<p>I am wondering if it would be bad to take the philosophy course(logic ) pass fail if I want to go to grad school in physics/engineering… would taking the course pass fail makes the adcoms think that I can’t think logically?</p>
<p>well, logic philosophy isn’t really about thinking logically. at all.</p>
<p>it’s weird crap like: p,q>r+s^p</p>
<p>i don’t think adcoms would care if you took one pass/fail course outside of your major.</p>
<p>Don’t worry about it. Plenty of people take P/F courses in college. Add in the fact that you’re going for physics/engineering grad programs and this is a philosophy course, and you have absolutely nothing to even be remotely concerned about.</p>
<p>what i am worried about is the fact that it is a logic course…</p>
<p>then take an upper level math course instead, maybe on dealing on intro to proof writing</p>
<p>I can say from experience: having a pass/fail course on your record does not hinder you from getting into a top program with funding. I don’t think they really care unless your transcript is filled with them.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>again,</p>
<p>logic is not really the same thing as math. nor is it a course on the rules of thinking logically. adcom committees, if they’re worth their salt at all, will know that a philosophy course on logic has nothing to do with logical thinking.</p>
<p>and if you’re expecting a course on logical thinking, then back away slowly. it is not that.</p>
<p>from wittgenstein’s tractatus logico-philosophicus:</p>
<pre><code>Ogden translation
</code></pre>
<p>1.1. The world is everything that is the case.
2. What is the case, the fact, is the existence of atomic facts.
3. The logical picture of the facts is the thought.
4. The thought is the significant proposition.
5. Propositions are truth-functions of elementary propositions.
(An elementary proposition is a truth function of itself.)
6. The general form of truth-function is [p, ξ, N(ξ)].<br>
This is the general form of proposition.
7. Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.</p>
<p>No one in physics or engineering will ever care that you took a philosophy course P/NP.</p>
<p>Here to reiterate what everyone else is saying… no it doesn’t matter. Adcoms are made of human beings and they understand the vicissitudes of life for a student. For example, my family went through some financial hardships while I was in undergrad, and I had to start working 30+ hours a week to support myself and help my mother out with her mortgage payments. My GPA fluctuated inversely proportionally to the amount of past due notices my mother received, and I will end up graduating with ~3.55 or so, but after telling my schools about this, they seemed to not care… I ended up getting into MIT, Caltech, and Stanford for PhD programs next year. </p>
<p>My experiences are probably a little more extreme, but the point is, is that human beings read your application. No single silly thing like a logic course P/F will stop you from getting into any school… what’s more important is the “overall package”… if I have any advice, just minimize “red flags” that may point to things like a lack of commitment. A PhD program is tedious (or will be, I’m assuming. I’m not there yet), and adcoms need to know that you will be able to do the required work… think of this way, they are investing hundreds of thousands of dollars into you potentially, so they need to be able to minimize that risk.</p>
<p>^what program are you doing?</p>