info for non-pre-meds?

WealthOfInformation
Wed, 07 Apr 2010 01:05:38 +0000

I can see how you may feel that way because Hopkins is typically associated with the Med school. The university itself, however, is different. Take a moment to review my comments because I fear you may be jumping to a few common misconceptions about Hopkins. I hope this clears a few things up and puts you at ease.

The reason AP courses are not awarded in social sciences (they are for languages btw) is because Hopkins doesn’t teach equivalent classes to the AP’s. AP’s are survey classes, they cover a lot of time in some detail. University level courses tend to cover very, very specific topics in great detail. For example, you can take an entire class on the first month of the US Civil War, or Post World War I German MicroEconomics… it’s not that the students are second class citizens at all (they are highly regarded in fact, more so than the dime-a-dozen pre-meds) but rather the university feels no need to teach survey level classes in the humanities and social sciences.

Humanities students at Hopkins are really the chosen ones honestly. 40% of the school are humanities and social sciences - keep in mind that there are many students who are enrolled in multiple departments so it’s rare that students are exclusively anything at Hopkins due to how flexible everything is. International Studies is the most popular major.

I think the humanities students and social science students get the best undergraduate experience at Hopkins mainly because they have the world-class faculty right at their finger tips all the time, teaching all their classes. The classes are very small, often capped at 15 because that is how the university feels the humanities should be taught.
The classes are exceptionally challenging, require a lot of reading and the discussion-nature of the classes challenges students to engage and participate at a high level.

This is the perfect combination of your daughter having incredible classes and faculty readily available at her heart’s desire. The departments are small but that’s what everyone wants - access to the faculty, discussion-based classes. I think it would be a HUGE, HUGE mistake for your daughter to turn down Hopkins if she is looking at humanities and social sciences because I can’t tell you how many times I hear parents/friends and students “how much access do I have to faculty?” or “are the classes taught by faculty” and the humanities at Hopkins are everything and more. The opportunity is staring people RIGHT in the face!! Small departments = attention, personalization, mentoring, resources = good!!!

Watch this video and you’ll get a sense: [YouTube - A Rare Collection](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rvXUHI331k)

I hope this helps shed a little light. Best of luck.