<p>Don’t worry I have been investigating previous threads on this forum, and the site itself, and am certainly intrigued by this program. </p>
<p>What I am asking all of you is, anyone else receive this notification and/or package, and perhaps for some even more background on the difficulty/benefits on the program itself. So far I have heard that the advising professors/seminars themselves are top notch… but anything more would be great! Thanks!</p>
<p>Hey Hey SDong,
Congrats :). BFS is hell neat. I mean, it's not everyone's cup of tea, but personally, I've really gotten a lot out of the program. It's def. made my Penn education much more...fulfilling. When you come here, you'll meet your advisor, who will sit down and plan things out for and with you (I think you'll have a phone appointment first about your frosh reg. schedule). Each semester, there're rotating BFS seminars offerings. All BFS seminars are small, discussion oriented seminars that allow you to actually have one on one conversation/discussions with some of Penn's most outstanding faculty. My BFS prof last semester invited the entire class (~14 kids) to his house and we just hung out for the day. I mean, it's hard to find opportunities like these...in most cases outside of the major/upper level seminars, you will rarely have the chance to really "get to know the professor" and dabble across the curricula at the same time, well, BFS lets you have that.<br>
The thing with BFS is that you have to take the initiative to make it the most worthwhile for you. People sometimes complain that the program "forces" you to take a BFS seminar/ year, but come on, you have to come with an open mind that this is what a college education should be.
Yes, the BFS advisors are amazing...my advisor knows me on a first name basis, knows my schedule, sits down to plan things out with me, and hears me out. She knows the bad, good, great profs to take, and you know, she's just an awesome person.
That's all off the top of my head. If you have any particular questions, feel free to ask, I'm sure someone around here will be able to answer it.</p>
<p>@ Cheese_itz, thank you very much for the reply, pretty much exactly what I was looking for. For the BFS seminars, I have been looking on the site, and they truly look amazing. I was wondering what kind of time commitment/workload they would add to your schedule and what other benefits, other than the seminar/honours idea being a BFS confer? Finally, I was wondering if you had any idea about how the actual BFS associated professors were chosen, though of course the majority of the ones I have seen so far look like top professors.</p>
<p>It sounds like an amazing opportunity. Anyone have any idea how difficult it is to get in once you're there? I saw somewhere that you could apply for this right before sophomore year.</p>
<p>Hey Sdong,
- Workload/commitment: the seminars are just like any other classes you have, and thus are graded, have essays, hw, etc. In regards to the workload, it varies greatly from one seminar to the next, like most classes. The best seminar I've had so far had the heaviest workload (approx reading a book a week, with that we had to read Atlas Shrugged on our own throughout the semester, graded based on a final essay. Class participation = 50%, final essay = 50% of grade)...if you check on Penn Course Review (Penn's own "rateyourprofessors" sort of thing), the seminar scored a healthy 3.2+ in terms of difficulty (4 max). Don't let this scare you away though, I mean, it's a lot of work, but it's definitely doable. And of course, there are many other seminars that do not require as much work, so as I said, it varies. The grading is nice and cushy. What you'll find out about BFS seminars is that the profs are very non-restricted in terms of how many A's, B's they give out...so if they fancy it, they can give all A's (not that they do that...:/).
- No idea about how they're chosen. All I know is, amongst them are some of the top names associated w. Penn.
- Other stuff you get with BFS: priority in class registeration, BFS seminars, advisors, that "Ben Franklin Scholars" thing on your resume...in terms of college/academic career, those are some big pluses :).</p>
<p>Btw, BFS seminars are not "exclusive" in the sense that they are open to all students...it's just that BFS'ers get priority in filling the seats and non-bfs students often times need "permission" from prof to get in the class.</p>
<p>yep. 1 credit is 1 credit is 1 credit. BFS seminars = normal grading, normal credit distribution, normal everything except the class size and style.</p>
<p>for those of you guys nervously checking, opening quote from the e-mail "Today, we snail mailed you a packet of information concerning the Benjamin Franklin Scholars program here at Penn. Below is just the letter, since international snail mail takes awhile to reach folks."</p>
<p>By the way, non BFS students can take them, too. They reserve spots for non scholars... but it can get competitive to get into. I listed one as my first choice and didn't get it :(</p>
<p>hey i was ED and got the package to be a BFS in the mail today! so did a few other people on the facebook group. i think today's the day people are getting them!</p>