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<p>Grading really depends on your professor or TA. Just like at every school, there are some duds and there are some really, really genuinely brilliant people. The brilliant ones tend to grade more harshly, in my experience, but taking their classes is always worth it. </p>
<p>I’m a Harpur student, so my logic is obviously tilted toward that school a bit. I do have a lot of friends in SOM… and usually, they’re nowhere near as stressed as I am. It’s a running joke that SOM is the hardest school to get into and the easiest school to stay in. SOM students definitely have a lighter workload than a lot of people in Harpur/Decker/Watson, and I’d imagine the grading is a little more lax as well.</p>
<p>As for weed out courses… in SOM I really don’t know of any (if you’re trying to transfer to SOM from another school in the university, that’s kind of a weed out in itself… it’s damn near impossible). In Harpur, there are a few. Like 75% of the freshman class (this is not a real stat, so don’t quote me), comes into Bing wanting to be pre-med. Then they have to take Bio 117 or 108 or Chem 107 and they declare themselves as sociology majors or something. I know Psych 111 is apparently the most difficult intro science class, and a lot of prospective psych majors change their minds after taking it. I’m an English major. We’re required to take English 310 after we’ve declared, and if you don’t pass it, it is strongly recommended that you change your major.</p>