<p>When we PDF courses, in principle we want to spend less effort on that course than on our other more important courses. But how do you tell how MUCH less effort to devote to your PDF course? How do you “aim” for a Pass? I’m used to going all out or just slacking off completely, and I feel precarious about aiming for the middle - it seems risky.</p>
<p>First, try to save up some PDFs for your junior/senior year, when you will be working on JPs and thesis and will also probably feel increasingly slacker-ish. </p>
<p>A good thing to do is to PDF a class that has interesting lectures - and then you just go to the lectures but don’t do most of the reading. That way you get an enjoyable lecture (and you usually learn from them) and don’t waste time outside of class. </p>
<p>It’s pretty hard to get a D or fail a class, so as long as you do a LITTLE work you shouldn’t have to worry about not getting that P.</p>
<p>Does PDF look bad on your transcript? and if you find out your PDF course is doable, can you opt out and go back to regular grading?</p>
<p>How many PDFs do you get? and can you use them on any class?</p>
<p>There are 12 weeks of class in a semester. You get 5 weeks to decide if you want to PDF and 4 more weeks after that to decide if you want to rescind your PDF. You get 4 PDFs for your entire career at Princeton (PDF-only classes as well as summer classes taken elsewhere don’t count against this) and you may PDF 1 class per semester. Some classes (like writing seminar) don’t allow PDFs because a lot of people would PDF them - this will be indicated in the course offering book and on the Registrar’s website with a “NPDF”.</p>
<p>What is PDF’ing a course?</p>
<p>It’s like pass/fail except a D will show up as a D b/c it doesn’t really count as either a pass or a fail. (Pass/D/Fail)</p>
<p>Oh. I got excited because I had been looking for PDF files of course material and I was hoping this is what I wanted lol.</p>
<p>If you rescind a PDF, it will still count towards your quota of 4. </p>
<p>Some people argue that a P looks bad on your transcript, and grad schools just view it as a B, but most people don’t even use up their 4 PDFs, so it’s probably not a big deal. </p>
<p>An0maly, if you log into Blackboard you can probably look at some courses’ syllabi, but I don’t think you can access all the course materials unless you are signed up for the class.</p>
<p>you get 4 PDFs</p>
<p>never PDF a quant class… only a liberal arts history class…</p>
<p>Hmm I would have said the opposite. In my opinion, there’s more of an adverse effect from taking a quantitative class less seriously than taking a humanities/social sciences class less seriously. Let’s say you decide to be not-so-diligent in two classes this semester - 1 quantitative and 1 liberal arts. If you skimp on work in the quantitative class there’s a huge potential for ****-up since stuff builds off of other stuff learned in the course, making it hard for you to slack off w.o. getting a lousy grade (let’s say C or C-)… but if you PDF it, you’re kinda insulated from that. If you PDF a history class, you can avoid doing a lot of the required readings and just write papers on the stuff you did read. If you’re any good at BS-ing (which nearly all Princetonians are), you will still get a B or B- despite doing very little work in that class, which means you should’ve PDFed the other class.</p>
<p>sorry ray, I don’t understand. do you mean we should PDF a quant class so that we could slack off in it? but if you say it’s important to take the quant class seriously, shouldn’t we avoid PDFing the quant class and aim for a letter grade so that we do take it seriously?</p>
<p>Under normal (non-PDF) circumstances, it is more important to take a quantitative class seriously (e.g. be diligent in doing all the work and readings) than in a non-quant class because the amount of work in a quant class is more closely correlated to your performance in that class (respective to non-quant classes). Therefore, if you want to PDF something, you should PDF what would normally be giving you a harder time (which would be the quant class) so that you can get more bang (slacking) for your buck (a PDF)</p>
<p>On the other hand, for quant classes you’re going to have to study in order to pass anyway (and you don’t really learn anything if you slack off) so it might not be worth it to PDF. For a humanities class you might learn a lot from interesting lectures and occasionally doing the reading and you can probably bs your way through the final and not have to study.</p>
<p>don’t PDF a humanities class with a big paper at the end- you’re going to have to write the paper to pass, and unless you are a really fast writer, its going to take you a significant amount of time whether you want a B- or and A. PDF a class with interesting lectures, because really that’s the point.</p>
<p>Hm, true, but I would only PDF those interesting classes for which I’m not confident of getting at least a B for. Or for which a PDF would reduce workload significantly, I guess. Wow it’s complicated.</p>
<p>Is Saccolicious really asking this?</p>
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<p>why do NPDF classes normally would be PDFed by many people otherwise? are they really hard?</p>
<p>NPDF classes are usually classes that people want to use to get rid of pesky university requirements (writing sem, intro language courses, the oddball EC or EM that everyone has to take, etc). The University realizes that since most people don’t actually want to take these classes, if PDFing was allowed, ppl would PDF in droves and put little to no effort/participation/attendance into these classes, and they want to discourage that so they make it NPDF so people are compelled to “learn”.</p>
<p>If I use up all my 4 PDFs by the time I graduate, do grad schools really view it badly? What my PDFs are used for those side/distribution requirement courses that aren’t really relevant to the grad school subject that I’m applying for anyway? Like if I PDFed an Artrs course, does it really matter if I’m applying to for example the Masters in MS&E at Stanford?</p>