<p>Question: Are all 3 DS classes taken simultaneously freshmen year? For some reason, I had the impression that there was a class per year (one freshman, one sophomore, one junior). Now that I think about it, that sounds really stupid.</p>
<p>I think DS sounds great and I think I would really love to be in it. But, how much does it hinder you from taking other classes?</p>
<p>3 DS classes each semester of freshman year.</p>
<p>I'm in DS, and I have time for both the work and a social life. (Mind you, my idea of a social life may not be what you picture. I don't drink, so, for me, my social time is hanging out with friends for hours in dining halls or YPU or party debates that go to 1 am).</p>
<p>Wikipedia says that DS "includes reading up to 1,500 pages and writing a paper every week." Can you comment on that? Is that true? If yes, how is it to read 1500 pages per week? I guess I never did that :P</p>
<p>I was looking at the Distributional Requirements (<a href="http://www.yale.edu/yalecollege/students/advising/requirements/ds.html)%5B/url%5D">http://www.yale.edu/yalecollege/students/advising/requirements/ds.html)</a>. Am I correct in thinking students taking DS don't have to meet the usual freshman requirement of taking at least one course credit in two of the skill areas of quantitative reasoning, writing or foreign language? I know DS will meet the writing requirement, but must other classes chosen qualify for either the quantitative reasoning or foreign language requirement?</p>
<p>wait, a YPU debate without alcohol? since when???</p>
<p>A YPU debate w/o alcohol? I've been to a couple since the CP got busted in the Calhoun Common Room.</p>
<p>Classes that are similar to DS but not as intense: I really don't think that there are really that many that are similar, but there would seem to be plenty of similar reading lists in the Literature department, and then any class in the Humanities department is probably the closest you will get. Also, "MoFoPo", or Moral Foundations of Politics, is often cited as DS History and Politics lite.</p>
<p>And though I'm not completely sure (I have taken 2 QR credits in addition to DS year), I would be very willing to bet that 1 of your 2-3 classes outside of DS freshman year must be QR or Foreign Language, unless you get some sort of waiver. Even if you don't have to do this, it's probably a good idea to anyway. You get more requirements out of the way early and get a break from reading and paper intensive humanities classes.</p>
<p>What's your advice for someone starting DS in the fall? Is there any book or topic that you wish you had started over the summer when you had more free time?</p>
<p>I'm a prospective Yale student and I'm interested in DS. I love the subject matter and even the weekly essays (I love writing), but will this program help once you get a job or go to graduate school? For example, I'm interested in maybe going to business school but still having a career in the liberal arts/humanities. Would DS help me or is it just one of those programs that are only useful if you're going into academia?</p>
<p>Just do the summer reading (the Iliad, Plato's Euthyphro, and sections from Herodotus' History). I came in never having read anything remotely resembling philosophy, let alone writing 5 page essays about it, and I had pretty much no exposure to the History and Politics curriculum either. I knew a little bit about Literature, having read perhaps 2 or 3 of the texts before, but the essays weren't really the type of thing you get in AP, so I was still pretty much in the dark.</p>
<p>And I still did fine! If you have to, get a start on more of the Plato - read some background on him and maybe start on The Republic. Also, when the H&P list is out, get going on the rest of Herodotus, but don't start the Thucydides yet. You also might feel free to venture on to the Odyssey. But don't get too far ahead of yourself - a lot of the learning comes from comparing and contrasting the texts you've read, which is harder to do if you haven't had class discussions on the previous texts yet.</p>
<p>Other than that, do all the real leisure reading you can, or really anything that isn't on the DS curriculum, because you will absolutely not have time once the year starts. Don't worry abou 1500 pages a week though. That's a very inflated figure. Even the worst weeks I remember didn't total more than 800 pages, and that was largely due to the Lit reading being half of Don Quixote or half of War and Peace. And large, large numbers of DS students didn't finish (or sometimes even start) one or both of those huge texts. Probably the worst part reading-wise was having 1400 pages or so that you feel you should read over Christmas and spring breaks. Don't worry about the essays so much, there's little you can do to prepare in my book. You may get into the swing of doing them well and in a timely manner, or you might just keep putting them off later and later each week until you start one at 3 am the morning it's due like I did. Either way can work.</p>
<p>Olive Tree - What is interesting to me, and this goes for all the people asking similar question, is that there is this assumption floating in the background that your curriculum should be practical in helping you advance career goals or graduate school admissions. This kind of assumed pragmatism is a hallmark of modern American education, and it is exactly the type of thing that a program like DS is supposed to combat, IMO. Here you all are, asking what use DS is, presupposing a view about what education is and what it is meant for, before having the background to adequately do so. Ultimately, this is what DS is should provide - a better way to decide and understand what the good life is, what your goals in life (and career) should be, and what the purpose of education is. DS is about learning to ask and contemplate various answer to the big questions in life. Asking whether it is "useful" to such and such end is simply to assume that you already know both the right questions AND the answers.</p>
<p>So not to be too snarky, but to even know if "is it useful to X end?" is the right question, you'd already have to have the strong education in the Western Canon that DS provides.</p>
<p>And I say this only because I used to think similarly, and DS was instrumental in changing that.</p>
<p>drummerdude's right, but I don't think he extends his claim far enough - not only is DS not about career training, Yale (and any other good university) as a whole isn't. With the exception of applied majors (ie, some forms of engineering, which is why I'm not sure it belongs at a university), even the supposedly "practical" majors aren't about preparing you for a career. What you learn in an academic economics class and what investment bankers (or whatever other sort of miserable financial industry profession you're interested in) do isn't really that similar - and even econ grads have to be trained to do those jobs after they've been hired (or during summer internships). Regardless of what you study at Yale, you are learning and developing tools to understand the world, whether scientific and mathematical or social and cultural or political and economic or any of the other myriad ways that exist to understand the natural world, people, and society. </p>
<p>What's great about DS is that it exposes you to a lot of the basis for modern Western ways (at least, the non-quantitative ones) of understanding the world. Even for someone like me who rejects many traditional Western philosophical theories and social values, DS remains essential because it allows me to understand what I am rejecting and what the tradition that the ideas I do like are responding to. That is, reading Marx without an understanding of Hegel, Rousseau, Burke, Locke, even Plato and Aristotle, is a less valuable exercise (though you actually also read Marx in DS, but still, the basic idea remains). </p>
<p>If all you want to get out of Yale is a boost on your career path, my first recommendation is not to come here, because I prefer having fellow classmates who value the intellectual pursuits that are the basis of the university more than their future salaries. But, I do recognize that Yale will give you that boost, so if you remained committed to Yale, then remember that the benefit of the Yale name comes to you regardless of your course selection. So try to take advantage of your freedom to study everything from the natural sciences to the humanities, without it harming your future employment prospects, because that economics major only requires 12 of your 36 courses.</p>
<p>D1 just received her admission letter to DS yesterday. Her intended major is EECS. Will she have difficulty to construct her schedule? What if she would like to take a second language for at least 3 years (6 terms) is it possible? Any possibility to add music (after first year)? How many term credits can a student handle without being too stretched (assuming someone more or less with procrastinating habit)?</p>
<p>Isn't DS also known as Directed Suicide or Death Sentence?</p>
<p>One thing about DS for science majors is that it will meet all of their distributional requirements except foreign language without wasting any terms. That is, it will be two humanities credits, two social science credits, and 2 writing credits. That said, it will reduce her ability to take non major-related classes in her sophomore-senior years.
Depending on prior preparation (in math, physics, and comp sci), EECS requires 15-21 credits. As a potential EECS major, I'm going to assume your daughter can skip at least some of the pre-reqs, so we'll say 18 credits in order to figure things out.
With 18 credits for major stuff, 6 for DS, and 8 for language (the first 4 semesters will be 1.5 credits each), she'll already be at 32. Yale requires 36 to graduate. Not sure how much music she wants, but a music credit every term starting in sophomore year would put her at 38. I would say that the most to reasonably expect to take is 4.5 first semester freshman year and 5.5 in following semesters (with the understanding that 5.5 is a lot, and that .5 credits only come from labs, or as part of the 1.5 for the early years of a language). That is, a max of around 43 credits, and more likely 40 or 41. So she's left with 2-5 other electives. That's not a lot. Of course she needs the distributional requirements that DS offers, but she'd probably be happier spreading them out so that she can take, say, a humanities class later in her college career if she wants.
That said, it is doable, but the more stuff you want to do, the harder DS becomes to fit in. I gave up on doing a double major in part because of DS - it would have prevented me from taking almost any classes other than DS, classes for my majors, and distributional requirements.</p>
<p>I think taking a look at [url=<a href="http://www.yale.edu/oci%5DYale">http://www.yale.edu/oci]Yale</a> Online Course Information | Search Courses<a href="the%20searchable%20online%20version%20of%20the%20Blue%20Book">/url</a> and mapping out a potential schedule that includes everything she wants to do would be a valuable exercise, to let her know what (if anything) she wants to sacrifice. Plus, going through the Blue Book looking for classes is fun, even if you're making 4 years worth of schedule that there's no way you'll stick to.</p>
<p>Thank you, svalbardludefisk. The Blue Book for 2008-2009 is not out yet.
I think the real issue is whether you are willing to sacrifice anything you want to learn.
During the bulldog days in April, I happened to spend sometime chatting with people at the CS /EECS desk. According to the info I gathered, among the current graduating seniors at Yale (I guess they just graduated), 19 people had degree in CS (three out of 19 with EECS, one female out of 19 with degree in CS).
D1 does not have enough pre-reqs in compsi (only had AP in compsiA, which doesnt count for credit), probably adequate Math and Phys (she is capable in science). It is going to be interesting. After 10+ years of piano, you would naturally want to continue to have lessons, even possibly a second major in music.</p>
<p>You can use the 07-08 bluebook, after all, since you're going 4 years into the future it's all approximation anyway.
I would say DS+double major including EECS plus significant language study is essentially impossible. But, again, your daughter should try to plan out a potential set of courses for 4 years to see if it would be possible to do in a way she would be happy with.</p>