers, you'll pass. Whereas in science/math/CS even if you try hard, but don't "get it", and fail the tests, you'll fail the class. | |
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04-21-2008, 08:52 AM
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#19 | | Member
Join Date: Dec 2005
Threads: 49
Posts: 430
| thanks nngmm I get the point! :-) | |
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04-21-2008, 11:05 AM
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#20 | | Junior Member
Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: TN Gender: Male
Threads: 8
Posts: 250
| On the other hand, 2 + 2 always =s 4. If you learn the math, the tests are relatively easy. Ditto for the science.
Usually more As in Math and Science as in social sciences and humanities as there is no curve, etc and the grade is NOT subjective.
Thus, go for your forte, not what you "think" is easier. Just get a broad education. Stanford's whole purpose in building the school was for a broad education. | |
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04-21-2008, 12:20 PM
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#21 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2004
Threads: 40
Posts: 3,364
| Quote: |
Usually more As in Math and Science as in social sciences and humanities as there is no curve
| are you sure about this? It's certainly not what I've heard...
And the grades are curved in math classes (otherwise half the class would fail, at least in the Honors math sequence, where median grade on the test is often in the 40s...) | |
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04-21-2008, 12:39 PM
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#22 | | Junior Member
Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Liberalism, Mathematics, Competitions, Daydreams, Textbooks and Malnutrition
Threads: 6
Posts: 61
| Quote: |
That said, from what I've heard, social sciences and humanities are "easier" in a way, because the grading is less objective. So if you put in the effort, come to classes, and turn in all the papers, you'll pass.
| If the grading is less objective, then the "difficulty" of the teacher determines the likeliness of outstanding success. If you want to reach great heights, it might be the most dangerous thing to put you efforts in the hands of the interpreter. | |
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04-21-2008, 06:15 PM
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#23 | | Member
Join Date: Sep 2007
Threads: 9
Posts: 479
| Quote: |
On the other hand, 2 + 2 always =s 4. If you learn the math, the tests are relatively easy.
| Upper division math is more like prove that 2+2=4, than 2+2=?. It's not subjective, but it isn't a subject that you can brute force with memorization. There are generally a lot of subtelties that you genuinely have to understand and apply on demand. | |
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04-21-2008, 07:24 PM
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#24 | | Member
Join Date: May 2005 Location: Urbana
Threads: 19
Posts: 353
| How can CS be easy? CS is generally considered one of the hardest majors offered. | |
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04-21-2008, 07:37 PM
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#25 | | Junior Member
Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: TN Gender: Male
Threads: 8
Posts: 250
| Again,
Most of my friends were math or science majors who understood the material which made it "easy" for them.
Many of the Profs felt that tests were to tell what you did not know, not what you knew, so 100s were failures for the prof. Thus, an 86 became an A with a 95 the highest grade.
For Organic Chem, the test had as hugh "unknown" that was = in points to the rest of the test. You could not memorize, but had to push electrons to get the answer.
For the Chem majors senior year of inorganic, everybody made an A but one person who got a B+. Similar for the Math and Engineer majors.
Do what your forte is, not what you think will be easy. If you enjoy it, you will probably do well. But then, add a well rounded education to that.
Stanford started the school to teach a broad education. | |
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