Advice for future STEM majors on course selection at Emory

[bernie12]

Hello incoming freshman and transfers, I have decided to make this series of posts on navigating STEM courses and professors (at Emory, this is the most important part as standardization is limited), especially foundation and intermediate STEM courses at Emory. This will take several posts.

In case questions come up in the future about STEM scheduling, I have decided to leave you with this advice to take into account as I have been discussing these issues for a long time (so in future, I may just refer people to this thread and give shorter answers as this represents my normal speech I constantly repeat). Some of it may be unconventional, but I am trying to take into account different philosophies about one’s goals for education. Hopefully this may be helpful whether one is just a hardcore pre-health who sees that as the only goal of their science coursework or is someone considering a career or graduate school/research in STEM (or maybe even an MDPhD).

I target these two audiences when analyzing courses per department:
A. Maybe pre-health of some sort and is just trying to “get through” the STEM courses (I really don’t advise this approach for courses in ALL STEM disciplines, but it is understandable if you feel you are unprepared for a challenge in one or two subject areas based upon previous experiences)
B. Really into learning as much as possible, and is open to being stimulated by content or ways of thinking in the field. This often goes for those considering PhDs, MS programs, industry, MDPhDs, those areas where learning how to think analytically early on, even if painful is extremely beneficial.

I will mention professor and course recommendations for each group by using A. and B. for each. I will mention when and how it may help if you mix A and B courses (it actually always helps. Emory is too expensive to just come and constantly take courses pitched at the same level or style they would be at what people on here call “podunk University”. If a pre-health, a high GPA and finding some way to a solid MCAT is your best bet. If you don’t truly value the extra challenge that supposedly comes with being at a highly selective college or university, save your money and effort…but especially your money) as well as any caveats

I will start with what I enjoy most chemistry (okay, I do biochemistry, so I like both…when integrated):

General”(150/202)

Group A.
150/202 are nearly standardized across sections, so do not choose who is perceived as easiest so to speak (go with folks that have been teaching the course several times in the RECENT past). I do believe this past cycle when these courses were fully implemented, easier sections had “interventions” whereby the students were suddenly given the exams of the course director half-way through the semester (so like after 2 midterms):
I personally just recommend McGill if you can get her as she was responsible for designing a huge chunk the new curriculum and makes the exams other sections may use. She does teach in the flipped/hybrid format, which may make students uncomfortable if they would rather be told content, but if you take it and the group work/worksheets seriously, I feel one should come out alright. To compensate for relatively little lecture, study on your own (this is college) and go to office hours and chem mentors. The flipped classroom gets a lot of hate, especially from younger students expecting to be sort of spoonfed material, but it forces you to take more responsibility for your own learning and the earlier the better. Many instructors, especially in research focused upper divisions and in social science courses with lots of writing will not spoonfeed and guide your every step. You have to take some foundation and expand it on your own time, so ideas like: “I felt like we had to teach myself” being bad are non-sense…yes that is what most of learning is, especially if you want to retain the information after the exams, or much more after the course

Group B.
This is for those who may want something a little more. Maybe you are really ambitious or have an AP credit, but do not want to start with 202z. Soria will offer 150 again and he is not on the standardized track and instead focuses his course more intensively on structure and organic concepts and APPLICATIONS that are related to the life sciences and biology. For those who aren’t necessarily super experienced with chemistry, but are willing to put in work do not despair. Class and exams are definitely tougher than other sections but there is no curve/distribution-based grading. He values group work and community (has some unconventional traditions in his class like sporting events each semester for those bonus points. It may be say his chem 150 students versus his chem 203 students in Volleyball, and he would play on the 203 team. Beat him, you get X amount of bonus points) so there will be many opportunities to earn bonus points which are applied directly to midterm (but not final exam) scores. If you can tolerate or embraced being highly challenged in a non-competitive atmosphere, this is the section for you. And like many lower division and intermediate chemistry instructors at Emory, he is truly excellent and students who actually expect to feel challenged at a top tier university will get this from him.

*This same advice applies to 202- A caveat of choosing Soria though- If you start in his 150, I recommend staying with him at least through 202 even if you feel uncomfortable with the challenge/level of thinking required. Why? Unless Weinschenk starts teaching 202, Soria will be the only section that prepares extremely well for 203 (which uses a quite advanced textbook typically only used in advanced organic courses at top schools in the U.S. and very rigorous intro. organic courses abroad at places like Cambridge. The way that book presents topics is pretty much at the level Soria and Weinschenk present topics in organic chemistry, a very heavy emphasis on higher level theories/more abstract concepts and applications and a lot of Molecular orbital theory:https://www.organic-chemistry.org/books/reviews/0198503466.shtm . Note that only a few schools, even among top schools use this book near this level for sophomore organic chemistry which would be 203’s equivalent …I guess. Soria and Weinschenk always taught their courses around or significantly above this book and their problem sets and exams have overlap with some of the more challenging concepts covered in the text and not traditionally covered in US sophomore ochem courses, even at most of Emory’s “near peers” which I consider the 12-25 ranked bracket and some more in USNWR). Who you choose for 203 is up to you, but if I base it upon this fall, students have a > 50% chance of ending up in Soria or Weinschenk (as in over 50% of seats are allocated to their sections) anyway and students coming from their sections who score at least a B- are usually best prepared for “easier” sections or each other’s section of future courses/portions of the sequence. Also I love giving back and helping future Emory alum, so if you find yourself in Soria or Weinschenk and struggle with a concept, do contact me and I will try to help.

Some intermediates/advanced courses to consider: Strongly consider Dr. Jen Heemstra’s chemical biology course, a chemistry 470. Technically you do not need chem or biol 301 before it, but a great 142 and ochem background may come in handy for any chemical biology course. The “biochemistry” passages on something like an MCAT may more so look like things learned in this course than they will biochem. 1 which is kind of just memorizing metabolic pathways and learning enzyme catalysis/receptor binding kinetics. It places biochemistry in a modern/experimental context, something biochem 1 doesn’t do as much of.

[bernie12]

Biology
General Biology
Group A: Technically you could take Cafferty which still uses multiple choice only so may be the “easiest” for 141/142 to many who are still in love w/multiple choice, however I recommend at minimum O’toole, Abreu, or De Rhoode/Cole as they may better emphasize critical thinking in class and do more interesting activities. I think that for the pre-health group, a minimal threshold of analytical rigor is much more important in biology (especially intro) than chemistry because it is such a big portion of the MCAT. Having an instructor with at least some short answer items and a bigger emphasis on analysis and experimental biology will force you to learn it better. This is really important for 142. 141 honestly isn’t that challenging no matter who you take, so you may as well take someone who does a tad more. 142 is all about biotechnology, molecular genetics, genetic engineering, and more experimental biology topics (except the beginning. 141/142 have been rearranged to put transcription/translation at beginning of 142. Don’t ask why. I don’t know. Could be to make topics flow better. It may be harder to get some genetic engineering concepts if one is rusty on those basic principles I guess).

Group B: Definitely choose among the 3 I mentioned for 141 If you have to take it, but 142, I strongly recommend Spell and Orloff as those are two more serious instructors for those topics IMHO.

Intermediates/Advanced : Most pre-healths majoring in life sciences do so in Neuroscience or biology so will take many intermediate and advanced courses

Group A: Standard courses taken by this group are more memorization focused courses such as developmental biology, human physiology, biochem 1 (this may be taken in chemistry as well). Comparative vertebrate anatomy, animal behavior. IMHO seems only the last two are particularly useful because they expose you to MCAT related content. However, they seem to be taught in ways that maybe only prep for “free-standing” questions which can kind of be done by just “knowing”. If you are trying to do well on passages in those areas consider what I say for group B and maybe mix and match with some of these recall/regurgitation focused courses and a few recommendations from group B to help you (even if you are afraid, you should have high enough grades to not worry about a B or 2 coming from some Group B. course. And that B will be worth a lot more than As in most group A. courses in terms of learning outcomes). If NBB, when you hit NBB 301, you are probably more likely to choose the fall section which is a traditional lecture

Just so you see: MCAT passages look like this: http://offers.aamc.org/hs-fs/hub/259636/file-2239561794-pdf/MCAT_MiniTest_ebook.pdf

If you have never had a STEM professor (especially in biol, chemistry, or NBB) who gave exams, assignments, or p-sets that emphasizes or helps one to develop the type of thinking needed to handle those passages and the types of questions (often experimental in nature) asked, you probably aren’t doing yourself any favors in easing the study process. You must learn how to think, reason and deal with more complex contexts and questions. It isn’t a standard multiple choice exams. Algorithms and memorization will just be less effective, which is why I advise so much that students not overly focus on WHAT their STEM courses cover so much as how they cover the content and what level/type of demands the instructor places on students. The “what” is the foundation, but if an instructor only asks for a surface level understanding of the “what”, then you will not know how to use your foundation for new situations and will more easily forget it. It would suck to have to relearn all content for sections of the exam as well as gain the problem solving skills in the area because they were de-emphasized in your courses. If you have the latter and forget some of the former, it is likely easier to prep for it or exams like GRE biochem and biology (which some better biological sciences PhD programs require, recommend or consider. Both of these exams ask questions at a high level).

For those considering biological/biomedical sciencesresearch/grad. school:
bchem GRE practice test :https://www.ets.org/s/gre/pdf/practice_book_biochem.pdf
biology GRE practice test: https://www.ets.org/s/gre/pdf/practice_book_biology.pdf

You don’t want to take the MCAT or those two subject tests with a shaky foundation and/or a lack of exposure to or success with thinking analytically in a STEM exam.

Group B (A lot here since this group usually has more diverse interests in the life sciences than the first): When schedule can handle it, choose courses and instructors that focus on data analysis and/or primary literature in class OR have a discussion section where primary literature is read and analyzed and maybe even presented/written about (in form of summer or problem set). Emory’s biology department is really good overall in emphasizing this type of learning and there are many instructors who have gotten on board with this at the intermediate levels and upper divisions. First round is by instructor.

Dr. Arri Eisen (so generally 250 or 352, Cell biology and Epigenetics respectively): You will read primary literature and present it. Class is nearly flipped and focused on applications in the fields, so you will generally work on case studies (derived from literature) highlighting the topics. Class is challenging but you will learn a lot and should be able to do decently well if your biology 142 knowledge and logic is still intact (again, having good instruction for 142 can really help. Most of the techniques and forms of analysis covered are the highlights of research articles in biology, especially those highlighting phenomenon in molecular biology and biochemistry/chemical biology). Interestingly enough, it seems taking chemistry instructors like Weinschenk or Soria helps folks adapt to his exams better (Eisen exams are all short answer, he usually chooses several abstracts, perhaps from very recent research articles, and asks you questions about them and some of the questions ask you to propose models or design experiments to test them. These level questions are weighted highest).

Chris Beck: Organismal form and function and Ecology: Organismal Form and function is cool because it integrates physiology concepts with evolutionary concepts. The way Beck does it is based upon analysis of data sets and often you will compare across species, which for what I just heard from a mentee of mind who very recently took the MCAT is exactly what happened in a passage based section. Beck does Problem based learning in a sense. He will sometimes lecture to prime students for the worksheets he gives which asks you to analyze a series of figures to describe some ecology and physiological phenomenon. Ecology is like this but perhaps more rigorous and does involve reading of primary literature in that field. Data analysis is important on the MCAT and honestly in the past I have heard that MCAT passage questions were strikingly similar to the types of prompts and scenarios he gave, just in multiple choice format. Ecology also has a writing intensive lab, so those considering grad. school, maybe take to improve scientific writing skills.

Dr. Gerardo: Usually runs a section of evolutionary biology (biology 241) each year: Class is clearly modelled off of Beck’s classes (and Beck likely designed it, and used to teach it). Technically all instructors are data/problem based, but she takes it the most serious in terms of teaching. When De Rhoode teaches, he is also very good. She does data analysis/experimental set-up based exams too (she may have migrated to take home). All evolutionary biology sections have literature discussion sections so that’s great.

[bernie12]

Courses only (instructor hardly matters):
Human Genetics, biol 264: Unlikely that instructor matters (although Spell is teaching in Spring 2019, so that may be exceptional) as I hear most are mediocre for the lecture component. However course builds upon 142 and covers a broader range of applications and contexts. In addition, has a literature discussion section, which is great for if you are doing research involving molecular genetics or taking an MCAT. Great to get exposure to lit. in that field.

Biology 370: Same as 264. Instructors may be nothing special(in fact Levin is known to be a not so great lecturer), but a literature discussion section could be helpful for those who use a lot of microbiology in research or are maybe considering something like public health applications of biology, etc. Note that Levin focuses on more experimental biology/clinical biology applications than Campbell. By time you are a junior or senior, you may just be able to get something out of the course (he has a strong TA system, so use it) without having to rely on him lecturing well.

A new course that I am sure has lots of potential and is extremely relevant in today’s biological sciences research is Anita Corbett’s RNA biology course which is apparently research and techniques focused.

*For math/CS oriented life sciences folks or bio majors considering QTM/biology(neuro or PBEE concentration), the following courses are for you:

NBB 301- Consider Frenzel in Spring: Runs flipped class but you should be old and mature enough to handle it. Will focus more on case students and primary literature to teach NBB 301 concepts. Wants students to leave with a lasting conceptual foundation and not able to plug and chug so will focus more on experimental design, interpretation, etc than traditional lecture offered in the fall.

Antia’s Immunology or Population Biology Course (Biol 455/Biol 463 respectively): You have to learn math methods and read papers
Physical Biology (wish Nemenman was still teaching), biol 434: You use computational/mathematical methods to model biological signaling pathways and other phenomenon such as transcription.

Computational Neuroscience or Time Series Analysis with Berman: Biol 450/Biol 355(I think): I believe mostly Matlab is used for the former and the latter will likely emphasize lots of life sciences quantitative concepts as he is a biologist. I think sometimes he teaches a Modelling Behavior course (emphasizes quantitative methods)

Computational Modelling for Scientists and Engineers with Nemenman: Biol 212 (or physics 212): Project/Problem based. He generally gives a range of projects per module so you can often tailor which ones you choose to your interests.

A new disease Ecology course is offered by a Dr. Civatello and I imagine it has potential as it seems research focused and likely integrates his interests in mathematical methods.

In the math department, there is a “Partial Differential Equations in Action Course” which has been known to cover really cool applications to model things like heart function and other biomedical applications.

Also note, for group B: When it comes to intro. physics if you must take, I strongly recommend physics 151/152 series as it gets you applying calculus early. You don’t want a life sciences class to be the first time you are made to do that and then the professor expecting students to have taken calculus based physics. In addition, physics 14X is huge and usually gets “questionable” instructors now-a-days. There is one instructor per semester now (so imagine a research faculty teaching 2 sections of 200…intro. physics has Emory’s largest section sizes for an intro by a mile maybe other than NBB 201. A research faculty will simply not care as much teaching a trig. Physics course and may also be overwhelmed by the enrollment numbers. If you care about quality, don’t do it to yourself. Most STEM majors must take up some version of calc. 2 anyway, so students should eventually have the background to handle 15X), and they usually are not putting their best foot forward in terms of who is selected to teach. For many, the course may end up more challenging than the 15X series due to this. In addition, for chemistry majors and NBB majors, physics 15X lab requires lab reports which sounds like “a lot of work”, but chemistry majors are likely to take pchem w/lab with VERY intensive lab reports and NBB majors MUST take NBB 401, the writing intensive seminar where you do like a full review of primary literature every week almost. Best to get exposure to this early. I believe currently Physics 15X lab is the only intro. lab that has lab reports so this may be one of the only oppurtunities before you jump into any higher level writing intensive labs.

*Doubling up w/”general” chem or ochem and biol frosh year: This is a topic of controversy for pre-healths (if you are not pre-health and have an okay, even not AP level background, I would say do it), and you want to measure yourself. I strongly encourage the prepared to do it instead of taking it too easy in the freshman year. Professional and graduate schools value an upward trend. Given this, one needs to be careful. You can take a single science and score that B±A grade, but if you are say a chemistry major or an NBB major where the number of requirements is quite high and challenging, you may find yourself piling on courses to keep up in later years (this matters for NBB 301 which strongly recommends math up to life sciences calc. 2, physics up to physics 2, and requires biol 142 and chem 202. So you must take a lot of coursework just to get a lot out of and increase your chances of doing well in 301). A biology major: Maybe not as important as there are a) many loopholes (ask if interested and I will explain) for those who do not start freshman year, especially those in group one. However, if you want to get quicker access to electives and upper division options, knocking out biol and chem freshman year will help. Also, use the Emory chemistry prep thing to help gauge your potential to do well in both.

Anyway, welcome to Emory. It is a great school and the effort put into educating undergraduates in the sciences, especially the life sciences is very obvious. Please take advantage of what resulted from these efforts, they will benefit you greatly. Sometimes constant easy grades and a path of least resistance through your STEM studies looks attractive, but remember that the types of exams mentioned can function as gatekeepers if you do poorly or very mediocre (and have a mismatched GPA), and in the case of going into research focused STEM careers or graduate school, you want to develop good habits of mind and thinking skills in STEM. You can often look up scientific facts, but developing the logic to discover or interpret new ones or completely new scientific models for things requires a lot more. Why not let a place like Emory help you on your journey? It certainly helped me a lot. Also, the instructors who tend to emphasize this are usually better mentors and write better rec. letters. Contrary to some students’ beliefs, they do not emphasize that type of rigor because they want students to suffer, they do it because they care about the intellectual development of undergraduates as well as their future success. They want to give you your money’s worth and ensure they help you develop skills you can use further down the road. You may hate some of them and their styles initially, but you will likely thank them later, even if much later.

Again feel free to ask any questions if this long post doesn’t answer something you may want to know about. I’ll answer as well as I can, and then there are also people like BiffBrown who is on main now and started at Oxford who can also help and lend their perspectives

[eastcoast101]

Thanks, @bernie12 this is great information. Question–are you specifically targeting pre-health/pre-med? My S is more of a math/stats/quant kid, and is not considering a premed courseload. Since you mention STEM I would be interested in hearing your thoughts regarding math/comp sci type of coursework.

[bernie12]

@eastcoast101 : No, but I’ve mentored enough so I have seen some things about them. I was pretty much always pre-grad. I am currently a PhD student (haha, I get to answer this now because I am waiting on bacteria to grow and running a gel lol) in a structural biology lab (so the biochem department). My undergrad was in biology and a heavy dose of chem (BA), and then I did a masters in computational chemistry before the program I am in now.

For the latter, I wish QTM was around. I recommend perhaps the following track for your student if interested:

http://quantitative.emory.edu/for-undergraduate/courses/amsbs-courses.html

If your son has more time and wants to learn how to apply this knowledge to some field of interest (political science for example runs a surprising number of undergraduate courses that focus upon quantitative methods. Emory’s undergraduate program is actually known to be kind of unique in that way, and if your son is open to social sciences as an application and is a more hardcore math fan then this:http://polisci.emory.edu/home/undergraduate/pols_math_major/index.html may also be an option). it should be fairly easy without them having to pursue a whole major.

Fortunately since your son is not pre-health, it is likely advisable for him to accelerate if possible as he can be a lot more flexible and take far more risks academically than if he was. If interested in more math theory, which Emory has a great track record in, you can actually start in the honors course established some years ago and it will get faster access to upper division courses:
http://www.mathcs.emory.edu/site/undergraduate/general-information/placement_guides/Advanced_Math_Placement_Guide.pdf

If great at CS, there is the CS 171-Z option as well.

Either way, there should be plenty of oppurtunities in those areas, especially applied, but even if not: Due to the success of the QTM program, the number theory group in math, and the rise/push for increased presence of the quantitative life sciences has provided lots of oppurtunities. Keep an open mind towards the life sciences as there are cool opps for those interested in math and computers. I, for example, once helped a freshman get this fellowship (apparently usually only rising seniors get it), so anything thing is possible even early on:
http://compneurosci.college.emory.edu/training/undergraduate.html
or the Beckman Fellowship, which may actually just be the new funding source of the CNF opportunity: http://nbb.emory.edu/research/Programs%20that%20Support%20Undergraduate%20Research.html

And note that based upon my experience, tthese fields that seem like “life sciences but with math and computing” are welcoming to all sorts of backgrounds. My old Master’s lab had a history of having some straight up CS and math focused folks join and be successful. They would learn the chemical and biological concepts sort of on the fly and let their programming skills lead them for most of the way. I was more of the opposite, having to pick up more math and CS skills, and leveraging my chemistry knowledge. Either way, research groups in more quantitative branches of the social and life sciences are very open to folks of a range of perspectives. Your son need not limit himself to opps. and coursework strictly hosted by math, QSS, or CS because he isn’t pre-health. It will likely make him more marketable to jobs, internships, grad. schools, external fellowships/scholarships if he had more range/knew how to really apply it outside of those fields.

Will he be going to Emory or are they interested in it?

[eastcoast101]

Thank you— great information. He is attending, will be a freshman in the fall. The accelerated stuff looks interesting. He took the AP BC calc test in May so we will await those results. However he has been thinking that he wants to take Calc 2 regardless of this AP score.

[bernie12]

@eastcoast101 : Not worth it…Calc. 1/2 at Emory is so variable per section, and honestly not likely to be useful to repeat if they get 4/5 on AP. The only difference may be that the treatment of sequence and series is more rigorous on average (but there can be some lazy instructors). However, I would argue that some instructors for it are significantly below the intensity of AP and usually people find multivariable disconnected from the more abstract concepts of Calc. 2, Differential equations primarily requires that his integration/differentiation skills are solid, linear algebra…just kind of unrelated in some ways (more related to multivariable). I would entertain taking calculus 2 if it was a well regulated course that was guaranteed to be rigorous enough to fill in some gaps from BC (or was just significantly different enough to afford some advantage in intermediates and upper divisions), but it just isn’t. Whether he’ll get something out of it is a coin toss. The worst case scenario is that they do the B.C. concepts and give more tedious tests (some instructors at elites like doing this. They will make problems extremely algebra intensive. Only in that way does the course end up tougher than BC, but student isn’t really learning anything new/better).

[eastcoast101]

Thank you, I’ll share with my S.

[pro_procrastinator]

How is Nicholas Llewellyn for CHEM 150?

[pro_procrastinator]

Nicholas Llewellyn got higher ratings than Mcgill on RatemyProfessor. But I heard on campus that he is harder than Mcgill. So I am conflicted. Add/drop/swap period is about to end, and I need good advice.

[BiffBrown]

@pro@procrastinator

My friends who took Llewellyn for organic chemistry II (Chem 222) because they thought he would be easier than Weinschenk didn’t like Llewellyn. They didn’t think he taught very well - at least compared to Weinschenk.

[bernie12]

@BiffBrown : Eh, apparently L is a very solid gchem teacher though and has the benefit of teaching students who are “fresh”. 222, he doesn’t even try. He isn’t getting particularly ambitious students after all. Think about the reason you cited for your friends going there. Being cognizant of that information and effectively being a helper/“temp”, would you put lots of effort into teaching such students at a high level? I would like to think I would, but I have my doubts. It would be very frustrating dealing with folks who come in expecting to put in less effort than if they had gone or stayed elsewhere. The teaching and level of demands he makes in his 222 course reflects this reality. At UIUC, he basically ran all the sections, so it was less of an issue (dealing with competition and selection effects). Emory is very messy in that regard.

[MiCh408]

@bernie12 How does Wuest for Chem 202 compare to McGill and Soria? Looking to challenge myself (finding 150 with McGill relatively easy but really enjoy her teaching style) and prepare for 203 and MCAT.

[bernie12]

@MiCh408 : Take Soria. Wuest will be on standardized curriculum which McGill will lead (Wuest was on standardized last year, which Mulford was in control of. Remember that Wuest is tenured, so will be enthusiastic, but take the path of least resistance when it comes to course materials and that path is to simply use her exams as he did with Mulford last year). I am pretty sure everybody but Soria uses her curriculum and exams, and you can check by talking to friends or going to the bins where they put the exams and compare. They were standardized last year. Soria will give his midterms which are much more challenging (especially in 202) and organic heavy than other sections but then you will receive the standard final which will hopefully help you).

[MiCh408]

@bernie12 Thank you very much for the insight! I will try to get into Soria! Also, you mentioned that you prefer Phys 151/152 over 141/142, but for someone who is not interested in pursuing physics or calculus beyond what is required for med school, would you still recommend 151/152? Will 141/142 adequately prepare one for the MCAT and med school?

[bernie12]

@MiCh408 : Eh…I don’t know. 141/142 is getting CONSISTENTLY bad teaching lately and is huge. Irregardless of how you plan to “use” physics or any of the pre-health cores you take. Physics is always one of those things easier to learn/understand in the context of calculus (you also get more provocative problem types). From there, you can reverse engineer the algebra that you’ll use on an MCAT. Physics intro. courses at Emory are just not that impressive relative to the courses in other STEM divisions (I benchmark versus other elites ranked close to Emory. The other intro. STEM courses are strong in comparison to most or at least on par, and physics is just “why?”), so no matter which sequence you choose, just set expectations low.

What is your major? If NBB or bio, you’ll still need math 116. Anything that promotes critical thinking will help you as I said in the original post. so again, don’t limit yourself to content/approaches specifically geared towards the MCAT. Anything helping you solve more complex problems, analyze real scientific data, understand methods/techniques in a STEM field, will help so keep an open mind. And please, please, please, please take key bio/chem/NBB courses (even if not majoring in any) that focus on reading scientific literature as those will help you just cause and for the MCAT. I was nosy and looked at the bio course atlas for spring and am jealous because it is on fire! And by that, I mean the overwhelming majority of upper division and intermediate courses offered either have a literature discussion section, directly integrate primary literature/research focus into the lecture, or have a math focus (I was of course pre-PhD so those style of courses definitely helped, but with the style of the new MCAT, it helps pre-meds as well, so don’t dodge those classes!). When I was there, this trend was just starting and most classes were very “traditional”(purely textbook, powerpoint, and often memorization focused). Unfortunately, I have no idea how general bio is run today. When I was leaving, it was deteriorating and becoming simpler, so may not prepare as well as it should to transition into those courses that have a heavy research thinking and methods focus (you may taking it, so you can tell me). General bio and biochem 301 (specifically from the bio dept) have MCAT content, but seem not to emphasize an ideal level of problem solving (may be section dependent, but I don’t know how it works today). A lot of the intermediates/upper divisions may help compensate.

[MiCh408]

@bernie12 I definitely agree that physics makes more sense when learned in the context of calculus. My high school only offered algebra based physics, and I often found myself thinking about concepts and deriving formulas using calculus. I just checked OPUS and there isn’t a significant difference between the class sizes but for 152, which is slightly smaller than the rest but still has over 100 kids.

I’m thinking NBB but I haven’t declared yet. Actually NBB changed their requirements, so the only required math class is QTM 100 and you have an array of quantitative classes to choose from for your second math class (they require 2 maths). I will definitely keep in mind the emphasis on critical thinking and reading primary literature; it seems certain that those skills will be important to have in the future

[BiffBrown]

@MiCh408 I’m taking Physics 151 this semester with Dr. Kim. I’m a premed. My premed friends who have taken the Physics 141/142 sequence have been unhappy with the teaching especially in 142. Plus, it’s not clear that Physics 141/142 is “easier.” My friends complained about the difficulty of the 141/142 exams even though they were curved.

Physics is meant to be learned using calculus and I suspect that professors struggle to explain physics concepts without using calculus, because that’s not how they learned it and because physics and calculus go hand in hand.

Kim’s Physics 151 hasn’t been that calculus intensive. I suspect Physics 152 will be more calculus intensive.

[bernie12]

@BiffBrown : You are being too generous. The fact is, those tenured and tenure track people teaching 14x, do not want to teach 350-400 pre-meds whether with or without calculus. The physics department has never been the one obsessed with providing the best introductory level education to majors nor pre-healths. In fact, it appears non-STEM majors get a better deal with the astronomy courses and stuff.

[Waiting2exhale]

Excellent, @bernie12 . I see my kid’s pathway in some of this.