Hello everyone. About two weeks ago, I enrolled into Indiana University since I received the William R. Fry Scholarship, which is essentially a full ride. After that, I was accepted into the Hudson and Holland Scholars Program. I felt things were manageable then, but within the past 4 days, I have been invited into the Kelley ACE Program which is basically an honors program for Kelley Direct Admit freshman and the Intensive Freshman Seminars. On top of that, I may be in the Kelley Living Learning Center. Am I putting too much on my plate my freshman year if I participate in all of these programs? Any feedback is greatly appreciated.
You’ll be fine. Most Fry Scholars do all of these programs (except maybe IFS), and none of these things individually requires that much work. You’ll have to go to a few events for the scholarship, take a stupid class for Hudson and Holland, and take a blowoff 1 credit class for the KLLC each semester. Other than the extra classes for the KLLC which will not take much of your time, it’s just like living in any other dorm.
I did the ACE program last year, and while it is a decent amount of work for the classes, almost everyone gets a good grade in C106 and K204. These sections are also not harder than any other section of C106 or K204 (and I would argue it’s actually easier to get a good grade in C106 and K204 vs the regular versions, especially K204). All of the outside events for ACE are optional, and they usually only have 1-2 a month that don’t last that long anyway.
Why are you doing IFS? It won’t cut into your time for other classes during the semester because it’s before everything else so it shouldn’t be a problem, but what’s your reason for taking it?
@iubaccounting I would like to do IFS just to get ahead and build my resume. Besides that, your information has been very helpful and I appreciate your input.
Parent here. Wow, you have a lot of great opportunities. Definitely take advantage of all of them! The benefits will certainly outweigh the extra time they might entail. Hooray for IFS! Are they publicizing it or do you still have to do a little digging to find it? My D just finished her junior year, and took an IFS class as an incoming freshman, but so many people had never heard of it. It was a great opportunity in so many ways. For her parents, it let us ease into sending our only child off to college! We dropped her off for IFS and came back a few weeks later to move her from Foster to her permanent dorm. D was able to take her class for honors credit (also wasn’t publicized) and all she had to do was write a longer final paper. So it’s also a way to knock out an honors class if you are going for honors notation.
There’s nothing wrong with IFS, but you’ll have better things to put on your resume. Also do you know how you are planning on fulfilling your Gen ed requirements? You probably already have a good enough score to get out of W131 if you are a Fry Scholar, but you still need 2 A&H classes and 2 World Culture classes, and 1 natural science class.
The world culture classes could also be replaced with studying abroad or getting credit for 4 semesters of a language. If you were going to take the 2 world culture class route, you could just take 2 classes that double count for world culture and A&H and be done. I don’t think IFS offers any of these classes, so taking one might not reduce your courseload if you wanted to do the 2 world culture class option. If you are doing one of the other 2, then IFS sounds like a great opportunity.
My (Biology of something or another) daughter has enough placement, IB and AP credits to last her a while but she is still taking an IFS class (some medical ethics related seminar I think). I like the idea of small class seminars, the price is right (instate), and she gets a head start running away from family :). I think the objective may be to get interesting classes to get new students motivated to see faculty in a different way than “Intro Psych 101 with 300 of your favorite friends” type classes. Or to take classes that challenge them early on (how much intellectual challenge in Intro Chem?). To that end, I think IFS is a good idea. Am I thinking it right?
@iubaccounting I never had the chance to take an AP English class so I never had the opportunity to take an AP test. I may not have to take a gen ed math and government class due to the tests I took the past two weeks. I will probably take Portuguese for my language and then German/Japanese if I feel confident in my Portuguese before my 4 semesters for a language are over and if they allow me to split up a language. If I do IFS, then I will take the free speech class.
You have to stick with the same language for all 4 semesters, but you could possibly test into a higher language class and not actually have to take 4 classes of it.
http://gened.indiana.edu/Students/requirements.html
Also, you can test out of W131 with SAT/ACT scores
http://www.indiana.edu/~engweb/composition/requirements.shtml