<p>Hey guys,</p>
<p>I recently saw ohboi's thread and decided to help him out answering some questions for you guys. Just finished freshman year and had a blast. Might also be nice to have a different perspective, but I may also repeat some of the same answers as ohboi.</p>
<p>No admissions questions please.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Hey jetblk! It’s almost registration and I was wondering what C&C, NatSci, and WTE profs you recommend?</p>
<p>Hello justspice…</p>
<p>for C&C I took a LSP course called East Asian Cultures with Winifred Chin. Although this isn’t from CAS, stern students were allowed to take this course and fulfill the C&C requirement. She is very friendly and grades fairly. Coursework is very low and classes are sometimes interesting but for the most part boring. Professor Chin simply lectures on the reading you were supposed to do. TAKE NOTES and you will be golden. There are 2 reaction papers(2 pages each), 1 midterm, 1 term paper(10 pages or so), and a final. Theres also a field trip to a zen house and a few videos. </p>
<p>Beware, there is another east asian cultures teacher named Davida Chang. My friend took it with her and found it a lot more difficult.</p>
<p>For WTE I recommend professor Callihan. She was very funny and class was ok even at 8 AM!!! She grades fairly and I feel like my creative writing certainly improved after taking this class. Even though I ended up with a B+ in the class, I would still recommend her.</p>
<p>Surprisingly, I loved my NatSci class. I took energy and the environment with professor trace jordan. Class was boring(I was on my laptop the whole time) and the material was basic chemistry. Jordan provides powerpoint slides for every class which you use to study for his midterm and final and often does some interesting experiments in class. I also feel like Professor Jordan actually cared about what he was teaching and is a professor “who cares”. Trust me, you will encounter profs who give off the impression that they simply don’t care. There is a lab involved which was easy and fun(if you make some good friends). However, do not take lab with Yuan-Cho Lee…he was very hard to understand and not very helpful. If you do ok on the labs and print and review the powerpoint slides, its easy to get an A.</p>
<p>Hope this was helpful!</p>
<p>That really helps! I was thinking about taking East Asian Cultures but it wasn’t the right time for me (i’ll be an athlete next year and scheduling is nightmarish right now.) I have down C&C Ancient Israel with Daniel Fleming, do you know anything about him?</p>
<p>And I’d heard Energy and the Environment was a good class (with Trace Jordan that is) and your input made me more confident about my choice. Thanks a bunch! Arghh if I don’t get these classes on Monday my ‘perfect’ schedule will be ruined haha.</p>
<p>Haha, I have not heard anything about ancient Israel or Daniel Fleming, sorry.</p>
<p>Also, I’m not sure if the scheduling changed for incoming freshmen, but it was pretty bad for me scheduling for next semester, I had everything in my “shopping cart” open and pressed at exactly my scheduled time only to get 0 out of the 4 classes I wanted. Good luck and don’t miss your time no matter what!</p>
<p>I was also thinking about taking the East Asian Cultures class, as well (Stern freshman). I was wondering how the class demographics broke down, i.e. was it pretty much all Asians? Not that I’m opposed to Asians (I am one after all), but it might be a bit off-putting if it turned out to be that way.</p>
<p>Also, the C&C class: Global Asia (taught by D. Ludden) seemed to be very similar and fits the same exact requirement. Do you know anything about that class?</p>
<p>@generalgao-Haha, funny that you ask that because it is pretty much all asians haha. In my particular class of roughly 20, there were 2 caucasians and 1 indian. Everybody else was either Chinese or korean, evenly split between the two. </p>
<p>I wanted to take global asia before I heard about East Asian Cultures, but heard that East Asian Cultures was a lot easier. However, after talking with a classmate about Global Asia, it didn’t seem like he was struggling and said the class was “aight, a bit boring”.</p>
<p>Also, I might add that in East Asian Cultures, the majority of the class is focused on Chinese history with only 2-3 weeks on Japan. Not sure how it’s spread in Global Asia</p>
<p>Damn.
I was really hoping that wouldn’t be the case since the idea of reportedly easy class that teaches me a lot about my heritage is certainly appealing. On the other hand, a little diversity in the class would be preferable. I’ve gone through grade school usually as the lone Asian kid amongst a bunch of Caucasians in most of my classes (which I suppose isn’t exactly diversity either), so I guess I’m just more comfortable with that. All-Asian classes bring back not so fond memories of Chinese Sunday School. How’d that Global Asia class break down, predominantly Asian too?</p>
<p>Thanks a bunch, though.</p>
<p>I was in your same position in high school and I didn’t really mind the overwhelming number of asians. I will say though, at stern, you will definitely encounter more “diversity” for sure haha.</p>
<p>As for global Asia, my friend was caucasian but he said the class was still predominantly asian.</p>
<p>As I make my decision, I noticed the time commitment for East Asian Cultures is much less than that for a C&C class since the C&C has both a lecture and recitation. Is that accurate, or am I missing something? I have a hard time believing that Stern considers the classes to be equivalent for meeting the MAP requirements despite the large apparent time difference.</p>
<p>Thats correct, East Asian Cultures didn’t have a recitation. meet 2x a week only.</p>
<p>Thanks for the answers… are people really THAT quick with scheduling? Damn. Anyway, do you feel like it’s an attainable goal to pull a 3.7+ GPA frosh year, if one’s just taking things like core courses and Micro + Stats?</p>
<p>They were this spring! >:( </p>
<p>Anyways, I think a 3.7+ is great goal for freshman year. Basically all A- or 2 As and 2 B+s each semester. Make sure you go to class and take each and every quiz/test very seriously. Also, try and do well in WTE(easy grade killer, as I’m sure you know) 
</p>
<p>While academics and grades are very important, make some good friends with your cohort members/classmates, explore the city, and participate in Stern/NYU’s various clubs.</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice!</p>
<p>How was the registration experience for you as a pre-frosh (i.e. before frosh year?) Did classes fill up really quickly?</p>
<p>Speaking for CAS, S had first day early morning appt with advisor (who turned out to be inexperienced but temporary). Even so, by the time he inputted info for S, two key classes were closed. One was WTE. The other was Chinese Language, non-heritage, beginners. S ended up taking Beginning Chinese with a lot of native speaking Chinese students and he had no prior background himself. It was really tough in terms of demand on written Chinese. Poor kid worked through thanksgiving w/e on Chinese. It was the dominant work intensive class fall semester. Better in the spring when he got into non heritage Chinese, though still not a class to slack off. However, first semester was miserable due to that registration process with key classes closed really fast. So be warned. Be ready. Hope your advisor is not new or you can do it online yourself and fill in classes that you really want in first and ASAP!</p>
<p>This is true, I was lucky enough to get a very knowledgable advisor who really helped me out so I was able to get the classes I wanted… However, that was with old Albert. New Albert sucks IMO</p>
<p>Most people probably end up taking only 4 classes first semester freshman year because of the 18 credit limit right?
So of the MAP requirements, which do you recommend fulfilling during first semester, and how many electives would you recommend taking first semester?</p>
<p>Yes， most people took only 4 classes for 16 credits first semester. Its nice to have a little bit of extra time to get used to college life, nyc,etc. However, I also know some people who took a little 2 credit course they were interested in. Obviously, the 2 credit courses met less than the normal 4 credit class.</p>
<p>Personally, I went with 16 credits and thought the courseload was fine.</p>
<p>As for MAp requirements, I suggest texts and ideas or C&C if you are taking micro, if not then nat sci+texts and ideas.</p>
<p>The reason for this is because I generally don’t recommend taking t&i and C&c at the same semester because both are reading/writing heavy courses.</p>
<p>why doesn’t the Eastern Asian Cultures class come up in Albert?</p>
<p>Its not under the morse academic plan, you have to look under liberal studies.</p>