Science at Tufts: Information for Students

hebrewhammer
Mon, 30 Mar 2009 00:24:16 +0000

Well you’re going to have 10-20 hours of extra lab/recitation time each week over A&S students of which you get no extra credit for. An “A” in a difficult lab/homework intensive class is worth the same as an “A” in intro to geology.

Also the 10 hour pre-labs are fun…

Enjoy!

As a freshman, it’s pretty lame that the intro lab sciences have long labs without any additional course credits, but my impression is that later on (at least for ChemE) the labs are separate classes with additional credits. Also, this year at least, I definitely don’t have 10-20 extra hours of labs/recitations. For one thing (at least for intro classes), recitations aren’t mandatory, and many students choose not to or don’t need to go. They also exist for non-science classes too. While the labs (especially chem) may take a few hours every week, and the lab reports a few more, I have never had a long pre-lab or anywhere near 20 hours of extra work.

Also, as far as never leaving the library, I’m on the XC and track teams and we actually have a large number of engineers, most of whom are successful both on the track/xc course and in the classroom. Team commitments (practice, meets, etc) take up 15-25 hours a week and I’ve managed to do well in all my classes so far, although I’m only a freshman. Most of the engineers on the team are MechE’s, including our top distance runner, who is a two time All-American in cross country and a two time All-American in track, and they all seem to be doing fine. One of our top distance runners is a ChemE, and while he does say that they have a lot of work, he manages to get it done, participate fully in sports year round, and is also minoring in music. So being an engineer really doesn’t have to limit you.