Hey guys! Got accepted to BIC and am a pre-med major. I was wondering if BIC is worth it or not. Your thoughts?
Hey Green!
I am a Baylor alum ('13) who also did BIC. I enjoyed it, I thought it was a great experience, and I feel like it significantly changed the level of humanities education I received at Baylor, but it was not without its frustrations.
When I was an undergrad, their biggest sell was that it was a program that would be a ‘unique and interdisciplinary approach to fulfilling your general education requirements.’ For the most part, that is true, Baylor’s education is still pretty traditional, so instead of taking a religion credit, a philosophy credit, and a history credit, your BIC Biblical Heritage course will integrate your basic Christian religion studies along with studying it in the context of historical and philosophical movements, as an example. However, if you have AP scores that let you waive your Gen Ed requirements, with BIC you have to do the entire program even if you have credits in certain areas. I had US History credit but I still had to take World Cultures IV, which was their version of US history.
The faculty that are involved in BIC is kind of a mixed bag. There are some academic superstars, some just OK, and some that I really wish would just quit participating in the program. The ones who are good, though, are incredible.
It will be very heavy on your schedule about the first two years at Baylor. Courses are structured between having a large group lecture, and then a smaller, more intimate classes with a professor of your choosing. It’s great because you essentially take the classes with the rest of the program, and then also get the chance to have smaller classes, and it actually helps build a bit of a tight-knit community. Sometimes the workload is overwhelming - your first year classes (World Cultures I & II, World of Rhetoric I & II, Examined Life). Examined Life feels like a giant waste of time, with its vague intentions of self-reflection and stupid activities. You will be a reader of the New York Times, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Sophomore year introduces Natural World and Social World. Natural World which is science for dummies, but since you’re pre-med you get to skip out on that. Social World I feels a little torturous, but Social World II is much more interesting.
What it leads to in the last two years of your schooling is probably where it becomes the best part. You get a lot of worldview formation in the first couple of classes, and by the time you’re in your upper level courses, you’re discussing a lot of ideas at a pretty high level. Since you’re in the pre-med track, you will miss out on World Cultures V which is basically a region-specific cultural study.
Your capstone gives you the freedom to do a subject-specific seminar. I did mine on the idea of the American Dream, and it was taught by the Dean of the Honors College. (Hint: it was fantastic. If Dean Thomas Hibbs is teaching it, take it).
What most people do with BIC is that they combine it with Honors, because BIC by itself only allows you to register for classes one day ahead of everyone else. Honors students can register with the juniors and seniors. Most people usually drop Honors after their sophomore year, since it’s hard (but doable) to do an Honors Program thesis with BIC.
Sometimes it feels a little strange to be a BIC student. It is housed in the Honors College but it seems to not be met with the same kind of “wow” as the Honors Program or University Scholars. If you live in the Honors Residential College, sometimes there feels like there’s a bit of a culture of snobbery against BIC (but snobbery is almost a guaranteed by-product of getting honors students together in a residence hall). You get introduced to a lot of primary texts, which is great for worldview formation, but the frustrating part is that because of the breadth of topics you seem to only get a drive-by course of study: you consume lots of parts of books, but not entire books.
With all that being said, it’s a great program for those who like to think differently, identify things in the context of the big picture, and make connections between different concepts. I definitely enjoyed the people and the things I learned in BIC. It also seemed to attract a diverse set of thinkers. I had a range of people who were liberal and conservative in all my classes and everyone was respectful and engaged each other well. If you’re looking for an excellent way to challenge yourself in the humanities area, then yes, BIC is worth it.
Also, I heard that med schools like people who dabble in humanities too.
Hopefully this helps. Let me know if you have any other questions!