<ul>
<li>That’s correct. You DON’T have to email the prof. in order to take CHEM140A. As long as you have completed all the prereq., Webreg will let you sign up for it.</li>
<li>Theses are links that I use to compare the courses:</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>I’ve never taken COGS1 nor PSYC1 so idk but I took COGS3 my first quarter with Boyle. Probably the only downside of her class was the way she gave the presentation. She basically showed you empty slides and wrote stuff down on it. For me I didn’t like it this way. I was all over the place.</li>
</ul>
<p>-Most people here I think take like 4 classes each quarter. 5 classes can be time consuming but it depends on each person. I can’t tell. You can always drop the class by the end of week two so no worries.</p>
<p>I know people who are taking 12 units. If your major is not.demanding , then it is.fine. And I absolutely do not recommend any freshmen taking ternansky. If you have no idea how to transition properly into college, ternansky will shred you to pieces. But if you are taking 12 units plus a ge then you should have the time. Just be warned that ternansky is notorious for a reason. I speculate.that people.find it rewarding because it is akin to stockholm syndrome</p>
<p>Oh shoot. You’re scaring me there, DistressStudent. Especially the Stockholm Syndrome part.</p>
<p>Would you recommend taking Yang for CHEM140A then? Or wait until Winter or Spring quarter to take CHEM140A with Ternansky (or, never take it with Ternansky)?</p>
<p>Originally, I was planning on taking the PHYS 1 series but right now I don’t think there’s going to be enough space. (My enrollment time is tomorrow.) I also considered taking BICD 100 instead of CHEM 140 or physics. Would that be a better choice…?
I’m a biochem & cell bio major so I really want to take one of my required major courses this fall.</p>
<p>@chainiwatmj and archaic: Oh okay, well that clears up that huge problem! Thanks for the links chainiwatmj!</p>
<p>@DistressStudent:Crud, I should’ve read your post earlier man! … I think I’m stuck here at this point. Chem 140A seems to not be changing much. I was deciding between Ternansky and Oconnor, but I figured Ternansky would’ve been good to freshmen. Damn. Is Ternansky REALLY that notorious? I mean, I’ve looked that the CAPEs and reviews at ratemyprofessor.com and most people speak highly of Ternansky, Yang, and Oconnor. (Ugh, I bet so many freshmen have headaches right now, myself included. Am I right archaic?)</p>
<p>Bicd100 is really easy. The class avg tends to be high. Like near 3.3 (recent years). Ternansky avg tends to be around 2.6 which is.the. Norm for.that kind of.class. However the data is kinda messed up for his class since his withdrawl/drop rate is like twice as much as other classes; so the reality is worse. It is not like people don’t drop in other class but I never been in a course with as low as a retention rate as that one. Well except maybe in 140b when the pprofessor trolled the students by pretending he was offended… But yeah ternansky iS an amazing professor no doubt about that. However his exams are extremely difficult. Go audit his class if you want to see what a good lecturer is like.</p>
<p>Guess I’ll go for bicd100 this quarter then. I’m not sure I can handle a super hardcore class right after being lazy all summer and slacking off during senior year.</p>
<p>@chainiwatmj, who’d you have for chem140a and bicd100? Any comments on the professors you had?</p>
<p>@BassTime, yup, definitely have a headache from trying to figure all of this out. Thankfully collegeconfidential exists and people with experience are willing to answer our questions, otherwise the headache would probably be multiplied…
Can’t wait until next quarter, when enrollment times won’t be completely random anymore!</p>
<p>@archaic: Yep, very glad I even stumbled onto CC before this fall quarter. Luckily we freshmen still have 3 days left (well I do) before enrollment times close.</p>
<p>@DistressStudent: Aww crud, the more I hear about Ternansky being a good professor, the more I want to be in his class. Only downsides are his difficult exams (as you say) and the timing (evening). </p>
<p>Just a quick question: If I were to be waitlisted with a sort of high number, like 5-9, would there be no chance of getting enrolled into that class, compared to being on the waitlist with a low number like 0-2?</p>
<p>? Ternansky actually has a waitlist? Lol well yang must be really bad too then…
Well a high number depends on the class limit too; hard to give a magic number. I generally have a good enough standing to not.get on the waitlist. However, because of some screw up I was on the waitlist this quarter. I was at.like 38 for.a.class.size.of about 300 during spring. I am now 5 or something. Because people always always drop.courses , I have 100% confidence I will get the class when fall starts .despite.initially being no.38.</p>
<p>I had Albizati for CHEM140A but I think he only teaches ochem I in spring though. He teaches like gen. chem and CHEM140C in other quarters. Albizati had a very nice rating. I think he is very clear. Sometimes he tended to speak too softly so I gotta sit in the front. 2 midterms and a final plus stupid online hw which I hated the most because the site crashed like three times in a quarter. The online hw somewhat forced me to study indirectly but I would say I didn’t get much from that hw because I just wanted to finish it and submit it. Basically I had like a week for each assignment but the problems were hard in my opinion. I felt like I pretty much learned everything a week before exams.
I never attended any of the discussion and felt really stupid at the end because one of the TA’s was very good at teaching. </p>
<p>Oh, I actually got the same grade for BICD100 and CHEM140A. </p>
<p>I had BICD100 in spring too. I took both classes in the same quarter. The prof. I had was Curington and he got a very nice rating too. I felt like I pretty much got everything in his class. There were 2 midterms and a final. I did like really well on the first midterm. Only missed like 1 question. HOWEVER, the 2nd midterm was very very hard, not sure why… I felt like it was harder than the first one but not much harder. I got like a high C for that one. IDK about final but I guess it was easier than the second midterm but harder than the first one. The good thing about this class was that the online hw was extremely easy. I got full credit on every single one because they gave you like 5 tries and there were 5 choices per question. So no matter what you would get the question right. I had to attend discussion every week because the TA gave out quizzes which weren’t difficult if you paid attention in lecture.</p>
<p>@DistressStudent: Damn, looks like you had it lucky, and that was for a large class. However, it wouldn’t be the same for smaller classes right? For smaller classes, people in waitlists have a lesser chance of getting into their classes right?</p>
<p>@chainiwatmj: I’ve heard of that professor before. I’ve heard the same as you did: most people gave a general positive view of Albizati, other than the unusual online hw. I just hope he’ll still be able to teach this upcoming spring.</p>
<p>Okay guys, I think I have my schedule set. What do you guys think?</p>
<p>MCWP 40:MW 9:30-10:50 AM (@ HSS)
COGS 1: TuTh 11:00 AM-12:20 PM (Boyle @ PRICE)
MATH 20B: MWF 12:00-12:50 PM (Sorenson @ PCYNH)
Chem 140A: TuTh 12:30-1:50 PM (O’Connor @ PETER)
ENG 1: F 2:00-3:50 (@ CSB)</p>
<p>The layout, imo, looks viable, but I’m honestly not sure how the timing and workload will be. I know that Chem 140A will be hard and require some time. Math 20B, I think I’ll do well on that one. The only problems are COGS 1 and MCWP 40. Can anyone provide any input on how time-consuming / difficult they are?</p>
<p>Ternansky doesn’t have any waitlists right now, and only 3 full classes. Yang has waitlists though.
I’ve heard good things about Albizati too. Didn’t know about the weird online HW though.</p>
<p>@BassTime: For waitlists, I heard you can generally count on ~10% of the total class dropping at some point.</p>
<p>@chainiwatmj and anyone else who this has happened for: If you don’t take all of the courses in a series right after each other (ex. taking CHEM140A in spring and CHEM140B in fall, or splitting up the physics 1 series over two years), do you feel that you don’t do as well as you would have if you had?
Are the courses in a series very related to each other? If so, wouldn’t it be better to take all of the courses in the series in one year so that all of the info you’ve already learned and will use for the next course is still fresh in your mind?</p>
<p>I agree that it would be somewhat easier if you take the same kind of courses consecutively. However, for ochem, it’s like you need a good foundation. I am taking CHEM140B right now which meant I had like 2 months without ochem. That wasn’t a long period of time. There’re stuff I learned from the last course that is pretty helpful but I still feel like it won’t make a big different if I decide to take ochem again this upcoming spring. I think you’d still be fine if you take CHEM140A your freshmen yr and take 140B your sophomore year. </p>
<p>I took PHYS2A last quarter too. I heard that for the physics series, you do learn different topics. Like it’s mechanics for 2A or 1A and something else for B and C. I plan to take a break from physics for a while though because I had a bad experience in 2A. I just want to take it when I feel comfortable without rushing it or trying to get my lower div done. It’s kinda weird that so far I don’t see that I need PHYS for any of my upper div courses. So I’ll just take PHYS2B/2BL and 2C/2CL whenever I can get the best prof.</p>
<p>I had Albizati for 140c. The online homework was frustrating, but it is not that bad. It is frustrating because of how uncooperative the system was; it was tedious entering the right structure.
I heard o’connor wasn’t bad either. You should be fine. </p>
<p>And I personally do not recommend leaving gaps for ochem. Maybe it varies from professors to professors, but when I took ochem almost all the reactions were cumulative. Example, I was using 140B reactions to answer questions on my 140C exam. Also, because ternansky loves to go above and beyond, some 140B material was review from 140A material.</p>
<p>Okay, thanks. I’ll keep that in mind whenever I decide to take ochem.</p>
<p>@chainiwatmj: yeah, 2B is electricity/magnetism and 2C is fluids/waves/optics/thermodynamics. I guess they’re all pretty different, but I thought there should still be some basic concepts connecting them all together. I guess it wouldn’t be too hard to just quickly review those concepts though, if taking the classes non-consecutively.</p>
<p>@archaic: They do drop about that much somewhere? Well, I hope they do, cause tomorrow’s the last day for me to enroll into classes, and I’m still on the waitlist for both Chem 140A (number 8) and Math 20B (I’m number 1 atm). I have a good feeling that I’ll make it into Math 20B but I’m not so sure on Chem 140A. I have a bad feeling I won’t get enrolled into that class.</p>
<p>Just a quick question. By the time enrollment times close for students, do they HAVE to be enrolled into all of their classes? As in, they CANNOT be on the waitlist for any classes by the time their enrollment times close?</p>
<p>I think it’s unlikely you’ll get in for Chem140A if you’re number 8 in a class of 40… I’m guessing you waitlisted for O’Connor? I don’t see any other classes with 8 people on the waitlist.
You could always register for a different Chem140A class. Yang and Ternansky both still have openings in some of their classes.</p>
<p>You can still be on the waitlist even after enrollment times close. You can even still be on the waitlist when the quarter officially starts, and hope that after the first class or so, some more people decide to drop out so you can get in.</p>
<p>Wait, they close the enrollment times? I thought you can always still go back and fix your schedule until like week 2. You don’t have to be enrolled before school starts because a lot of people are waitlisted. Not sure but you must be enrolled by the end of week 1 or 2 or else you’d be dropped from the class.</p>
<p>CHEM140A only has room for 40 people? that’s weird. I was gonna say #8 is a pretty ok number to get in but not so sure for a class of 40.</p>
<p>oh sorry just ignore my post above. 40 is a size of discussion. You can actually enroll in any discussion and you re not required to attend discussion.</p>