Culpa and Course Load

campaigner
Mon, 21 Nov 2011 15:28:38 +0000

A few technicalities… You can’t take lit hum starting in the spring semester. It’s a year long sequence, starting in the fall. You must take University Writing your first semester. This is a hard, but rewarding, class.

CULPA is very useful, and very flawed. (Almost) Everyone reads the reviews, but you should really avoid making decisions based solely on culpa. Remember that most professors are teaching anywhere from 20 to 500 students a semester. How many reviews are on CULPA per semester? 0? 2? So read it, see if a professor matches the style you want (paper vs exam heavy; entertaining vs serious lectures; for example). If someone is pretty universally disliked, I would definitely suggest shying away. If someone is universally loved, sure, try to get into that class. Take it with a big grain of salt, just as you would the advice of any classmate, your adviser, other professors, etc.

One thing I’ve noticed throughout other people’s first semesters is that everyone underestimated the workload required for languages. I’ve not really talked to anyone about Latin, but I would expect it to be tough too.

The thing everyone (rightly) recommends is balance where appropriate. UW will be reading + writing. Latin will be lots of memorization/long hours. Intro chem plus bio II sounds really tough, but I’m not premed/science. Do they have labs? Maybe do something that comes more easily to you, although I can understand that you’ll need to be cranking out on 2+ science courses a semester if that’s your major.

What APS are you going to? I’d love to meet you in person. :)

EDIT: I should say that basically every student I know has been humbled, seriously, in there first semester. Myself included. The work is harder, the workload is much greater, the expectations are higher. You’ll feel like if you study 24/7 you can MAYBE not fall too far behind. Even knowing to expect it, I was still surprised.