<p>As a CALS student should I take Calculus for the Life and Social Sciences rather than just calc 1? There is a 1 credit difference so I’m just wondering about difficulty and work load.</p>
<p>It does not make sense to characterize it as “CALS” calc. it is offered by the math department, like every other calculus class, and that means it is an Arts and Sciences course.
What’s your major? That is more important to know than what your college is. I bet that kind of calculus would be appropriate for some social science classes in Arts and Sciences or Human Ecology as well. If your major has a math requirement, you should check to see specifically which calculus classes will fulfill that.</p>
<p>I said CALS because it’s a calc class from a biology perspective. But that might just mean like biology word problems. I’m in nat. res.</p>
<p>I think the class looks really good in the description (I haven’t actually taken it) and for natural resources it’s probably completely appropriate. there are some nat res classes that are somewhat quantitative, and having a semester of applied calculus will be adequate. the only exception would be if you are particularly interested in things like population ecology or modeling ecosystems, because while you might be OK in the required Cornell classes, if you wanted to pursue them for a career or grad school you’d probably want to have calc 1 in order to be prepared for more difficult math courses (calc 2, linear algebra, etc.)</p>
<p>(on a side note: in the future, it will probably be clearer if you are saying CALS just strictly to mean things in College of Ag and Life Sciences. you didn’t do anything wrong, don’t worry, that is just how the terminology as used at Cornell (and better to find that out anonymously on the internet, right?))</p>
<p>Haha, thanks.</p>
<p>Ugh, this is so frustrating. Shouldn’t the college distribution requirements be the same for all majors within the college, and then obviously the major will have other specific requirements</p>
<p>[CALS</a> Distribution Requirements](<a href=“http://www.dnr.cornell.edu/cals/dnr/undergraduate/major/cals-distribution.cfm]CALS”>http://www.dnr.cornell.edu/cals/dnr/undergraduate/major/cals-distribution.cfm)</p>
<p>This confuses me. CALS normally requires just one math class for filling the math requirement but here it says calc and stat (also eliminating some stats, namely PAM from selection) must be completed. Yet this is the CALS distribution requirements. What gives?</p>
<p>here’s what I think they’re doing, and it is very unclear, I agree.</p>
<p>the list that you linked to consists of the requirements for natural resources. they have just split up those required natural resources courses to show you how they simultaneously fulfill the CALS distribution requirements.
so all CALS students have to take a certain number of physical and life sciences, for example. there are many choices overall that would fulfill the <em>CALS</em> requirement for anyone, whether they are majoring in communication or applied econ and mgmt or biology. however, if you are Natural resources, you will probably be fulfilling the CALS requirements for physical and life sciences the way they have listed. Natural resources major itself requires that you take a math course and a stats course, so you can count on fulfilling the physical or life sciences requirement through those two courses.
(evidently the natural resources department does not accept PAM stats.)</p>
<p>does that make sense? I hope I explained it sufficiently. maybe they should change the way they explain that, since as someone who’s been taking CALS classes for a few years (in a different major at that!) I’m definitely not the target audience for this literature.</p>
<p>Thanks. That sorta makes sense lol.</p>
<p>Although there is also the required courses for the major itself. >_<</p>
<p>Out of curiosity, what’s your major?</p>
<p>I’m a biology major. </p>
<p>The other required courses for the major are evidently ones that do not fulfill any CALS requirement. (although some of them might.) I guess it’s like they’re saying “in nat res you will fulfill your CALS distribution requirements like this, and in addition you must take these other required courses.”</p>
<p>Ah, coo, coo.</p>
<p>Did ya take bio 1780 yet? How is it? And what humanities have you taken out of curiosity? Lucky you don’t have that study diversity requirement lol.</p>
<p>are you a dove??</p>
<p>I took an older version of evolutionary biology when it was meant for upperclassmen. back then I found it very interesting, and very manageable. I would not hesitate to schedule it with more difficult courses, although of course you cannot completely breeze through…
I did not take humanities courses because I AP’d out of that entirely.</p>
<p>XD, a dove.</p>
<p>And >_> at my situation now. I met with a nat. res. person whio could be my advisor but he made me discuss so much stuff. x.x It might not be for me if I want just ecology and not the human stuff and policy. Now I’m considering Ecology and Evolutionary Biology in Biology. Biology and biological sciences is the same major right, which you’re in? Which program of study are you in?</p>
<p>The requirements are such a ***** though. Organic chem, physics, biochem. ***, I just want ecology.</p>
<p>yes, biology and biological sciences are the same thing.</p>
<p>I am doing EEB, actually. hence my knowledge of the nat res stuff, since there are obviously overlapping interests between the two areas. </p>
<p>you are right to notice the requirements, though. I have had to do orgo and biochem…you can’t avoid them. also the full genetics course, including the lab. I didn’t really mind, because I do enjoy biology in general, and I like to have a solid background in all of it. I personally think that my EEB skills benefit from the rest of my biology education. some of the orgo knowledge is useful in biochem, and biochem is surprisingly relevant to some kinds of ecological questions. knowing the details of how genetics/proteins do their work is going to be important to the future of ecology, imo, because the techniques are becoming so affordable that even a lab specializing in field work can start to incorporate some molecular work into their experiments. at the rate that sequencing technology is improving, I think it will become standard to have some sort of genetic analysis in an ecological study, just like now it’s expected that you can do any kind of computationally intensive statistics because any person’s laptop has the required power, and the necessary software is free.
I do think nat res is a good major, though. you will learn a lot of employable skills…if perhaps by 2015 the recession will be over and people will be hiring again?
I think that there is something good to how you can’t learn ecology in a vacuum…you either have to pair with an overall biology education (EEB) or learn about the social context (nat res.)</p>
<p>Oh you’re in EEB, heh. I’m interested mainly in wildlife conservation/management and a lot of EEB just seem cool. The social context is what the advisor said as differentiating nat. res. from EEB and I dont know if I even care about the social context really. I already got a C in gen chem. Idk if I was just not studying enough. It seems impossible. I hated physics in high school.</p>
<p>I’m actually taking MATH 1106 with Prof Rand right now. I can’t really speak to requirements or compare it to any other calc classes, but let me know if you have any specific questions about it.</p>
<p>Yeah, I know someone taking it now and they recommend it. And since I took AP in high school they say I’ll be fine.</p>