<p>If you’re a first year student…I recommend you forget about physics and stick with bio and chem. Take physics the following year. </p>
<p>Bio and chem will take up a lot of time (lecture, discussion section, lab)…so you probably wouldn’t even be able to incorporate physics into your schedule.</p>
<p>not to sabotage this thread, but how difficult would it be to take a bunch of soft science classes (not all in one semester, of course), like some for econ, gov’t, and psych, plus the writing seminar, a non-science science course, and a non-math math course (like history of math or w/e)? i’m headed to A&S next year but i’m not very interested in science and math… how hard would a schedule like mine be?</p>
<p>“…why is multivariable calculus, linear alg, C++…etc considered easy at any school? What I’m really getting at is what are the professors going do to make the material so hard?”</p>
<p>Addressing the qustion about “at any school…”</p>
<p>My D1 was a rather advanced math student, and took mutlivariable calculus at the local state U while she was in high school.</p>
<p>While she was taking the class, I became concerned that she really wasn’t doing much studying for it, and it didn’t seem that hard to her. Which didn’t make much sense to me. </p>
<p>Upon investigation, it turned out that her professor was giving only the most straightforward problems at the end of each chapter, and making tests with problems that were exactly like those homework assignments. Thereby minimizing the need to apply intellectual capabilities to extend the general principles to solve different problems that were not directly identical to what had been previously encountered; or, to solve more difficult problems.</p>
<p>Prior to that I too did not realize how such a course could ever be considered “easy”, or really differ materially from school to school. </p>
<p>Now I see how they can differ. They can differ in terms of: the depth the material is gone into (# topics, amount of underlying theory); the difficulty of the problems, both on homeworks and exams, and the level of competence needed to get a good grade, where courses are curved and your classmates at each school have notably different ranges of academic capabilties, and consequently professors have different expectations.</p>
<p>moneydad-- yes I am at a CC, but I took honors calc 1 2 & 3… Not only were the tests brutal, but we had to learn 5 proofs every exam. Like two page proofs + in multivariable the teacher incorporated disgusting integrals all the time… in Calc 2 there was 1 A 1 -A 4 -Bs 1 C+ and everyone else dropped/failed-- I think it all depends on the teacher.</p>
<p>“Soft” sciences are much easier and require much less work. you will be fine. i know people with 7 business classes totalling ~ 22-24 cr and they do fine with plenty of time to spare. though this also depends on the person!
in my exp, studying the night before exams for “soft” science classes is usually enough to get a decent grade</p>
<p>lol all I can tell you cgiulz is good luck.</p>
<p>Last semester, in Math 1910 (Single Variable Calculus for Engineers) we had the best and the brightest, and the mean on the first prelim was a 36.</p>
<p>At Cornell, in the math/sciences, you can study study study all of the concepts, and if you can’t get a good grasp of the theory and you can’t play with the concepts in your head and fool around with them and apply them to different situations, it doesn’t matter how much you think you know, you will get screwed during exam times.</p>
<p>chendrix- I understand this but I have developed effective study methods and seem to be out competing all of my peers. Getting the only A in calc is one of many incidents that made me apply to a challenging school like Cornell, but I know that I have big fish small pond syndrome. The reason I am on these forums is to find out what I’ve gotten my self into and how to hack it… so if u got a 36 on that MAT 1910 ur grade would be a C?.. Help me out, how does this work?</p>
<p>cgiulz, you raised a general question, I gave an answer to that general question. Of course, I have no idea if it applies to you personally.</p>
<p>I do have pause though, when you say “we had to learn 5 proofs on every exam”.</p>
<p>At Cornell, you should expect to have to prove something on an exam that you did not previously “learn”, that you are seeing for the first time. Given the general principles, which you did learn.</p>
<p>In the moment, it’s hard to imagine how things can be more difficult than they are now but, trust me, professors are very good at raising the bar. Just as I’m sure the premeds who are in orgo right now can’t imagine how classes can be harder but then they get to med school and they realize that 1/2 a semester’s worth of college biochem is condensed into 4 days in med school.</p>