Add/Drop for Class of 2021

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
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A few reactions:

“Unknown teacher”: A bunch of Core teachers will be unknown. Some will be great, some not. If she’s going into a section with a known teacher this quarter, she’s likely to have an unknown teacher next quarter.

Core in two years: No one did that in my kids’ cohorts. Many people took Civ third year. Many people took some orphan core class (art, Civ, a bio topic) fourth year. Finishing the Core by the end of second year sounds like a throwback to Hutchinson.

Never taking math again: My daughter would have said the same thing. She hated math. She finished a calculus course in 11th grade, and never wanted to take math again. When Chicago made her take one quarter of math, she flirted with flunking it before the TA convinced her it would be less work to get her grade up to a C than to have to take it again or transfer. Guess what? Her interests changed over time, in part due to what she was learning at Chicago. She took more math in graduate school, and criticized the rigor of her course (at NYU) because it wasn’t up to Chicago standards. Among liberal arts universities, Chicago is the mathiest place I know. Math permeates everything. Never say never.

This course vs. that course: Her most important task right now is less to learn anything specific as to learn the University of Chicago. That’s why she should take Hum and Sosc, because that’s what they teach. And she should go to visitors’ talks, and grad student talks, and other events. If she’s nervous she won’t have the guts later to take some specific advanced class, then she ought to question why she should take it now. It’s magical thinking to say that she could get something out of a course now that she would be afraid to take later.

Just to be clear – I think she should take the course she wants. But she should recognize that building her Chicago Core base is Job #1 this academic year. People who do that in good faith find it very rewarding. Now, over the following three years, and over the rest of their lives.

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It’s funny - there are people on this board who swear everyone should take SOSC first year and people on this board who swear that no one should. This suggests to me that it’s not clear cut.

Why wouldn’t you want to take the core of the core class with a great teacher rather than a not great teacher? I mean, maybe it’s not the only factor to take into account when you’re choosing classes, but it’s a factor, I think.

Core in two years: School currently pushes it; most people say they missed a straggler course or two. Biggest reason to really finish it all seems to be that you lose priority in your third year. She will definitely take SOSC by second year, and probably CIV too. It’s unclear to me when she’ll get the most out of SOSC, but probably the most important factor will be when she has the most time and mental energy to devote to it, which may not be first quarter of first year (though, as I said, she did try as hard as possible to register for SOSC and was more than willing to do it along with HUM, which would have meant that all of her courses were core courses).

I disagree, based on the opinions of people I trust, that taking Mind or SSI this year would be better than taking Self, Power, or Classics next year.

Clearly they don’t think everyone must take SOSC in first year, or they would not create space in SOSC for only half of the first-year class, and they would not have failed to put DD in a SOSC class that she had requested and for which she had listed 9 sections that didn’t conflict with her other classes (9 was the maximum you could list, btw).

Re math and kids sometimes having changing interests: True, but you could say that about any class. She’s never taken a linguistics class. If she doesn’t take a linguistics class, she’ll never know if she would have loved it. She’s never taken a sign language class … a Korean class … a real music class … an anthropology class. She’s taken economics and chemistry and statistics in high school; it could be different in college. And so on, for every single course at Chicago - either she’s not taken it and might like it, or she’s taken it and might like it at Chicago even if she didn’t like it in high school, or she’s taken it in high school and liked it and will probably like it in college.

Everyone on this earth has limited time. Saying that you might like something is always going to be true, but it makes sense to play the odds, especially with a course you’ve already taken a lot of. As to whether Chicago [non-honors] math is that different: I actually just last week had a rising second year tell me that Calc 152 was pretty much the same as his Calc BC class.

I didn’t tell her not to take math. That’s her idea completely. She was willing to work hard during the school year and during the summer to place out because math is one class she’s already had a lot more of than she wanted to take. She feels sure. I don’t feel sure, but I think she’s not making a bad decision, playing the odds, when there are so many other great courses at Chicago that she will want to and won’t be able to take.

To offset your story of your daughter, I’ll tell you that I was required to take a quarter of Calculus in [an HYPS, so yes not Chicago] college and I didn’t change my major as a result and didn’t get anything out of it and don’t remember any of it. (And I was someone who actually did math contest in junior high and sort of liked math in junior and senior high, unlike DD.) And yet, I am the one who homeschooled our kids in high school math, because my husband, who I guess was forced to take 2 (??) quarters of Calculus at Chicago, doesn’t remember any high school math at all. My two daughters were surprised for years when men are good at math; they think of it as a mom thing.

What does all of this prove? I think maybe that people are different?

I’ve not heard anyone say that taking Math 151 (or even Math 153) made them fall in love with math. In fact, I’ve often heard people say, “Many of the teachers aren’t so great; you may have to teach it to yourself.” (The Honors sequence is different - I have heard people say they fell in love with math in that class - but that’s just not gonna happen.) Well, she could teach it to herself anyway. After she graduates, for that matter. Just like she saw me relearn through high school Algebra 2 to teach her and her homeschool friends, just like she taught herself Precalculus cause her high school math before calculus stinks.

She understands that stopping at Calc 152 forecloses some majors at Chicago, and that’s fine with her.

If I were to argue in favor of something that educated people really need to have some familiarity with, it would be statistics, and yet I be lots of humanities majors at Chicago have never taken a statistics class in high school or in college.

Speaking of which, what percentage of humanities majors take beyond Calc 152 (or the honors math sequence), I wonder? Even if there are lots and lots who do that … people. are. different. And to say that everyone needs to take Calc 153 and beyond, is, think, to denigrate so many other classes that are available.

“It’s magical thinking to say that she could get something out of a course now that she would be afraid to take later.” Why do you think that?

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I disagree that Core is necessarily job #1 for first years. For my kid, the priorities were figuring out how to get the most out of college (and how it differed from HS) and putting herself in a position where she could explore/choose from among a variety of (somewhat related) majors she was interested in. Because she’s a likely STEM major, getting prerequisites/early courses in required sequences out of the way was more important than taking SOSC, for example. CIV will have to wait until third year.

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@Lea111 I would definitely have her sit down one on one with her advisor and get into the classes she wants.

I also agree with @exacademic . My son’s priorities center around exploring all that UChicago and Hyde Park/Chicago have to offer this first year. He is as excited for his HUMA Philosophical Perspectives as he is with varsity athletics, RSO’s, civic engagement, theatre and campus life in general.

It’s a whole new maroon world as far as he is considered.

I hope your D has success with the advisor and if not, you elevate the issue.

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I guess I’m in the “Core is Job #1” camp. What people say they do, and what the university recommends that you do, might be very different. A lot depends on how much you personally value the Core. My D17 specifically opted for UChicago because of it and is very much looking forward to her Hum and Sosc. Others might be different, taking these courses merely because they are required. You will learn to think regardless of when you take Sosc. or Civ - but earlier is better per the school. Now, having said that, it’s going to be very difficult for many to complete the Core (even not counting FL) by end of 2nd year. But you should have a whole lot of it completed by then.

The Core allows you to complete pre-reqs in Math and Science at the same time. And no one says you have to complete Sosc. your first year - 2nd is fine (we know kids who have done both). I suspect it’s pretty common to put off Civ till third year due to uncertainty on the study abroad application.

@Lea111 my kid is doing Classics for her Sosc. but I kinda wished she’d gotten her 2nd choice of SSI instead. It sounded amazing to me and very useful. Oh well. It’s not my life :wink:

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I thought SSI sounded kind of cool too, though probably would not have advised it instead of the classic SOSCs. However, when we discussed the options, she was against taking SSI as a first year anyway. She said “that’s the kind of thing I’d rather take later” (particularly re the project, I think). I asked before on this board if kids could take 2 SOSCs and was told yes. I wonder if there’s a lot of overlap between SSI and the more classic SOSCs. If you read the descriptions, it doesn’t sound like there is, but I guess you’d have to carefully check syllabi to determine. Or maybe contact whoever is in charge of the SSI curriculum???

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The Course Catalog states the Gen Ed portion of the Core should be completed by the end of 2nd year…

http://collegecatalog.uchicago.edu/thecollege/thecurriculum/

“General Education (1500 units). These requirements, which are outlined below, consist of integrated, often interdisciplinary, sequences. They cannot be replaced by other courses (except in the sciences as indicated below) and they should be completed by the end of the second year.”

The Pre-Registration section of the Orientation website is more ambiguous…

https://orientation.uchicago.edu/page/pre-registration-autumn-courses

Besides Hum (mandatory for 1st years), the only requirements that UChicago specifically states should be completed by the end of 2nd year are PHSC and math.

PHSC: “If your intended major does not have specific requirements, you should plan to complete the requirement before the end of your 2nd year.”

Math: “If you plan to complete the requirement with subjects other than Calculus, you should do so before the end of your 2nd year, but it’s not necessary in your very first term.”

The recommendation for completing Sosc before 3rd year is not as forceful: “Students interested in Humanities & Social Science majors…can choose to take SOSC in 2nd year instead…Students interested in Physical & Biological Science majors or pre-med usually take their SOSC sequence in 2nd year.”

No specific guidelines regarding when to complete Bio, Art or Civ.

And then there is the Core Admissions Brochure…

https://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/uploads/pdfs/brochure_core.pdf

Scroll to the last page - there’s a sample curriculum showing a student completing Civ and Art in their third year.

So, my understanding is something like this…

  • Do everything humanly possible to get Hum, Sosc, Math, PHSC, Bio and FL done by the end of 2nd year.
  • If you are a STEM major or want to go on a study abroad, you can do CIV your 3rd year. If not, then you can do CIV 2nd year.
  • That leaves Art...which should not be left for 4th year.

But each student has their own unique set of circumstances, so…YMMV.

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YMMV is key, I think. And one thing that may vary is how burdensome the Core will be. My kid came in with FL done, and, as a likely Bio major, she has satisfied Math, PHSC, and Bio requirements in the ordinary course of pursuing the major during first year.

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We are viewing these courses as setting a foundation for our kid’s education at UChicago. If she chooses Econ. she’ll need to get going on that by third quarter first year but she was planning to start taking a major course by then anyway. For now, it’s 100% Core (and next quarter too). She wouldn’t have chosen UChicago if she didn’t want that. So for her its not a burden but an opportunity to be exposed to ways of thinking in a variety of disciplines. Maybe it’s because she’s not 100% sure of her major that she is not viewing the liberal ed. requirements negatively (well, maybe except for bio :smiley: ) and is happy to complete them within two years for the most part. She wants time to think about what to major in (something in social sciences). If she chooses history she won’t even need calculus (which she is taking not because it’s a “pre-req” to several majors but because it’s basic college math). She also knows that she can’t get out of liberal ed. at most places but that the choices are pretty bogus. Uchicago at least won’t be wasting her time or our dime.

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@Lea111 I can see my kid wanting to take SSI next year as well. Fortunately her Hum is “Greek and Roman Texts” so while she’ll have a TON of reading and writing (we picked up seven books at Seminary Co-op last week) there’s little overlap with her Sosc. texts this quarter, although she’s delving quite deeply into classical thought in both subjects. Hum texts are Iliad, Aenid (she calls that Iliad Fan Fiction) and Inferno. She’s read all these before but really looking forward to diving a bit deeper this time. Classics texts are Aquinas, Machiavelli, Aristotle and Plato. While there’s not much there in terms of contemporary social science modeling, they all certainly help form the basis of modern social and political thought. Others have said that Sosc. won’t directly point to a major course of study but I can see her gleaning some wisdom and areas of interest from reading these.

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DD doesn’t view the HUM, SOSC, and CIV requirements negatively. She was very aware of them when she chose Chicago and she wants to take them. And while it wasn’t a deal-breaker for a school not to have a Core, she likes that they are required for everyone, which means that presumably the science and econ majors want to be taking them too (there are so many other schools where you would not have to be taking these classes, so presumably there is self-selection) … although we’ve been kind of disappointed to hear that there are classes where some students who don’t seem to want to do those core of the core classes congregate, and she’s trying to steer clear of those classes.

She doesn’t view the non-science major science classes as key, and she would have been fine with not taking them, but she’s also okay with taking them. Many people seem to say that Core bio is a waste of time, so that’s too bad, but she didn’t have a good bio class in high school (“honors” teacher incompetent, fired the next year), so maybe she will get a little more out of it than most. The physical science class she’s in this quarter sounds interesting, so we’ll see. I personally never took a science-for-non-science-majors class, so I can’t tell her what that will be like. At least it won’t be a repeat of high school (unlike, possibly, if she’d had to take Calc 152).

Saying that she doesn’t view HUM/SOSC/CIV negatively and expects them to be good for her in the medium term, and that we (the parents) think she may enjoy some of them of a lot, doesn’t mean they automatically substitute for the things she already knows she is most passionate about, however. She did notice in high school that the teacher will make or break the class, and so takes that into account. It could turn out that one of her core classes will be even more enjoyable that the one she’s picking based on passion; who knows?

Two things about the utility of taking SOSC first year: (1) What classes are people thinking kids are going to take in second year that won’t be as good if they are taking SOSC concurrently, rather than previously? (Maybe DD won’t be taking those classes in her second year; after all, if you’re spending most of two years fulfilling your core requirements, then you’re maybe not going to be taking history or anthropology second year either.) (2) Apparently the SOSC classes are very different from one another. As I said before, I’ve been told that taking Mind or SSI is very different from taking the “classic” SOSCs, so if the choice is taking Mind or SSI 1st year, versus a classic SOSC 2nd year (which appears to be the case), you’d think that the purists would approve of the 2nd year plan. While I’ve heard that SSI is not without value, it’s still not the same as the classic SOSCs, apparently, so if the idea is that you have to have a foundation for second year courses, I don’t see how SSI and Self/Power/Classics are creating the SAME foundation.

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Good thinking by your excellently analytical daughter, @JBStillFlying . It’s natural to want to plan things out in advance, but the concept and requirements of the core already provide most of the early structure. Then there’s the serendipity of timing, availability, instructors and even classmates - not to mention the biggest unknown of all, what one discovers in oneself as one takes the UChicago ride. Selection of courses is a 5-finger exercise. Time now to rip hell out of that keyboard!

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I didn’t mean to say that the Core itself was Job #1. I said it better the first time – learning the University of Chicago is Job #1, much more so than any particular class. However, Sosc – and I agree, probably not Mind, and I don’t even know what “SSI” is – seems to represent the essence of the University of Chicago more than anything else. I know there are different opinions about which year to take it. Both my kids took it first year. For one, it was (unexpectedly) her favorite first year course. For the other, he didn’t always love it, but it changed his life, gave him new direction . . . and if he had taken it second year, that wouldn’t/couldn’t have happened, at least not so effortlessly.

Taking it with a great teacher: Sosc is a year-long course. Sections generally change teachers every quarter. A great teacher this quarter does not mean a great teacher next quarter (and in fact may mean something close to the opposite). I think there’s something of an effort to give every section at least one quarter of a great teacher, but I won’t guarantee that. (And that’s something that is really affected by suddenly having 1740 first-years, rather than 1650 or 1550. It’s relatively easy to hire qualified people to teach the Core, but finding “great” for five extra sections of Sosc and Hum is not so easy.)

Magical thinking: I have a lot of personal experience with taking advanced courses out of sequence. It’s an art. You have to be fearless, but you also have to be very respectful of what you don’t know, and willing to work like a dog to fill in the gaps. And you need to understand how not to be disruptive. But I’ll say that I got a lot more out of advanced courses when I knew more going into them, and there are plenty of times I wished I had built a more careful foundation rather than going for the coolest course as early as possible. It’s a mixed bag. If I hear someone say “I need to take this course now, because if I knew a little more I would be too intimidated to take it later,” that sounds like bad thinking to me. If you really want that course, you should either go for it or prepare yourself to take it later and plan on that.

By the way, there are tons of ways at a college of getting the benefit of a community of scholars without taking an inappropriate course for a grade. There are open lectures and seminars all the time. You can usually go to someone’s office hours even if you are not registered in a class he or she is teaching. In college, I formed a close relationship with a famous professor, and got him to act as my advisor, a year before I took a class he was teaching for credit. I went to his public lectures, read his books, and went to his office hours. One of my kids as a first-year sat in on a public lecture by a senior anthropology professor, asked him some questions later, and started a two-year-long series of e-mail exchanges with him that were enormously educational.

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@Lea111 to answer your question about why someone would take sosc first year as opposed to second year, my daughter is planning to be a social science major so she was following the guidelines on the pre-registration website. Also she’s really looking forward to taking the sequence so did not want to put it off. Given that hum is required and two of her other courses are year long – sosc and calculus - The course that she will drop if she needs to is physical science. Although she really likes The subject that she got into. Because she’s doing calculus 130s as opposed to 150s she think she might be able to survive four classes this quarter even with hum and sosc.

In year two she’s planning to take foreign language and core bio. Perhaps also CIV but she is also hoping to knock that off on a study abroad. She does not have a lot of AP coming in and she does not want to skip subjects due to AP anyway. Like your daughter she had a really crappy biology teacher in high school. I predict – and she does not disagree – that she will actually enjoy her biology sequence at University of Chicago particularly when they get to interesting topics such as cancer cells and so forth.

What’s great about University of Chicago and I couldn’t agree more that students do tend to select into the school is that there’s an intellectual curiosity about all disciplines not just a major of interest. It is a true liberal arts experience.

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Not one size fits all, DD is a STEM major, and is taking HUM, SOSC, CHEM, and Calc, Year 1 although she just need to complete Calc 15300, so it will a 4/3/3 qtr series of classes for her. She really wants to do study abroad (CIV) 2nd year and focus on her major the last 2 years at UChicago. She can always drop Calc 3 and delay it a qtr or two if it’s too much to start with. Like I said there is no best plan for everyone.

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@JHS Re Magical Thinking: You seem to be making some assumptions about the course my DD is trying to get into, I guess based on the kinds of classes you and your kids wanted to take. I never said it was an advanced class. In fact, it’s an intro (called “Introduction”) course in an arts domain. There is no other class she could take first that would prepare her for that course. The professor apparently agrees, based on her email to him describing her background, that she is well prepared for that course, and in fact, it appears, based on the students’ writing in prior evaluations, that many of the students have no experience whatsoever in the area (whereas DD has a lot). Ironically, though, everything you say in this area is the reason some people give for taki ng SOSC (and CIV) after completing the HUM course, with its writing tutorial - you get more out of it when you’ve been prepared by the somewhat easier, and more hand-holding HUM class. (Whether that’s true for a particular person may depend on her and her overall schedule, imo.) I agree that this thing you said - “I need to take this course now, because if I knew a little more I would be too intimidated to take it later” - doesn’t seem to make sense, but I never said that was the reason she was afraid she might not take it later. I realize you’re not a professional psychologist, but haven’t you ever seen a cartoon of, say, someone walking around trying to talk themselves into doing something difficult, and then they miss their chance and walk away? She’s talked herself into going for it now. All of college is new and crazy and frightening, and she’s in a risk-taking mood (and she’s probably carried on a wave of having won a bunch of national and international awards in the area recently) - she’s highly qualified for the class, but still afraid, because It’s College and It’s New. She’s also been in contact with the professor already, something that was very, very difficult for her, but she’s done and so now she’s invested and feeling good about it. If she doesn’t get into it now, will she take it later? Possibly; I hope wo. (It’s only offered once a year, so there’s also the question of whether the schedule will work out.) But a bird in the hand…

Taking it with a great teacher: This year, there were a huge number of HUM and SOSC classes listed as being taught by “STAFF” at the time of pre-registration, which suggested that perhaps the college was adding a number of professors and scheduling them rather quickly. As I think you’re saying as well, given that they’ve had to hire so quickly, they may not have been able to engage in careful planning, even assuming that they usually do so. Again, a bird in the hand … In addition, perhaps it was different in your kids’ day, or for your kids, but there are professors who, in the past, have taught all 3 quarters of a class, and it seems likely, though not certain, that such a pattern would continue. If it’s true that there’s careful planning being done, that could suggest teach-all-three-quarters teachers are middling, but it seems to me just as likely that that’s just how those particular teachers like to teach. And you can, after all, see evaluations for teachers who aren’t “STAFF” or new hires. Finally, different students might value different things in a professor. A gruff, imperious big name professor might appeal more to some than to others. A professor who lectures more, or a professor who encourages more discussion, might attract different students. There are other factors you might not even think of. Can a student plan for all of this? Of course not. But if the choice is, say, for a kid with delayed sleep onset disorder to take an 8:30 Mind Class with STAFF which will cause him to have 6 hours of classes in one day, or to take a desirable elective class for which is suited and try again for Self/Power/Classics in second year (with presumably the option of taking a similarly unattractive SOSC class that year, if something better doesn’t work out), I don’t see why that’s a bad idea, in the abstract. In the case of my own DD, I glanced through the SOSC classes that aren’t full now, and see that most of them aren’t the classic SOSCs. I also happened to notice that she has schedule conflicts with several (maybe all? I didn’t check carefully) of the classic SOSCs.

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@JBStillFlying Totally makes sense to me why your DD would really like to take SOSC this year. What I’m questioning is the idea that no matter what their major or what classes they plan to take in second year, a student won’t be prepared for second year if she’s taking SOSC concurrently that year, rather than having finished it in 1st year.

FWIW, I asked my husband, and he said that when he was at Chicago (late 70s), everyone did take SOSC 1st year.

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@Lea111 it doesn’t surprise me that sosc was historically considered (almost) exclusively a first year core course once upon a time. It seems like the social sciences counterpart to Hum. (not sure of the history of the core but wouldn’t surprise me if Hum was once a three quarter sequence as well).

The shift to 2nd year Sosc. seems to be correlated with increasingly difficult math and science pre-reqs for various majors that need to be done during 1st year. Also, some kids are going to find the uber-heavy dose of reading and writing from Hum/Sosc. to be just too much - it’s possible that there are more of those kids on campus than there were a few decades ago (kids for whom English is not the first language, kids who are gifted more at math and science than reading classic texts, etc.).

IMHO it’s not that you won’t be prepared in 2nd year if you don’t take Sosc. in first year - it’s more a matter of what are you shooting for w/r/t a curriculum plan. Among other goals the sequence is supposed to help you learn to write well so it’s very fundamental that way. D also figured it was a good intro to how to think about social issues and challenges and really wanted to take it before picking out a specific major. She’s comfortable taking two reading/writing courses and could fit it into her schedule so that worked for her. Had it not, she would be taking it 2nd year. Some STEM kids may also be putting it off (as they simply can’t fit another year-long sequence into their schedules) but @CU123’s STEM kid is taking it first year. It’s an individual decision.

My point was really more about opting for core over non-core at this point. To me it makes sense to use these first two years knocking off the liberal ed. Even if she had come in with existing credits, my D probably would still have chosen Sosc. over a non-core class, assuming she could have fit it in.