- Yeah, they want biology majors to take 116 for which AP credit for AB/BC or math 111 is a pre-requisite. It is specifically for life sciences majors. It used to be a 2 semester sequence, but I think they are revamping it.
- You meant place out I would imagine. Yes, kind of....but not really if your a biol major. Good options for 4/5s outside of just forfeiting and retaking (a waste of time in my opinion) is to just take the lab first semester and then 142 OR Biol 240 (with BECK, do not take with anyone else because they suck. Beck's classes are good prep for scientific thinking and thus research or MCAT level thinking-this is organismal form and function). with 141-L and then 142 w/L in the spring. The latter allows you to knock out an elective while also learning biology in a more useful than normal way with a good teacher (you will be confused at first because Beck doesn't really lecture as much, and many students define teaching as lecturing. However, he promotes much more problem solving and teaches you how to analyze science in the context of data sets and figures, something not commonly taught in HS and often not even colleges where many biology courses are still overly based on regurgitation/factual recall. Getting a headstart on those skills is the best option).
- 141/142.
- The instructors(especially for ochem) and the fact that they are actually undergoing a curriculum renovation that they may pilot some elements of next year at the gen. chem level (the Big 3 teachers for gen. chem are awesome, MgGill, Mulford, and Weaver, and the content pretty standard....for now). The big difference is at the ochem level where 2 of the instructors (who happen to have a majority share of the students) are phenomenal teachers (they actually use Socratic Method and active learning techniques) that challenge students to a level not common even among elite schools. Since their exams also represent their level of teaching. If I had saved Duke's stuff, I would just have you compare it side by side so that you can see the difference, but I don't (I may subscribe to course hero and get it again). I would just say that their approach to teaching and testing is pretty traditional for ochem. I suspect Emory is trying to go toward this model for gen. chem/introductory, but with much more planning. Duke tried it a while ago (http://pubs.acs.org/cen/education/8034/8034education.html), but it did not work. Luckily Emory has a grant specifically for it: http://www.hhmi.org/programs/awards/52008096 to work something out (the new building doesn't help either). Emory could have an edge in that it has experimented before with some success. The only reason why they reversed is not because of resistance, but growing enrollment and the economic downturn (which of course zapped away the funds for the experimental approaches). Now, it appears Emory's dept will try it on a larger scale now that it has the money.