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I didn’t mean to imply that you personally said that homework was a waste of time. I meant more to imply that this is the attitude of some students here, that they have “wasted” a lot of their time on problem sets that they didn’t care much about. </p>
<p>However, these problem sets are not like those in high school. You have to think about them, a lot. That said, Caltech has a ridiculously fast pace and during CORE I often felt like even if I did a whole set I hadn’t really “learned” the material. I hadn’t had the time necessary to really sit and think about the problems. This has gotten better as I’ve moved on to classes in my major, but CORE is a substantial part of Caltech and not something that can be ignored. </p>
<p>A lot of doing work in CORE is finding out how to do a problem as fast as you can, from TAs, other students, etc. In a lot of cases, it’s the only way to get all the homework finished on time. I’m only trying to warn you about this, in that I think that anyone considering Caltech should have realistic expectations about what their learning will be like once they get here. They’re not kidding about the “it’s like drinking from a firehose.” Sometimes all you can do is try to keep from drowning. That’s not a great way to foster a deep understanding of a subject.</p>
<p>If you’re the type that likes to take a lot of time to think about things, consider problems, and really understand what’s going on, and you also don’t happen to be a super genius, then you will have a hard time with CORE. I was probably somewhere in the middle of the spectrum in this regard–I like to really understand things but by the time we got to quantum mechanics it became fairly apparent that this was a hopeless endeavor. </p>
<p>I’m with collegealum314 in that I’m fairly ambivalent about the “firehose” learning strategy. I think it works well for some people and not very well for others. Based on what you’ve said in this thread, you do not seem like the type of person it will work well for. You’re free to ignore my assessment, of course. </p>
<p>Also, I don’t mean to sound bitter or anything. I like Caltech, for the most part, even though I hated CORE. I think I’ve learned a lot of valuable things while being here. On the other hand, I know a decent number of people here who I truly believe would have been happier somewhere else, where they could have had a more reasonable workload and more time to digest course material (as well as more time to relax). The “prestige” or whatever of going to Caltech is not worth spending four years being miserable, so think carefully about what you want out of your college experience. Though, frankly, I’d give the same advice about any school.</p>