Ealgian

Thanks for the response, MadJoy.

smartalic34

(z): it is very possible to go thru Wes without a math course. remember, there are no requirements here, only general expectations. for the natural sciences/math aspect, you can get by with only sciences and no math (i.e. physics, chem, bio, astronomy, etc.)

if you want to write for the Argus, I'm sure you'll be able to... most people I know who wanted to join are on the staff. compared to other college papers (especially LACs) it's very good

madjoy

For Wesleying, pretty much you can just e-mail the blog with the reasons you want to be a contributor, and you can be. The recruitment process is going to be a little different starting soon (when you start blogging, you can make a post, but it has to be approved by a higher-up blogger... and after a little while, we give you full posting power) but it's still pretty informal and whoever wants to blog, can blog.

As for the Argus, yeah, I don't know anyone who really wanted to do newspaper who wasn't able to whatsoever. I like the Argus. But I will admit it's not always as professional and up to super-high journalism standards all the time - but on the other side, it's really designed for the student body to read, and most students DO read it, I think. The Wespeaks (letters to the editors, ish) are extremely popular ways to express opinions from silly/funny/trivial to quite serious.

1J0A6L6: See the thread a few posts down where I talk about the math department in detail.

People who didn't like math and wanted to not take it: You definitely don't ever have to take a math class at Wes, and plenty of people don't. (You're supposed to take one Natural Science/Math course as part of the General Educational Expectations, but it's easy to fulfill that with something not very strenuous if that's what you're looking for.) But!! Math is great, you should do it. Especially college math which is generally much more awesome than high school math.

jumble_j

I've never taken a math class at Wes. I liked calc when I took it in high school, but math is really not my thing. So I took three science classes to fulfill GenEd expectations (madjoy is mistaken-- you are supposed to do three, not just one). They make this very easy by having science classes that are designed for non-science majors. Some other schools make you take a crazy hard intro course with lab to fulfill science requirements... which would have been awful for me and a lot of other people.

And as for "journalism" on campus-- seems like Wesleying is now a lot more elitist than the Argus ever thought of being. Argus standards are pretty low and they're always begging people to join, so you can totally do that if you want.

jarsilver

what's the deal with gen ed expectations anyway? I know it's 3 courses in each area, but it's only for receiving the honors designation and not for graduating, right? how many people do or do not do this?

smartalic34

correct- you can only get honors if you complete gen eds; it's not a graduation requirement. however, most students wind up completing them because Wes encourages you to explore the curriculum, and you wind up completing them without even realizing it. your major will result in at least one of the 3 areas being filled, so it's at most 6 classes, which is nothing

(z)

Is it easy to put together a schedule at Wes without classes before, say, ten a.m.? Waking up early makes me grumpy.

necubi

Depends on your major. Chem majors in particular, get screwed in this department, since all three years of basic chem (inorganic/orgo/pchem) are at 9am. A lot of language classes meet at 9am as well.

If you really try you should be able to mostly avoid 9am classes, but you'll almost certainly have to bear them at some point in your college career.

livemylife

Kinda off-topic here, but how's the dating scene? haha.

MrPimpateer

flying_pig

you don't know me and you don't know anything about me other than what i write on this stupid website during late night study breaks. i'm a double major in 2 social sciences, one of which is Government. additionally i've been at Wesleyan for several years already, didn't study abroad or take a semester off or anything. my point is basically that I know what the **** I'm talking about, both from having been at wesleyan for a long time and from having the specific educational background to understand exactly what type of arguments and affinities people have on this campus when it comes to the political and social spheres.

as someone who spends all day reading about political theory and the way that theory has worked itself out in reality over the centuries, i am seriously ****ed off by the lack of political diversity and political thinking on this campus.

not only the lack of it ****es me off; rather, it's the proactive squelching of all non-leftist discourse by ad hominem attacks and character assassination which really gets to me. not that i'm a conservative myself, but i acknowledge the value of such things as DEBATE and DISCUSSION and FREE SPEECH and other means by which the proper course of action can be revealed via dialectical methods. in fact i thrive on dialogue- i love to argue, i love give and take, and, surprisingly, i love being proved wrong. i'm a very moderate guy who favors often-complex solutions to complicated questions. however, how can i air my complicated views if, rather than people responding to them in an equally moderate, rational, and measured way, i know that instead i'll be called a racist, a bigot, an *******, a corporate stooge (this is aimed at SDSers mostly) and ostracized without the meat of what i've said ever being addressed?

thus you begin to understand the situation, the full measure of which is necessarily impossible for you to comprehend due to the fact that you DO NOT GO HERE YET. mytheos certainly is guilty of trespasses of his own, ideological and rhetorical both, but the vehemence of the attacks on him by the gigantic wesleyan Leftist left (which outnumbers conservatives on this campus by a factor of approximately 9,000,000,000 to 1) belies the threat posed by even his most deliberately provocative articles.

have a nice day

johnwesley

I apologize, Mr. Pimpateer, but, somewhere along the way, didn't you say you lived in West College? I thought you were an alum.

flying_pig319

I never said you couldn't share what you have to say, MrPimpateer.

It seems to me like there's a LOT of dialogue at Wes. An overabundance of it, if anything. If your take is different, that's fine, but don't go telling me that I can't even have an opinion yet. Your posts are overwhelmingly negative and incendiary, which may well be because you write them late at night or whatever, but I thought it was only fair to give the person who posed the question that kind of context so that she can take in what everyone (yes, even including me) has to say and come to a conclusion herself. Chill.

madjoy

MrPimpateer, it sounds like your social scene has mainly been pretty specifically the WestCo/Eclectic crowd. This crowd is overwhelmingly liberal and radical and most of the SDSers you reference are associated vaguely with it. There are plenty of other social scenes on campus that aren't like that.

norolimasfaloth

wahhhaaaayyyyy! NO MATH!
I really really want to graduate with honors so I am so pumped I don't have to do math in order to accomplish that!
I am currently doing a Berkeley online course in pre-calc, can I use it to get some Wes Credit, if possible since its a university course?
Also, for freshmen, how does one go about registering for classes? I was looking up wesmaps and there were some classes where freshmen couldn't register for, are we only supposed to register for the approved for freshmen courseS? because the other ones are so much cooler. I heard something about A lists and B lists when it comes to preference, how does that work?

kman1988

I think it has to be a comparable class to get the credit(Which it would be) but Pre-calc here doesn't count for an NSM credit (Math and science section of the curriculum).So it be counted toward like the credit you would get from an AP score of 4 or 5( which you can only get two credits for). I did not even try to get my Calc I from my local college to transfer. Yeah, you can always try to get into a class if the number of freshmen allowed is 0 but if its an X, you really don't stand much of a chance but its always worth a try at Wesleyan.
This is the downfall of Wes course selection for SBS(Social Science) and some HA(Arts, English, and Languages) students, you normally have two or three courses you want at the end of pre-reg but then you have to start sending emails, going to various classes, and lobbying professors to get the other two or one. It can be stressful but mostly works out. I'd recommend sticking to courses for First year students, you want to test out the intros and see what you want to do, plus get them out of the way so you can take the cool classes later. I'd also recommend taking only one FYI or none, mine were fun but they only count for Gen ed credit, mostly.
How the actual system works is that you fill out two sets of columns and you have your overall first choice in the box above the columns. The program runs and you are randomly ranked in your class and assigned your first class, if your first choice is open and you get it, your course selection will follow the A column. If you don't then the program follows the B- column and when the program runs for your second class, you will be ranked in front of all your classmates who got their first choice.
I'd rank your smaller classes ahead. Languages and intro sciences are unlimited. You can pretty much always get into any math class, you stand a good chance of getting into an intro like Econ or some psych(e.g. 8- 12 spots over pre reg) but if you want soc, govt, then rank it fairly high because those profs only open up 3-5 spots usually and like 20- 30 people show up.
This isn't to stress you out or to put the school in a bad light, if you want or need a class and have a compelling argument, you will get in, eventually.
If you want an FYI than that probably means so do a lot of people, so you should rank it high. FYIs are good to get you used to a college environment and get you comfortable speaking in class. (15- 17 students). Be forewarned, many of them sound far cooler than they are.
norolimasfaloth- I know how you feel but I'm so excited to be heading into my junior year and taking those really cool classes, trust me, your time will come. I have been happy with the majority of classes I've taken at Wes. I'm Govt and (hopefully) Science in Society, by the way.
PS: Wesleyan classes= 1 credit, Labs= 1/2, and phys ed= .25- be ready to explain this to many of your friends because it is very odd, I guess, but I think its simpler.