<p>I am an international student and I have been thinking a lot these months about my future path... I think the best career options for me is in the field of engineering due to my excellence in science subjects, though I applied as undecided to CAS last year. </p>
<p>As you know the course registration period is impending, and I have added all the freshman engineering courses to my cart on YES since I was informed recently by the University Registrar that I can apply to take courses in the school of engineering prior to obtaining the official transfer. I have also emailed my advisor, but she didn't reply by now yet. </p>
<p>The thread that keeps lingering in my mind is: Can I skip the AXLE? The courses just seem to be too difficult for an international student like me with a high TOEFL score but no solid English background... (1st year writing seminar with topics on anthropology, US history, philosophy, psychology, sociology? God why not kill me right away to escape from the suffering in tons of readings and hammering out essays on all-nighters...) </p>
<p>ANY comment would be GREATLY appreciated, thank you so much!!!</p>
<p>I’m an international transfer in CAS as well, and I’ve gotten great grades so far. It’ll probably be harder to maintain a high GPA in engineering, and I think there’s a wide enough variety of AXLE courses in CAS. After an hour or two on ratemyprofessors and YES, you’ll probably find good courses to take.</p>
<p>But that’s just me, of course. By Vandy standards I performed miserably on the SAT math section, and I’ve never had much interest in science courses either…</p>
<p>If you are positive that you want to transfer from CAS to the Engineering school, just go ahead and sign up for the freshman engineering course of study. However, you will find that engineering majors still have to complete a liberal arts core, although it is less comprehensive than axle. I have engineering friends and they usually take one “elective” class each semester to satisfy their core requirements. These classes are in CAS, and if you don’t like writing papers you can usually avoid writing-intensive classes. As the poster above me said, for your core requirements just look up professors/classes on ratemyprofessors.com (which is probably a good idea when selecting professors for your engineering courses as well).</p>
<p>To LegalShark: Haha, I’m the opposite kind of guy, I have little interest in liberal art courses like psychology, philosophy, english, history or literature mostly because they are not something that I excel in.What’s more, I’ve read so many articles written by students in my country(China) studying US saying it is extremely hard to get a score of A in liberal art courses due to culture shock and huge language gap, and the reading/writing assignments are constantly racking their brains. Most of them worked their butt off indeed but got only C in the end on their transcripts. But I always have a passion on math, physics and chemistry courses and lab assignments are really fun, though there are tons of work as an engineering student. Still, I think they are on par with those reading/writing/oral presentation assignments in liberal art majors in difficulty as an INTERNATIONAL student. </p>
<p>To slpxx16: Yes, Ratemyprofessors.com is the only and the most important reference I’m always looking up when selecting courses under different professors XD. Do you or your engineering friend know if the First-Year writing seminar courses count as liberal art core requirements? Cuz the FYWS is a must for all freshmen in CAS before I can transfer out…</p>
<p>To gta100: I get what you’re saying. I’m an anomaly because I also come from a math/science-intensive place (Taiwan). In fact, many folks back home look down on students who major in things like psychology, philosophy, and political science.</p>
<p>I’m a psych/phil major who managed to escape high school calculus (haha). I might take that in the future, so you might wanna do my homework for me…</p>
<p>I believe the FWYS does count towards the engineering liberal arts requirement, but it’s only one hour, which isn’t very helpful in meeting the 4-year requirement, or the 3 hour requirement per category.</p>
<p>There is an 18-hour total liberal arts requirement in engineering:
-At least 3 hours in at least 3 separate categories
-At least 6 hours in one category</p>
<p>The categories are:
-Humanities and Creative Arts
-International Cultures
-History and Culture of the US
-Social and Behavioral Sciences
-Perspectives
-Music Composition and Performance
-Cognition and Development</p>
<p>There are tons of classes you can take; most courses related to history, psychology, philosophy, language, politics, sociology, economics, etc. will fit into one of these categories. Surely you can find one that isn’t miserable. </p>
<p>Anyways, best route is to CONTACT someone at Vanderbilt. They are very responsive and will answer all your questions.</p>
<p>Thanks, Pancaked. I found a note on the FYWS introduction, “All FYWS courses are distributed toward all 6 categories of AXLE requirements”. But you are right, I would contact someone in the school of engineering to figure it out.</p>