<p>akdad–“weeding” is a universal phenomena in ALL sciences courses and even more so in the first bio & chem courses that pre meds take. </p>
<p>(For lots of reasons–with pre meds it’s because there is an expectation that universities will help med schools remove candidates from the applicant pool who aren’t going to be able to “hack” the intense science they get in professional school. Since the science requirements for medical school are fairly minimal and the admissions trend for med schools is towards encouraging pre meds to major in something other than science, this function is especially vital nowadays.</p>
<p>Another function of a weeder is to remove students who lack the drive, interest, ambition and talent to succeed in the sciences. This is necessary in part because there is physically no room for everyone who takes gen chem [bio, physics, geo, cs etc] to continue on to advanced classes. Lack of lab space, lack of instructors. Science courses are more expensive to teach than other fields for just this reason.</p>
<p>All science courses everywhere are intensely competitive. There’s a ‘sink or swim’ mentality to most, if not all, science fields. It’s an introduction to a profession that is itself intensely competitive and often cut throat. ) </p>
<p>Success can be defined in a number of ways–success doesn’t necessarily mean that students need to be coddled and get all As and Bs in hard classes. Success can mean finding a area where their true interest and talents lie.</p>
<p>I think WOWM can sometimes be a little blunt. It’s a weeder course because it is an intro course that lots of people take who then decide this is not what they want. Intro economics course do the same thing. You might think you want to do biology and especially pre-med but then you realize this isn’t you. </p>
<p>It is not that the school sets up course to drive kids out of majors. If you dig up stats on the number of high school students who say pre-med and then the number of actual applicants to med school, you see the point. Same it seems with econ and some other fields, though the numbers aren’t available. Lots of kids think “business” and then economics because that makes sense and then realize this is not what they want to study. Sometimes it’s aptitude. Sometimes it’s personal fit.</p>
<p>WOWM put it pretty much the way I would say it.</p>
<p>It’s not that the school purposefully wants to “weed” people out. Most teachers provide ample notes, resources, help from themselves or TAs, to make sure that students have the opportunity to succeed. It’s to make sure and to remind students how rigorous science can be, and what it really is in reality - through the laboratory, mechanism viewpoint. Everything Olek covered was given in a whole different perspective. I felt that it was kind of like the huge gap between doing those “labs” in class and actual research labs that people won’t realize how intimidating it is until they get to it. Then, as lergnom puts it, students realize that bio isn’t for them, or for the rest, they realize that it really is for them.</p>
<p>U of R is fantastic that they have workshops to make sure students get the lectures and at least have an opportunity to practice answering the types of questions on the test in a directed group setting. So, akdad, what UR said in the info sessions is completely right.</p>
<p>The pre med fall out rate at all schools is huge. (And I mean fall out, not fail out…) Nationally something like 70% of all freshman ‘pre meds’ end up never applying to medical school for one reason or another–science isn’t their thing, they lack the necessary work ethic, they find other interests, medicine as a career turns out not to be what they expected it to be, the hoops pre meds are expected to jump through are numerous and often petty and they find they’re unwilling to do the jumping…</p>
<p>UR does a good job of offering support to their students–better than a number of places I’m familiar with–but the student has to be willing to seek it out and ask for help. </p>
<p>Students need to realize that the professor’s job ISN’T to outline or review the textbook/assigned readings with them; that’s their job. The professor’s job is to share his view of what’s important in their field. (And it often has little or nothing to do with what’s in the textbook. That is if his view doesn’t contradict it altogether. Science is not a monolithic entity and there are many, many conflicting viewpoints.)</p>