<p>BTW–not <em>at all</em> getting sick of you! Really appreciate the advice.</p>
<p>LadyD - I wouldn’t take those reviews as the majority perspective. I think people who aren’t happy are often the ones who post on those threads. My freshman son is loving UNC, as are all the others kids I know who are there. </p>
<p>To the science questions - My son is also going the premed route. He thought the Honors Chemistry class he just finished was tough. It was a class of kids who all had 5s on the Chem AP exam, and not all of them passed the course. You will be challenged. There’s no last minute studying in these classes. You must keep up.</p>
<p>Just to defensively respond to Psych being a fluff major - yes, this is definitely the way it’s perceived by students, but not necessarily by grad schools and I really don’t believe that a BS in Psych is full of fluff. I double majored in Psychology and East Asian Studies (basically Chinese) and was able to get into my top choice of law school. As I said before, my regret is that I didn’t get involved with Psych earlier. If you know you’re interested in it, get into a lab immediately so by the time senior year rolls around you’ll have an honors thesis topic that is groundbreaking. </p>
<p>There are plenty of dumb psych majors, sure, but in my honors thesis class I am so impressed by every single student and what they’ve done at Carolina. That’s kind of the way it goes at the school - if you want to go under the radar, no one will stop you. But if you want to have an excellent educational experience then the door is wide open.</p>
<p>I second the get the 4.0 however you can sentiment. That’s how it works with law school, at least. The advantage to going to a school like UNC is that there’s more weight behind your strong GPA (there’s more credit to it than going to State). Also, you’ll be surrounded with motivated people and so what you do extracurricular-wise will be shaped by them. Carolina provides a great opportunity for “softs”. I toured UNC-A and I would never, ever, ever go there over Carolina unless there’s some program there that’s way stronger than Carolina’s. If I went anywhere else in the state either go to Guilford College, Warren Wilson, or UNCG, but I still much prefer Carolina over those three.</p>
<p>Also, I totally agree about academic advising. It took me a bit longer than other folks to realize that advising is there simply to ensure that you graduate. The real advising comes within office hours, in labs, and from within your major. If you want to have a soul-searching talk with a professor, then you have to find someone who wants to do that. That said, I was incredibly impressed with what went on in my psych lab last year. One of the post-docs took it upon herself to mentor us once a month on grad school admissions and managing stress, etc. But from my talks from her I gathered a lot of schools really don’t have these kinds of forums. Carolina does, but you have to find them. At the end of the day, I’m pretty satisfied with the advising I received, though I wish I had been more proactive about it. I saw my pre-law advisor once… sophomore year. Though what she said was all I needed to know, honestly. I had plenty of good tlaks within the psych department to figure out what I wanted to be doing within psych, and while in Asia I networked enough to where I could go get a job there when I defer, though I’m not sure really what I’m going to do if I’m able to defer a year before law school.</p>
<p>Everyone has a different experience, for sure.</p>
<p>LadyD- You’re welcome! I’m glad I was helpful!
Cloying- My sister attended to Guilford College and she said that it was full of fruit loops. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Just a number: I think that’s true only if you let it be. I’m not a number to my professors and I know a number of them genuinely care about their students’ success. The only time I ever feel like a number is when I have to deal with FA/health insurance, and that’s generally really easy to resolve. You do have to be your own advocate, but it’s not troubling to me at all. </p></li>
<li><p>TAs: I had one of those dreaded 180-person history class last term that had four different TAs. It was one of my BEST classes and I’m signed up for the second half of the course for spring term. My TA only graded my written work and was there for recitation once every other week. All the lectures were done by the award winning, seriously fantastic professor. I’d much rather have 200 person classes with TAs so everyone can hear his lectures versus him only having a 30 person class. </p></li>
<li><p>Faculty not caring. I 100% think this isn’t true. I really got to know my English professor and she is writing me recommendations for the Honors program and a scholarship. Another one of my professors almost begged us to come to office hours. </p></li>
<li><p>The classes are huge. I didn’t mind my 180 person history class. I just sat in the third row (so you can’t see all the people behind you) and made friends with the two girls sitting next to me. It actually felt like one of my smaller classes because we always talked and worked on projects together. </p></li>
<li><p>The advisors basically make sure you graduate and make sure you get your Genrec’s done. They aren’t there to help you find your life’s purpose, but I don’t think that’s really in their job description anyway.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Thanks, Artemis, BU, jambaby.</p>
<p>Well, Chapel Hill is definitely the best UNC-system school at which to major in history and minor in classics…so, we shall see. (Counting those admission chickens before they hatch, LOL.)</p>
<p>I actually attended Guilford College for two years and certain departments are incredibly strong. Its Poli sci, chem, and math department are all excellent in instruction. It’s really something when your professors aren’t trying to weed you out, which is the setting you get in Guilford. Yeah, there are extremist Guilford students, but there’s something pretty beautiful about that. You have to hike out to Carrboro to see any of that in Chapel Hill. “Fruit loops” isn’t quite how I’d put it…</p>
<p>Also, it’s not even 5% of classes that are over 100 students, which leaves us with mostly those intro level courses (and you can weasel yourself into honors sections). I’ve been in one course with over 100 students, but we were broken up into recitations and I went to office hours so the professor and TA knew me very well by the end of it.</p>
<p>Maybe she just had a bad bunch, but her freshman roommate had to leave halfway through the semester because she was having major problems. Then, everyone in her dorm played “ding dong ditch” with her door (she was in Milner and her room was perfect for that). I think she was scarred for life after all that dorm drama, but it’s good that you had a good experience there.</p>