<p>University of Maryland</p>
<p>How you perceive the ease of a class depends on your own interests and personal strengths. There really is no such thing as an “easy A” in college because all classes require a lot more work than an “easy A” at the high school level. People are often surprised by the workload of even a one credit class. So, “easy” becomes a relative term. </p>
<p>Anyway, if both courses are of equal interest to you, the best way to decide between classes is to do some homework. Go on to ourumd.com. It’s like rate my professor but is specific to Maryland and includes grade distributions. Note that if an instructor does not have any reviews, you can look up course history and sometimes get a sense of the course content based on other professors that taught it in the past - sometimes classes are not what you expect based on the title or brief description on testudo. </p>
<p>So why are there no reviews on some instructors? That means either they are new or basically neutral (meaning no student was sufficiently motivated to write either a positive or negative review). </p>
<p>When a review and/or grade distribution is available on the professor, you need to also note the specific course that the review/grade distribution was on. For example, an instructor will likely be tougher in a 300-400 level class than a 100 level class. Click on the links and play around to get a feel of how ourumd.com works.</p>
<p>Remember to take all the info with a grain of salt because everyone’s perception is going to be different - some people may have an axe to grind and reviews are only personal opinions (there are always 3 sides to the story…the student perception, the instructor perception and what really happened). The most helpful reviews are those that describe the workload/grading - for example, 3 10-page papers, 5 quizzes and a final kinda thing…Sometimes, course info is not available because it is a new course.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, there are no reviews or grade distribution specifically on the professors that are teaching either of those courses, but below are the links for the courses on ourumd.com. You can see reviews/grade distributions for other teachers that taught ASTR100 in the past (ENGL295 seems to be a newer class). Remember that people will write reviews and more data on grades will be available after the semester is over - finals end May 20 and grades usually are completed within a few weeks after finals. </p>
<p>ASTR100 <a href=“http://www.ourumd.com/class/ASTR100”>http://www.ourumd.com/class/ASTR100</a></p>
<p>ENGL295 <a href=“http://www.ourumd.com/class/ENGL295”>http://www.ourumd.com/class/ENGL295</a></p>
<p>Once you get to school, you’ll also have the advantage of talking to students who might have taken a particular class in question and they can make recommendations. </p>
<p>Don’t choose a class just because you think it will be easy - choose it because you are interested in the topic. This is the time to expand your boundaries and learn new things that weren’t available to you in high school. Sometimes new things may surprise you. My college room mate was initially not happy about having to take a class (the lesser evil of available electives) but it turned it to be her favorite class and actually changed the direction of her career. </p>
<p>Just to clarify what I meant by personal strengths and interests is that my son is an engineering student - so math courses that he considers “easy” are things that would make my mind explode…</p>
<p>Just to reaffirm what mary said, the thought of taking more english classes beyond whats required makes me feel ill. I chose the astrophysics sequence for my elective requirements (starting with astr120/121-> 320,415,etc) and while it isn’t easy it is a lot of fun. If you’re interested in astronomy, I recommend astr100 over engl295. That said, if you enjoy knocking out papers, the lit class will be easier.</p>