<p>I have a couple of questions about preregistration for English and Chemistry. If we’re unsure about whether or not we want to take an English or Chemistry course, should we preregister anyway? I know I want to take math and computer science courses during both terms of freshman year, so if I take a year-long chemistry course w/ lab (which seems to be my only option) and a year-long English course, I would have 9 credits worth of classes right there, and that would leave me no room for any other classes whatsoever! I’d have no chance to explore any completely new subjects at all, not even for a single term! Picking 4 classes seems impossible, especially since these two-term courses severely limit ones ability to try new classes out of pure interest. Does anyone else have a similar problem, and could anyone offer some help? Thanks a lot!</p>
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Thankfully, we have a shopping period to remedy that. ;)</p>
<p>Thanks vivaldi, that will certainly help. Course selection still seems quite stressful though!</p>
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<p>believe me, it is! but shopping period is a very wonderful thing indeed. i ended up discovering my inner history geek (i’m a chem major?) b/c i shopped a history course first semester and decided to take it just because i thought the professor gave good lectures :-P</p>
<p>… about english and chem - if you want to take a one-semester english course, try english 120. it’s not a lit course, but i found it to be lots of fun. i wouldn’t worry too much about chem unless you’re pre-med or unless you have a hidden inner chem geek as well (and if you are desperate for a one-semester chem course & you have the prereqs, try chem 118).</p>
<p>if you’re really determined to take math & cs both semesters freshman year (what’re you thinking about majoring in?), definitely try to find something in english/history/poli sci that’s going to make you do a lot of reading and writing. not only is it very important for scientists & mathematicians to learn to write, but i think you’ll find you’re grateful for the break from problem sets every once in a while :-P</p>
<p>good luck!</p>
<p>–edit:
oh yah, definitely don’t lock yourself in with no room to explore during freshman year. i guarantee that some of your favorite courses will be the ones you take in disciplines wildly different from your major :-P</p>
<p>Thanks athena! I’m strongly considering majoring in Computer Science and Mathematics, which is why I want to take two terms of each next year (Math 230 sounds awesome, do you know if it is difficult to get permission to take the course?) I might do premed as well, though, which is why chemistry seems important. Does Chem 118 satisfy the same premed requirements in one term as 114 or 113 does in two? I don’t know if I satisfy the prereqs for 118… I got a really high SATII score but never took an AP class. I’m really glad you mentioned English 120! I didn’t realize it’s a one-semester course… I think I’m going to request it :)</p>
<p>One more question… it’s not possible to take only one semester of a two-semester course like English 127 is it? The preregistration page calls it 127a, which seems unnecessary if you are required to take both 127a and 127b. Thanks!</p>
<p>Ooh, class selection. Fun times :).</p>
<p>Chem118 satisfies one semester of your pre-med inorganic chemistry requirement, so you would need to take another chemistry course and the associated lab to meet the requirements of almost all medical schools. Many people choose to take MCDB300, Biochemistry, as their other inorganic chemistry elective. But as a rule of thumb, you’ll need to take a year (two semesters) of English, math, physics, biology, inorganic chemistry, and organic chemistry - with the associated labs for all the sciences for your pre-med requirements. Math is the only prerequisite that you can sometimes place out of with AP scores, but some schools still require you to take a year of math. (This doesn’t to be an issue for you, though!) Most pre-med students do start out with chemistry freshman year. I took CHEM118. But since I’m a bio major, biochemistry is one of my core classes, so I’m pretty much set for my chemistry pre-med requirement.</p>
<p>As far as english goes, you can definitely take one semester of an English course. I think that they give preferential placement for 2nd semester to those who take the first semester as well (not sure, though). But getting into the course probably won’t be a problem as there are plenty of sections. You’ll want to find out which works are read each semester so that you can choose the half that’s most appealing to you. (Btw - keep in mind that you’ll have to take a full year of English for pre-med requirements. However, it’s not hard at all to find an appealing English course at Yale…)</p>
<p>hi again! let’s see what i can do to answer some of the questions in posts 5 & 6…</p>
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<p>If you got a 5 on AP Calc BC, or you’ve successfully completed any sort of college-level math course past Calc BC, I don’t think you’ll have any trouble getting into math 230. If you don’t have any experience with formal proofs, you might be in for a bit of a surprise first semester, but as long as you have the required strong Calc background, I think you’ll be fine in the end. Admittedly, I didn’t take 230, but a couple of my friends did, and once they’d adjusted to the rigor required in that class, they were fine. If you don’t have a strong single-variable calc background, though, you might want to reconsider your idea of taking this course :-P</p>
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<p>Don’t worry! I never took the AP class/exam either (the highest level of chem my school offered was honors, not AP) - I was placed into chem 118 purely off my SAT II score 
If you want to take chem, go ahead and submit the pre-registration form with just your SAT II score. If they place you into a lower-level class but you still want to take chem 118, all you’ll have to do is take the placement class at the beginning of the year showing that you have a strong enough math & chem background.</p>
<p>If you’re thinking about going pre-med, it’s often a good idea to start the chem sequence freshman year; many people take general chem & math freshman year, followed by physics and organic chemistry sophomore year. Bio has to fit in there somewhere too, depending on where you want to make space in your schedule. These course sequences are by no means set in stone, though - organize your schedule however it’s going to work for you. Just make sure you get all the required courses taken in time to take the MCATs :-P</p>
<p>and last but not least…</p>
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<p>thesmartazz is right - you can definitely just take one semester of an English course. Do look at the list of books though, and pick the semester that’s most interesting to you. But also, if you’re less of a literature person and more of a writing person, do take a look at 120. I had a lot of fun with that class ~ it was essentially a creative writing class, dealing with nonfiction prose. If you like to write, you might enjoy it. And yes, later on, there are lots of really cool-looking upper level english courses that you’ll probably be interested in.</p>
<p>If you have any more questions, don’t hesitate to ask ~</p>
<p>ENGL129 is another great option. I took both semesters of 129 freshman year and loved them :). If you like dramas, the first semester includes Greek dramas (my class read Aeschylus, Euripides, Sophocles), a Greek comedy (we read Aristophanes’ Frogs), Shakespeare (a comedy and a tragedy), Moliere (Misanthrope), Ibsen (Hedda Gabler), Beckett (Waiting for Godot), Chekov (Cherry Orchard), and many, many, many more. The second semester focuses on epics, and we read Homer (Odyssey), Virgil (Aeneid), Dante (Inferno), Cervantes (Don Quixote), and Joyce (Ulysses). 129 involves a lot of reading, but it’s not so much of a hassle if you enjoy the selections.</p>
<p>hey thanks for answering our questions </p>
<p>How hard are these english courses in terms of grading and work load?</p>
<p>Wow, thanks guys! That sure cleared up a lot of misconceptions that I had. I think I’m going to request Engl 120 as my first choice and Engl 129 as my second :). One thing I’m still unsure about: What exactly are the benefits of taking Chem 118 instead of Chem 113 or 114? Since 118 is a more advanced class, it should give you some sort of edge if you take it right? But since those doing premed still have to take another term of nonorganic chemistry in addition to 118, I don’t quite see the advantage… Is 118 more for prospective chem majors, and not for those just satisfying premed requirements? Thanks again!</p>
<p>Hmmmm… about 118…</p>
<p>A lot of pre-meds are molecular biochem/biophysics majors, and since the required biochem course is (a) offered first semester, and (b) has one semester of organic chem as a prereq (or at least it did this year), taking 118 first semester and 225 second semester lets these students get into biochem as sophomores instead of as juniors. mb&b majors who do this fulfill their other semester of nonorganic chem by taking a required semester of pchem (physical chemistry).</p>
<p>pre-meds have to take four semesters of chem anyway - if you aren’t going mb&b and you take 118, your fourth chem course, after 118a (genchem) and 225b/227a (orgo) would logically be 252b (inorganic), second semester sophomore year (or later, depending on how late you want to push it with mcats and apps).</p>
<p>…also, chem 118 isn’t quite a typical general chem course. it’s more math & theory based than 113 and 114, so it’s a good course for students with a strong math/chem/physics background who might be under-challenged by 113 or 114… i probably would have been really bored in 113 or 114, but i really enjoyed 118 - it was a good review of general chem, but it presented the material on an advanced-enough level to keep me interested…</p>
<p>just take a look & your math/chem background & your possible sequence of courses as a premed & decide if 118’s right for you :-P</p>
<p>Should we preregister for chemistry even if we are not sure whether or not we’ll actually enroll in a chemistery class in the fall? I’m confused.</p>
<p>Thanks so much athena! That about answers all my questions, unless anyone who’s taken a freshman seminar wants to tell me what they thought of it (I’m not planning on signing up, but I’m curious to know what people think of them). Yale09, it’s my guess that you should definitely preregister if you’re considering taking a chemistry course. There should be no problems if you preregister and then decide not to take the course when you get to Yale in the fall, but I think it could be an issue if you don’t preregister and then you decide later that you do want to take a course.</p>
<p>Yeah. Definitely pre-register. If you decide that you don’t like the course, drop it during shopping period or even later. Shopping is beautiful :).</p>
<p>Freshman seminars were actually new for the class of '08, so if any rising sophomores are around these parts, you’d want to hit them up for an answer. I was in Perspectives on Science, if you’d like to know about that.</p>
<p>Sure thesmartazz, I’d love to hear what you thought about Perspectives on Science!</p>
<p>Ok. <em>inhales</em></p>
<p>I thought that Perspectives was a really good program. It’s extremely laid back, and I found the lectures very interesting. Although the professors who give talks change each year, the breadth of the what is covered by the course should stay pretty constant. A few talks that stand out in my memory are those on the RNA world hypothesis, GFP (where it came from, and other fluorescent proteins), dark matter and dark energy, global warming, and blazars.</p>
<p>There is actually very little work for Perspectives since the format consists of biweekly lectures with discussion sections in between. (Although this program is presented in tandem with DS, it’s actually much less intense. No weekly papers for the group IV kids…) Thus, every other week on Friday afternoon, you listen to a professor present his/her research (refreshments are provided :)). During the next week, you are assigned a problem set and then meet on Friday to discuss the answers to those and any other questions. Each discussion section is moderated by two faculty members (usually from different fields - in my case, one from physics and one from biology each semester) who are able to provide a lot of input based on their expertise. Then this cycle repeats, and you go to a talk on the next Friday, etc. etc.</p>
<p>Some of the coolest aspects of Prespectives include the fact that you’ll be presented <em>current</em> and groundbreaking research being conducted around you on science hill and at the medical school campus. You’ll also be introduced to many fields of research, which will hopefully whet your interest in one or more of these areas. Perspectives also comes with a summer research grant (which is very nice since you only have to fill out a form - no additional application process is required!). In my case, I worked in the lab of my one of my discussion leaders. And this summer, I’m working in her lab again. So if you find a professor’s research interesting, you can work in his/her lab with money from Perspectives (meaning that the professor won’t have to pay you, which is a good thing!).</p>
<p>The only major assignment is a 15-20 page (if I remember correctly) research paper on a scientific topic. If you opt to do research, your paper should be on the topic that you’ll be researching. In my case, this was the first long science review that I’d ever written, and the experience of reading primary literature was very rewarding and educational. But as a general rule of thumb, you probably shouldn’t wait to write this paper during the last two nights before it is due… My friend and I were seen camping out in the basement of CT Hall with tons of research papers strewn about us for those last two days… Heh.</p>
<p>Thanks thesmartazz, that was really helpful! I’m going to apply for Perspectives later today… is it very hard to get accepted if you haven’t done any previous research?</p>
<p>It’s definitely harder if you haven’t done research before. In my case, I was in the process of working in the lab for the first time when I applied, so I was able to write about what I was doing for the rest of the summer. However, if you have good science test scores (APs, etc.) and show interest in scientific research through other extracurriculars, you definitely have a shot. Good luck!</p>
<p>So you love ENGL 120 and 129. Does anyone have anything to say about 127?</p>