<p>I am just wondering for those of you who are IDS major. How good do you have to be in writing and not making grammatical errors to be able to pass (C-) the classes that are required for this major. I have a friend who is in community college right now who aspires to transfer as an IDS major. However, his writing skill barely passes the first level of English of college level. His sentences, though complicated, hardly make sense.</p>
<p>Also, how good do you have to be in terms of having the ability to understand reading materials and utilize them for your essays? How hard is it to pass the IDS classes?</p>
<p>ok, I am not an IDS major, but after taking a cursory glance at the pre-major and major reqs, I’d say that it doesn’t look all that difficult. But, I don’t think it’s one of those majors where you can get away with having writing skills that barely pass the first level of college English. By that, do you mean like the equivalent of English Comp 3 here? That would be pretty bad, because I’ve known people who’ve gotten A’s in English Comp 3, and their writing was worse than those I’ve read from middle schoolers. But anyway… although the prereqs seem cake, your friend would be looking at the major classes, which comprise of “social and critical theory” courses and “thematic” courses. Those probably involve in depth analyzation and a substantial amount of writing. Your friend may have a harder time than others…</p>
<p>I know for my dept (econ), a lot of the classes are heavy on the quantitative side of things, so there are some people who like it because they can’t write to save their lives.</p>
<p>Depending on the class, professors do not read the papers, the teaching assistants do…so it depends on how strict the TA in the class is about grammar. I mean, if the sentence doesn’t make sense that is going to be a problem. It would help if you are allowed to talk to the TA and show it to them before it’s turned in and they can help/make some suggestions.</p>
<p>as a quasi-IDS major, I can tell you right now that if you can’t write, you’re going to find yourself in a tough situation in these classes, since most of them are mostly essay-based. TAs can be tough or nice, but most will help you out beforehand if you prepare early. but you should have pretty good writing skills to go into any humanities or social sciences at a school like UCLA.</p>
<p>btw, i doubt they would place emphasis on grammatical correctness. the bigger issue is that your friend cant seem to synthesize his/her thoughts and convey them in a coherent, substantial manner.</p>
<p>hmmm no its hard for him to utilize whatever he reads to support his opinions on his paper. sometimes he cant even understand what he reads… once, i had to read this article/essay and explain it to him so that he would understand… is he gonna be in trouble at ucla?</p>