Class of 2018 Course Selection

fireandrain
Thu, 17 Jul 2014 14:07:45 +0000

Think long and hard before committing to 5 classes. I know that after taking 7-8 classes in high school, four classes seems like a breeze – except it isn’t. I strongly recommend taking four your first semester freshman year. Five may seem OK the first few weeks, then when midterms hit you will be slammed. And you want to have fun freshman year and not spend it only doing classwork. If after fall semester you realize that your brilliance makes 5 classes doable, then take five in the spring. That’s a much better scenario than either having to drop a class too late, or getting crappy grades on everything.

One approach is to go to five classes for a few weeks, with the intension of dropping one. Sometimes you’ll find you can keep up the 5, but it’s better to be fully prepared to drop one by the deadline (which used to be just before midterms, but someone more current can check that).

CS can be very very time consuming. (Disclaimer: I never took it at Brown, but know people who did.) You get into a perfectionist mode and just want to keep working on projects to make them work better, and next thing you know 12 hours have slipped by.

The intro Econ course is, I’m pretty sure and you can check, offered every semester. So consider taking it second semester.

As for shopping: My kid used to shop 2-5 classes a semester. Usually knew 3 classes for sure and was shopping for the 4th. Had a friend who was infamous for shopping dozens (yes, dozens) of classes a semester. Some people shop not for this semester, but future ones, or are checking out profs.

And people definitely drop out of FYS, with spots opening up.