<p>^silversuz, taking intro. courses at Harvard will really make your foundations
strong. LS1A is not AP Bio it is way more intense than that. Unless you are
an IBO medalist doing LS1A would be important if you plan on being a premed or
pursuing a bio realted Ph.D later.</p>
<p>LS1B simply should not be skipped in my opinion. Look at the course lectures from
past years and you will understand why.</p>
<p>Having gained admittance into Harvard, it is easy to be caught up in the
euphoria and not realize one’s relative strength compared to one’s
peers. Keep in mind LS1B has sophs in the same class. Also it is unlikely you
will ace a course when your peers are struggling (in science i.e).</p>
<p>boyhood - Thanks for your response as well as your offer to allow me or, better yet, my daughter to contact for specific input (She actually does have her own CC account but I think she has only made about 10 posts in a year). What I had learned from CC members is that students should be prepared to get their advice from a variety of sources.</p>
<p>Sorry for reviving this thread but I thought that it was the best chance I had at obtaining the info that I need.</p>
<p>In august, during this thread, I accessed a Harvard Q guide site which I recall was primarily black and white. If would allow you to look at it’s data by course or professor name and for a given course there was text describing the course, % of freshmen, sophomores, etc. </p>
<p>When I came up this this wrong Q guide instead, I went back into my history and was able to get back to the black and white Q guide. </p>
<p>Today, I wanted to look something up on that original site. Unfortunately, my history got cleared in early September so I cannot get back to the q guide that I want and I stupidly never bookmarked it. Can anyone help me find the site? I am assuming that one of you gave it too me because I doubt that I stumbled on it by myself.</p>
<p>If need be, I’ll start a separate thread, but I thought the notifications to you all might make my search easier.</p>
<p>I don’t know which Q guide you were looking at before, but the link you posted now is the actual Q guide, but you have to be a Harvard student and login to see it. </p>
<p>Wish I knew the one you were talking about Sorry!</p>
<p>^ D is a Harvard student so I log in no problem. What is odd I would swear that there was a period of time that I could log into both. Maybe I was getting into a dead link through my history. What is too bad is that there was other information in that other Q guide. I’m still hoping that someone has the link. Thanks for the info 72.</p>
<p>I don’t think there should be a stigma on taking 3 or more problem set classes a semester. Maybe for freshman fall, one should find a more balanced schedule just to explore, but problem set courses have perks - no reading!</p>
<p>i took math 21a and physics 15a concurrently and it was not a problem. i didn’t think i was that good at physics but somehow i beasted and got an A. i recommend to freshmen to balance their first semester as half math/science/econ, half humanities. leads to a nice taste of harvard academics.</p>
<p>I just want to add one caution. D took Digging the Glyphs (see post #28). This course was supposed to be the “easy course” to balance a semester where the other three classes were all problem set courses. During the course, D questioned the courses’ workload. As I recall her repeating to me, the professor had heard about his courses’ reputation and decided to make its content more difficult.</p>
<p>Taking some “easy” courses (one or two a semester) is actually a good idea. You don’t want to totally avoid the kind of hard work that will make things stick or improve your skills, but the last thing you want to do is make yourself miserable or super-anxious by taking on too intense a workload. </p>
<p>Sleep is important. So is having fun. So is getting to experience all that Harvard has to offer outside the classroom. And if you find that you’re not “intellectually stimulated” enough by your courses, just hop into one of the plethora of public lectures that are going on every week… Or do some outside reading.</p>
<p>And to truly gauge a course’s relative difficulty, pay particular attention to previous students’ comments in the Q Guide.</p>
<p>would you guys say that taking math 23a and physics 16 fall semester is a bad idea? how about math 23a and physics 15a? how many hours a week would i have to put in for reasonably good grades if those two are my only pset courses?</p>
<p>^Of course the answer depends upon your background. My daughter took math 21a and physics 16 last fall and had good grades. Physics 16 was a lot of work, her most difficult class, and her favorite class. Math 21a was very easy for her. Since she is a physics concentrator, she did not think it was necessary to look at Math 23, 25, or 55. Talk to the freshman advisors for both departments for guidance. She met with both Georgi and Morin (physics) during freshman orientation and followed their advice.</p>
<p>I’ll be honest. My son so far at Harvard has yet to find an easy class. The “soft” classes usually have papers where it’s never easy to pull an A. The “hard” pset classes are . . . hard, pset classes. The students who stick those out after freshman year are fiercely smart and those are also very hard to pull an A in. He is still waiting to stumble upon the grade inflation that is talked about. That said, he did go forward freshman year and skipped many of the intro classes in his Econ major and premed. Maybe he skipped over something somewhere that was easy?</p>
<p>Course-picking theory of a drunk crew junior:</p>
<p>“When you’re shoppin the clash” (pause) “you look for two things. Firsssst, you look around and see how many Asians there are. Lot of Asians?” (pause, shakes head largely) “No good. Then you look around and see how many people are wearing athletic shweatshirts. Not very many?” (pause, shakes head again) “No good.”</p>
<p>^Most amusing part of my prefrosh weekend. I was totally sober and like lulzzzz. I also don’t intend to follow that advice at all. He also recommended majoring in anthropology, but was shocked when someone brought up the folk+myth concentration because even he wasn’t that lazy. It does require a senior thesis, though.</p>
<p>It excites me greatly to see the Asian: DHA* ratio on CC. A great place to see its benefit is in the second year Ec classes. Asians dominate the 1011 series, while athletes pull ahead in 1010. </p>
<p>(On that note, sewhappy, which Ec class did your son take? I feel pretty strongly that Ec10 is an “easy” class, so long as you have a decent TF. 1010 shouldn’t be hard, but it’s often poorly taught. And 1011 certainly is nowhere near easy).</p>
<p>My S wants to take–well, try–to do Math 55. He is also interested in music composition (won awards etc, so its real not just a hobby) and wants to do a music course. His theory is advanced for 150 but he doesn’t want to be overwhelmed and wonders if he has to make the choice (he he has avoided for YEARS) between pure math and music. Thoughts? Both departments want him to go “for it” but don’t understand the other department’s biases. He has spoken to a family friend who teaches at the College, but she had no clue. Help!</p>
Sorry!</p>