<p>Hi, I am Applied Math and Econ double major at Berkeley.
As an international student, I left school for two years after finishing my freshman year to serve in the military. I came back 2011 Spring semester and currently doing internship in boutique financial firm. I want to apply for MFE, and I was wondering whether having only humanities and social science classes in my freshman year won't look good.</p>
<p>In my first semester, I took 13 units (8 units of Letter Grade).
Intro Econ, Political Science (P/NP), Middle Eastern Studies, freshman seminar (P/F).
In my second semester, I took 16 units (12 units of Letter Grade).
Political Science(P/NP), 2-unit breadth, 2-unit breadth, Ethnic Studies, Middle Eastern Studies.
In summer seession, I took 8 units (8 units of Letter Grade).
Math 53 and Stat N21.
[2 years of gap year due to militia duty]
This spring I took 16 units (all of which are Letter Grade).
Math 54, Math 55, Econ 101A, second half of R&C.</p>
<p>I will be graduating in Spring 2014 which will give me total of 9 semesters. I carry 4.0 GPA and received As or A+s on courses I took for letter grade. After I got out of military, I studied and took GRE before coming to the U.S. I received 710V 800Q 5.0AW. On the other hand, I took total 9 units of P/NP or P/F and looking forward to take more courses such as self-paced 1-unit comp sci classes in P/F. My roommate expressed concern because he said too many P/NP or P/F courses on my transcript will look bad. Also, he said I should've taken more stat/comp sci/econ classes rather than political science or "studies" courses. Does it look really bad to take humanities/social science classes and Pass/Fail that it will negatively play in my graduate school admission? I would like to hear from you!</p>
<p>What’s done is done… but it looks like you are on or ahead of schedule to complete Math and Economics majors in your remaining five or six semesters (assuming that your freshman courses cover enough breadth categories so that you won’t have to cramp your schedule taking a lot more breadth courses). If you do that with all A and A+ grades and good internships and/or undergraduate research, then it seems unlikely that any graduate school will quibble about taking a few non-major courses P/NP in your freshman year (or a few additional 1-unit P/NP-only courses).</p>
<p>Thank you ucbalumnus for the advice! I have arts & literature breadth and philosophical breadth left. I have six semesters left and I will be probably taking Math 126, Econ 136, Stat 134, Music 27, and one-unit self-paced C++ programming class. It seems that 2 classes are limit if one is aiming for law school or medical school. What about Maters degree in financial engineering, computational finance, financial mathematics etc.? If it is same as law school or medical school, does classes taken with P/F grading option (which does not allow letter-grade option) count into this unwritten 2-class max. rule? Sorry if I am being too pedantic, but I would truly appreciate if you could share your valuable knowledge.</p>
<p>No idea if the MFE programs specifically have any policies about P/NP courses on your transcript (though it seems hard to believe that a 1-unit P/NP-only course would be seen as a negative, especially if it is in addition to an otherwise full course load). You are better off asking the graduate programs directly if it matters.</p>
<p>Wouldn’t Math 104, 113, and 110 be the first upper division Math courses for most Math majors, since they are prerequisites for many of the others?</p>
<p>Note that Math 125A and 135 fulfill the [Philosophy</a> and Values](<a href=“http://ls-advise.berkeley.edu/requirement/breadth7/pv.html]Philosophy”>http://ls-advise.berkeley.edu/requirement/breadth7/pv.html) breadth, so if you plan to take one of these courses, you do not need to take another course for that category.</p>
<p>Thank you for the information about philosophy breadth. I am also considering fulfilling it with online summer course as my current internship is not so intense, but I am not sure. I am actually wavering between stat 134 and math 110. Stat 134 fulfills applied math elective, but I think it might be better to finish math 110 first as you said. All in all, I thank your for your prompt reply ucbalumnus! Good Night.</p>