Biological Sciences Major/Minor (Any insight appreciated)

@collegebobollege I’ll just add on to what has been said about your course selection. Never took chem or bio but as far as Hebrew is concerned it depends on what your background is. Most of the students in the Hebrew class will be Jewish students who already know a little Hebrew. If you are completely new to the language, it may prove a slight challenge. If you attended Hebrew school as a child(even if you forgot most of it) you will be fine.

I found the intro econ classes to be relatively easy, and I never took any econ course in HS and am honestly not that smart. Some people found them difficult however. This was mainly because of Prof. Buckles’ teaching style. He is a very very nice man and knows a ton about econ, but his lectures were unfocused and unclear at times. He did not cover all the material needed for the exams and quizzes in his lectures, which may be why some students did badly. I heard that he will not be teaching next year, but I doubt the difficulty level will change that much. When I had the class with Buckles I probably averaged around 3 hours per week outside of class and did fine.

@fdgjfg : Do they actually enforce the “chem before biology” thing there or is it a strong recommendation? I suspect y school did it to keep gen biol enrollments lower so that they could teach it better.

@fdgjfg : Do they actually enforce the “chem before biology” thing there or is it a strong recommendation? I suspect y school did it to keep gen biol enrollments lower so that they could teach it better.

@bernie12 I can’t say for sure that they enforce it but on the registration system chem is listed as a pre or corequisite to bio so it’s definitely more than just a recommendation.

They do not enforce the chem before bio thing, but all the advisors have been “programmed” to try to get every freshman to take gen chem.

@AnnieBot wait really?? So if I wanted to take BSCI 1510 before Gen Chem I could even though YES says differently?

@collegebobollege I mean if the system says you have to I guess you have to, but I honestly don’t think it matters much in terms of course load. You could always message the professor to let you in without the prerequisite.

@collegebobollege : Most elite schools tell students to take general chemistry first (like my school’s course atlas and registration apparatus essentially lists it as pre-req and I checked Vanderbilt and so do they as you just told me) because often the first semester will emphasize certain chemical concepts (mainly energetics, protein-ligand binding/non-covalent forces, and some kinetics) that are better covered in a chemistry (AP or general) course (also general chemical concepts can allow one to more easily understand things such as gel electrophoresis, some more advanced genetics concepts such as epigenetic modification of DNA binding proteins, etc). For some schools and instructors this is actually true as the instructor will ask students to apply their knowledge of such concepts and for others it is less true, and thus depending on who you have, sometimes it is safer to take it as a pre or co-requisite.

I would say this is more so the case if you plan on taking an instructor that is more oriented toward problem solving. Those tend to emphasize chemical concepts in the first semester more. For detail oriented instructors, it may matter less as simply memorizing the general ideas or details is needed to make it through (I won’t say this makes them easier because their like of emphasis on problem solving is more than made up by throwing crap tons of content and details at you and then testing on such obscurities). However, I do suspect that some schools do make this suggestion to keep the already high enrollments in general biology courses down. But I won’t lie in saying that I’ve seen many instructors where the general biology class is made harder than general chemistry because of the emphasis on details and concepts that involve an understanding of chemistry. It is really your decision. You can perhaps sit in each class and feel them out if you are contemplating changing your mind and taking biology first or at the same time. I know there is at least one instructor there (Vanderbilt- I stumbled across their stuff and in fact, I think some old course web pages are out and can be found through Google) where knowing a decent amount of chemistry would help but don’t know if they are teaching general biology in the fall.

Update: It is Singleton’s stuff who I saw and he is teaching in the fall. I like the concept behind him having more problem solving than other instructors, but my friend says he isn’t a good teacher and is actually kind of a jerk. But just be warned in case you are entertaining biol as a freshman and get stuck with him.