<p>im pretty sure this has been brought up in the past, but i would like to hear from you guys.
should i take the easy courses and get A's thus GPA boost or should i just take the credits? im a native speaker, and am talking about chinese lang courses. i didn't think i would do this; it's a waste of time and not impressive at all, i know,but after first sem low gpa im trying to find everyway to get a 4.0 nx semester to balance it out. will it look bad? do employers really go thru ur transcript besides just looking at your overall gpa?</p>
<p>i was also questioning if it really looks better to take math215 and got an A, or starting from 115, then 116, 215, which takes longer but still get A's in all of them. Does the sequence really matter? I mean, the latter boosts ur gpa greatly, why save some time to take higher lvl courses and make ur life a hell when u can take tiny steps that everyone else is taking? </p>
<p>One thing I learned in college, you can never predict how you’re going to do in class. And I sure as heck wouldn’t predict A’s in the math courses at Michigan.</p>
<p>I would recommend taking the course over only if you are sure you will get an A and/or if it is a prereq course for another course and you don’t feel like you understand the material (ie. Physics if you’re going into civil engineering). Language classes are generally easy for native speakers so using it as a gpa booster might be a good idea. Language classes usually take a lot of time because you are required to learn the material, but if you already know this material, it shouldn’t be time-consuming. However, if the course you’re taking finds out you already know the material, they may kick you out of the course [happened to a friend]. Employers generally look over the transcript but, of course, more focus is on the gpa.</p>
<p>For math, I would recommend starting off with math 215 only because the Calculus sequence consists of all weeder courses. Calc II and Calc I are both classes that are difficult to get an A and might overall hurt your gpa more-so that taking Calc III without a strong background. Just make sure that when you do take Calc III, go to office hours and spend a lot more time then usual studying the course material.</p>
<p>i took calc 3 this semester and got an A. for the record, calc 3 is now at least as hard as calc 2 since the coordinator changed(final exam avg was low 30’s for the class). Anyway theoretically speaking, one’s able to get A’s in all the calcs, should he/she take the easy A’s? really,im just trying to make an analogy foreign lang classes.
anyone else would like to weigh in on this?</p>
<p>edit,
j89, how often does “kicking” one out from the course occur? i mean it is kinda bad on the student(cough cough) for trying to get an easy A, dropping one from the course sounds absurd…</p>
<p>Flipper, yes. (BTW, I don’t even think they’re harder, just different. The focus is on very different stuff.)</p>
<p>Square, don’t go back and now take 115 and 116. I don’t know about foreign languages, but if you want to, do it. I don’t see how they could know you already knew the language unless you were being a jackass and showing it off.</p>
<p>thx qwerty, no i wasn’t planning to go back and take 115 and 116… is that even possible lol. i noticed there are 2 kinds of asianlangs, one is for native speakers and the other for foreigners, do they really go thru bakcgorund checks? how big are the classrooms</p>
<p>qwerty, can you explain a little on how math 115 or 116 are focused differently? do u think it is a good idea as an engineer to take these classes again or just to skip straight to math 215? i was thinking i could take those classes as refreshers or easy A’s.</p>
if u go for 115 116… u probly get bored coz u know the material. then u start skip class then u wont know everything and wont get A(this is highly probable)
if u go directly to 215: lots of people fail 215 coz the AP isnt enough preparation… u need to practice a lot for a A.</p>
<p>So i think the optimal solution is go for the honor sequence: 175-176-285 getting A’s in honor looks much better, even B’s still dont look bad, and much interesting u so wont skip class.</p>
<p>The way I think about it is this: The more pre-rec/intro classes you get out of the way, the faster you can get to classes that actually pique your interest, and if you’re in a class that’s related to your passions, you’re going to be more driven and proactive about succeeding. I know for a fact that if I had to take any intro to government, history, or social science classes I’d do poorly because I’d be bored out of my mind.</p>
<p>Flipper519, one example is in BC we learned how trig-sub by memorizing a bunch of different equations. In Calc 2 we learned it like it was a special u-sub.</p>