I’m going to be a freshman next year at Cornell’s College of Arts and Science and I am planning to eventually be a math major.
The courses I’m currently thinking about to add to my schedule are MATH 2230, SPAN 1210, PHIL 1100, and CS 1110. So far this gives
me two classes on Monday and Friday, three classes on Tuesday and Thursday, and four classes on Wednesday. I still need to add a first year writing seminar and maybe a gym class though.
I was wondering if anyone had any experiences in these courses that they could share and what first year writing seminar they would recommend. I also would like to know if my schedule is manageable. Any help would be appreciated.
That sounds like a pretty good schedule to me. For Arts & Sciences, I think a good freshman fall schedule is 1-2 courses in your intended major (if you have one), 1-2 courses in majors that interest you, a language, a FWS, and a gym. Hopefully most are 3-credit classes for a total of 15-16 credits to start off with. It sounds like you’re right in that ballpark.
Writing seminars change each semester, and the ones that are offered every semester change instructors, so there’s really no way of knowing which ones are good. Preference ones that sound interesting to you based on the description. Use it as a chance to explore a field you probably wouldn’t otherwise.
Math 2230 is an amazing class but a ton of work. It’s pretty easy to drop down to a lower-level class if you are finding it too much, though.
://www.quora.com/What-does-it-feel-like-to-take-MATH2230-and-MATH2240-at-Cornell-University
I signed up for my courses today, but the spaces on CS 1110 filled up too quickly so I had to sign up for CS 1112. It seems like the courses are pretty similar, except one is in Python and one is in MATLAB. However, since Python is much more applicable and can be used for free as opposed to MATLAB, I would still like to try and get into CS 1110. I was wondering if there were any opportunities for this to happen, other than someone dropping the course and me taking their place.
Are there waitlist spots available? If so, enroll in the waitlist. You can always email the professor and let them know you want to join and they can give you a sense as to how many students typically drop and open up spaces.
One of my kids was a math major and another a philosophy major. You will have a lot of reading/writing in philosophy. Math will have many problem sets. Spanish is a lot of work - my younger daughter was fluent in Spanish due to us living in a Spanish speaking country for 2 years, she found Spanish at Cornell was hard. CS is not easy either. All in all you will be taking 5 courses and I think that is too many for the first semester. My kids rarely took more than 4 courses a semester. You may want to start out with 5 and if you find it to be too challenging then drop one before the drop date.
I agree with @oldfort about Spanish at Cornell. I have a rising Senior at Cornell and she found the Spanish classes a lot of work. CS/Math are not easy either.
Five courses is a lot for first semester, and if you signed up for Math 2230, which has 12-15 hours of homework a week, five courses is really not a good idea.
Thanks for the advice everybody. I think what I’m going to do is drop one of my classes during the add/drop period, so my schedule will be more manageable for my first semester. I’ll see how time consuming it is and maybe add another course next semester if I feel comfortable.