<p>Among math majors graduating last year at least 7 went to math grad school, 5 of them to top programs, and others went to grad school in CS, physics, astro, econ, and computational biology-all at top notch places.</p>
<p>Thanks for the correction!</p>
<p>Bumping my previous question - </p>
<p>25.) CS majors - what do you like/dislike about this option?</p>
<p>
[quote]
34. ......what is the atmosphere like at Caltech?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>My DD1 told me that during Stephen Hawking's recent lecture, he described Caltech as Camelot, which she could resonant and readily agreed. Since my DD1 prior to atteding Caltech got two degrees from MIT and has attended a dozen of national conference and met many people from various universities during past few years, I think she is not easily impressed. Put it this way, Caltech like Camelot, is a unique place and people like Hawking could really appreciate it.</p>
<p>134/135 SURF: S rec'd packet as well. He is definitely not a URM.</p>
<p>New Q: Do Caltech students need to use APA for research style? Also, what is a typical amount for research papers during the first year? Thanks.</p>
<p>KenJ's Mom, I believe Happy Entropy in post 134 was responding to my post about the Freshman Summer Institute. I think all admitted kids got the booklet of previous SURFs at Caltech.</p>
<p>If you mean APA formatting, I'll guess "no" since I didn't use it for my SURF paper, yet I am quite a stylish individual. I don't know what style journals like, but for SURF I think they'll be happy as long as the paper's format resembles that of a research paper in the field the student worked in.</p>
<p>What do you mean by "typical amount for research papers"? If you are referring to pay or course credit, it depends on how much time was spent doing research. If you are referring to the length of the paper, that depends on the amount of material that the student wants to cover. If you want to know how much publicity a student can expect for reading a paper in their first year, the answer is zero.</p>
<p>Thanks for the answers--let me clarify. Most kids in high school only learn MLA format since most English teachers know MLA. However, in college, one might have to use APA, Chicago, etc. I'm just wondering what Caltech requires in typical classes--not SURF. </p>
<p>Furthermore, for a frosh at Caltech, how many research papers would one typically have to write in a year and how long? A paper for every class, three papers for every class . . . what is standard fare? I know it depends on the courses, but if you focus on frosh classes, what can a student expect for the writing load, other than problems (sets) or whatever you call them.
Thanks again for the insight--</p>
<p>34) It's not necessarily true that everyone admitted can do the work. Of my circle of good friends here, one has already flamed out and another is waiting on replies to his transfer apps. The "you're admitted + plus work hard = do fine" formula is bs, in my opinion. Of course, you might be really, really smart and thus have an easier time, but don't count on it.</p>
<p>Not many people do research during their frosh year (although it does happen). No frosh classes that I'm aware of require written papers (aside from humanities, obsviously). I'm not sure what your obsession with formatting is... as with any paper, write in a style appropriate to the field.</p>
<p>Please be nice to the parents. </p>
<p>Looks like I was way off in interpreting your question. I don't recall whether we had to use any specific formatting style. I think that in the freshman humanities classes they only care that the citations are functional, though this may vary from professor to professor. Each freshman humanities course requires at least 4000 words per term, which can be assigned in multiple papers or just one paper. </p>
<p>Each freshman has to take two freshman humanities courses, so I guess this averages out to maybe 4 papers freshman year. After completion of freshman humanities classes, students may take other courses in humanities, which will require some amount of writing. Students can take courses in social sciences (Economics, Law, Anthropology, Psychology, Political Science, etc.) without having taken their freshman humanities first.</p>
<p>halfthelaw: thanks for your valuable info. It isn't an obsession with the formatting---I just don't want a kid going out there blind-sided when other styles, particularly APA, were not taught in HS. MLA to APA is a small adjustment, but nevertheless it is an adjustment.</p>
<p>My son cannot attend pre-frosh weekend because of another commitment, so thanks for the patience with the Q's.</p>
<p>omgninja: thanks very much.</p>
<p>I disagree with halfthelaw about people who flame out. Everyone I know who has flamed was a smart person who was fully capable of passing enough classes to not get kicked out. It's just that, for whatever reasons, they lost interest in the material, didn't want to work hard, or found something else to take up all of their time (<em>cough</em> gaming.)</p>
<p>KenJ'sMom: I agree with your concern about citations, though I didn't even think to ask. I wouldn't worry about it, however. At my high school, teachers are usually very serious about citations, and it took some getting used to, but there are plenty of style guides on the web for students to reference. I know in particular that there are good resources for Chicago, APA, Turabian and MLA out there. </p>
<p>I've also noted that Caltech does have a writing center. So...</p>
<p>35) How many people use the writing center/ know it exists?</p>
<p>I think most (90+%) people know it exists, but I don't know how many people use it.</p>
<p>Yay, Hixon Writing Center! I'm actually training right now to become a writing center tutor next year. All sorts of different people come to the writing center, from undergrads looking for help on hum papers or surf proposals to grad students writing grant proposals. The Writing Center also gives seminars, like the very popular SURF Proposal Workshop.</p>
<p>That's cool. I'm a tutor in my high school's writing center, but we usually only get sophomores in for help. Probably because Sophomore history is drastically more difficult than Junior/Senior history. </p>
<p>How hard is it to get a job as a WC tutor? </p>
<p>Good luck with your training, lizzardfire. :)</p>
<p>The way you become a writing center tutor is kinda long...
First you have to be nominated by one of your humanities/social studies teachers. After you're nominated, you then send in some writing you've done (usually an essay for a previous class) and a short paragraph on why you want to work in the writing center. If you get past that round, you're interviewed. Finally, if the interview goes well, you get the position and start training. Training lasts most of third term. You start in the writing center the next year.</p>
<p>If I'm majoring in econ, can I use Econ courses to satisfy my HSS requirements?</p>
<p>Yes you can. That's what makes double majoring in a hum/SS so feasible.</p>