2015'er in need of fall scheduling help! (PubPol Major)

Colleges and Universities A-Z Duke University
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<p>To anyone who can help or give insight concerning any of the following, please do!</p>

<p>1) What classes do you suggest? (and which professor)..preferrably easy classes. my high school was a joke and i definitely will NOT be one of the more intelligent students at Duke so I want to make my transition kind of easy by taking somewhat easy classes.
2) I got the 2nd day for registering. Should I do Writing 20 in the fall or wait until the Spring when I'll be in the 1st block for registering in order to get a better class?
3) I want to a) get my QS requirement out of the way and b) PPS requires Stats 101. I took AP stats senior year and I absolutely suck at math. Should I take it in the fall while things are still relatively fresh? Or should i take Stats 10?
4) I took Spanish for 6 years..including AP Spanish. I got a 2 on the AP Spanish exam and am still not profficient at Spanish somehow. Do you suggest I take 63 or 76? Note: i see that 63 meets MWF, 76 meets TuTh, and i REALLY don't want MWF. Would it be dumb to take 76 for that reason?
5) I wanted to take PubPol55D..but every single class for the fall is already marked with the waitlist symbol. does that mean I can't take this?
6) How hard is Econ1D and do you suggest I take it?
7) I may be interested in Psych minor. I took AP Psych and got a 5 and was really interested in it. Should I skip Psych11 and take a more specific Psych course this fall? If so, which one?</p>

<p>THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP. any input is appreciated.</p>

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<p>Eek, so many questions! I’ll try to answer them the best I can.</p>

<p>1) Well, what are you interested in? Regardless of how well you felt like high school prepared you for Duke, you’ll do best in classes you’re actually interested in. In general, I would recommend you take either your seminar or Writing 20, an intro class for one or two different majors you may be interested in (especially if you’re not 100% set on PubPol), and a foreign language class to just get that requirement started and out of the way ASAP. Make sure you have a good balance. For example, I had a notoriously difficult “weedout” class in my first semester, so I balanced it out with an “easy A” class.</p>

<p>2) I did exactly what you described (waited until spring semester when I had a better registration window), but if there are W20 classes in the fall that don’t fill up and still interest you, go for it. </p>

<p>3) You’ll have to take a placement test for stats regardless of which class you choose to take. Sta10 is VERY basic, so you’d probably have to purposefully flunk the placement exam to get in. You may struggle a little bit with 101, but there are plenty of resources to help you out. Since you’ll have to take it eventually, I would suggest you just go with that rather than having to take 10 and THEN 101. </p>

<p>4) To answer your question: yes, it would be dumb to not take 63 (or any class) because it meets MWF. Based on your AP score, you should be taking 63 but I will say that 63 and 76 are not all that different, use the same book, and are both filled with way too much busywork. However, a knowledge of subjunctive and pluperfect tenses will be assumed with 76 whereas you will have a review of those topics (and some other grammatical topics) in 76. For comparison’s sake, I took Spanish for 7 years up to Spanish 5 (my school didn’t offer AP). I felt like Spanish was always one of my stronger subjects and I earned a couple awards in high school. I chose to take 76 and got an A-. </p>

<p>5) Yeah, PubPol55 fills up pretty fast, so most freshmen won’t get to take it until their 2nd (or even 3rd) semester. Don’t worry too much about that.</p>

<p>6) Econ 1D is just used to assign credit for AP Econ. The intro Econ class is 51. It is generally considered a difficult “weedout” class, but I took it my freshman fall semester and enjoyed it. Maybe I’m biased though…I am an Econ major now :slight_smile: Keep in mind that you will eventually take Econ-based classes in PubPol. (PubPol 128 uses the same book as Econ 55.)</p>

<p>7) Psych 11 is one of Duke’s “easy A” classes, but it might be boring for you if you already got a 5 on AP Psych. Just because you got a 5 on AP Psych doesn’t mean you wouldn’t have to study for Psych 11 either, as I’ve heard there are now weekly quizzes, group projects, etc. I haven’t taken any other Psych classes at Duke, but you should probably take a look at the concentration classes (101RE-104RE). I think I’ve heard that Social Psych is fairly straightforward…though that is kind of the reputation for the entire department.</p>

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<p>Wow, thank you soo much for your help!!
How does this schedule look in terms of difficulty:</p>

<p>Spanish 63
Stat 101
Social Psych
Writing 20 or a Seminar</p>

<p>Is it bad that there are like no PubPol classes in there? I can’t find any PubPol classes I can take without fulfilling the prereq of PubPol55.</p>

<p>Also, I was researching Writing 20 classes that I’d be interested in…what can you tell me about the following five professors:
Christopher Middleton
Nancy Mullenneaux
Kristina Oxendine
Kathleen Millar
Jennifer Ahern-Dodson</p>

<p>THANK YOU SO MUCH</p>

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<p>I had a question too if you are still around to answer it! I am so undecided on a major…its actually a bit embarrassing. But I do plan on taking two languages, and hopefully some history classes I guess. I thought about some classes, and I was hoping you could help me out and tell me if my schedule is too hard?</p>

<p>Spanish 104
Calc 1 i guess…
History 49 S (or Writing 20)
Arabic 1 or Chinese 1</p>

<ol>
<li><p>In terms of the spanish, I was in the highest spanish level at my school, got a 4 on the AP, and did pretty decently on the SAT 2. I thought that I should be in 76, but when I went for BDD, the lady at the desk suggested 100 level courses. Is this a death sentence? I chose advanced grammar because I need a lot of work on that…but I do want to continue Spanish for as long as possible.</p></li>
<li><p>Also, anything on the two language choices? I’m having a hard time deciding.</p></li>
<li><p>Any advice on professors would be great. I’m going to do a lot of research tonight…</p></li>
</ol>

<p>THANKS!!!</p>

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<p>please start your own thread…not hijack mine.</p>

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<p>Sorry about that I guess…thought it would be easier to keep it in one place. Will move on.</p>

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<p>CameronCrazie, that schedule looks good and balanced to me…a nice mix of intro classes, requirements, and potential major classes/prereqs. As I said before, don’t worry about not having a PubPol class in there. I have several PubPol major friends who didn’t get a chance to take 55 (or any other PubPol class) until their second or even third semester at Duke.</p>

<p>As for those W20 teachers, I don’t know anything specific about any of them. However, you should check out ratemyprofessors.com or the Duke-specific <a href=“http://www.courserank.com/duke[/url]”>www.courserank.com/duke</a> (requires a NetID login). Google can also be a powerful tool :slight_smile: If you can’t find them on there, they may be visiting profs or grad students. But don’t worry…my W20 teacher was a grad student and she was great. </p>

<p>Let me know if you have any more questions! And cmurray33, I’ll get to you on your thread in a minute :)</p>

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<p>can anyone recommend any “must take” classes at Duke - those that are legendary at Duke or with really excellent professors?</p>