<p>ticklemepink, is going abroad during j-term common? i'm really excited about this did you go as a freshman? I tried to find information on the smith website, but i could not. Are the grants hard to get? </p>
<p>also how many j-term courses can and should you take?</p>
<p>I can't speak to the J-term abroad thing (I think only the Kyoto FYS does that, but I could be wrong), but as far as J-term classes go, take as many, or as few as you want. They're mostly 1 credit courses and some of them are even taught by students, which is cool.</p>
<p>My Smith '06 D did have two J-term abroad experiences, both excellent -- one studying flamenco dancing and Spanish in Madrid, the other exploring biodiversity and spirituality in the Peruvian High Amazon.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, I believe that most abroad J-term offerings were eliminated as a result of the budget cutbacks a couple of years ago. They were wonderful ways to use that interterm month well.</p>
<p>I really want to go to Beijing or Shanghai for my JYA, thus I'll be studying Chinese as my foreign language. How intense are the Chinese classes? When I went for Open Campus I sat in an Intensive Chinese I class... IMO it didn't seem all that "intense". Maybe it was just the teacher, or maybe it was because it was Open Campus... I don't know. Also, if I'm interested in pursuing other languages such as Korean and Spanish, how difficult is it to take 2 or 3 language classes at once?</p>
<p>Oh, btw... Latin Honors... what is this exactly?</p>
<p>I believe Jyber is correct about the "abroad" J-term offerings, except for Kyoto, being eliminated due to budget cuts. Something is niggling in the back of my mind about one that goes to Hawaii, which isn't quite "abroad" but is certainly regarded as exotic by enough people.</p>
<p>GCheng, Latin Honors = cum laude, magna cum laude, summa cum laude, all dependent upon GPA <em>and</em> taking classes that meet distribution requirements. I.e., with Smith's no-distribution requirements, you don't have to take a quanititative (math) class to graduate but for Latin Honors you do. Iirc, there are seven different areas that you have to to take classes in for Latin Honors. </p>
<p>Cum laude = top quarter of graduating class, which I think translates to something like a 3.7. First-year grades don't count in the calculation.</p>
<p>I really want to go to Beijing or Shanghai for my JYA, thus I'll be studying Chinese as my foreign language. How intense are the Chinese classes? When I went for Open Campus I sat in an Intensive Chinese I class... IMO it didn't seem all that "intense". Maybe it was just the teacher, or maybe it was because it was Open Campus... I don't know. Also, if I'm interested in pursuing other languages such as Korean and Spanish, how difficult is it to take 2 or 3 language classes at once?]]</p>
<p>An intensive language class means that the class meets every single day, and in the case of beginning classes, it's a sequence class. That means its basically a year long, and you have to take it both semesters in order to get credit for either semester. I would not reccommend taking two intro classes at the same time. It'll really cut back on the other courses you can take because of the time committment that intensive classes require (remember, outside of class time you'll be doing a significant amount of homework for your intensive classes). Also, think about continuity. If you take the beginning classes you'll presumably want to take the advanced ones as well. That means you're going to have two out of four classes every semester (you can take more than four, but trust me, you'll only want to try that once) you're at Smith devoted to languages. Will that help you accomplish your other academic goals? If you think it would, talk to your advisor about it when you get here. If you think it won't, evaluate which language is most important in light of your goals.</p>
<p>I'm sorry if this question has already been answered, but when do first years actually choose their courses?</p>
<p>RSquared, leslie king is great. don't know what the E designation means, but she is a great prof.</p>
<p>CJ, during orientation, just before classes begin.</p>
<p>Iirc, there's a "pre-pre-registration" where you go through an exercise "picking" your classes on Smith's on-line system, Bannerweb. (The info on how to do this is in one of the big packets you receive over the summer.) </p>
<p>This exercise doesn't actually register you or give you "dibs" on any particular class. However, a sneaky guess is that it gives the registrar's office a preview of what classes are popular, etc.</p>
<p>Since everyone else except for tranfer students has already registered during the Spring, first years get "what's left" but except for a few very popular electives, e.g., one of the non-major Astronomy courses, I've never heard of anyone not getting a key or otherwise "normal" class that she wanted. </p>
<p>Some of the first-year seminars do fill up quickly...and that's a "luck of the draw" situation where it depends on what time your registration appointment with your pre-major advisor is.</p>
<p>It does help if you know in advance pretty much what classes you want to take. D tore apart her prospective schedule over Orientation weekend to work the year-long Latin class into it, which bumped other classes in turn to sophomore or even senior year as she conceived it.</p>
<p>Do we get to know who our advisor is over the summer? Can we talk with them before hand?</p>
<p>I seem to remember that we got our premajor advisors along with the registration stuff at Central Check in, so no, you won't get to talk to them ahead of time. They will have one lunch meeting prior to registration with all the advisees, and then you will each have individual appointments to register for your classes with your advisor. The earlier your individual appointment is, the better chance you have of getting into the classes you want. Unfortunately, the appointments are assigned, so you'll just have to wait and see.... Don't worry though, there's lots of movement during the first two weeks fo class. People drop classes and add classes all the time, and if you show up to classes you didn't get into, profs will sometimes be generous and raise the enrollment cap a bit.</p>
<p>For current Smithies and parents, were you able to bargain for books when you or your daughter was a first year? When my sister began college she had known some of the books she needed and bought some through ebay. Are there any other sources?</p>
<p>Amazon is good too. A quick google search will bring up a wealth of websites, though most people just grab their books from the campus bookstore. With everything else to deal with at the beginning of my first year, the last thing I wanted to do was spend time on the web looking for book deals.</p>
<p>Agreed. D bought some books Used, but the $$$ trade-off for exploring other options wasn't worth the time crunch.</p>
<p>We often use Bigwords.com (maybe bigword.com) to find the cheapest prices for books. For first years this is less likely to be useful unless you have books that you don't need until later on in the semester. There is alway spring semester.</p>
<p>I often use half.com. Unless I'm positive that I'm taking a class, I don't buy a book until I've gone to the first class meeting (the exception is if I've decided to use the bookstore, where you have a certain number of days to return books) and if it's a class where I need more than one book (such as a lit class), I'll buy the first book at the bookstore and order the rest online once I've decided to remain enrolled. I also do a lot of comparison shopping (I pay for books myself, so I don't want to spend a penny more than I have to).</p>
<p>New students aren't sure of their schedules until orientation, so there's no oppurtunity to buy books beforehand.</p>
<p>SmithieandProud, do you know if the individual appointments with the advisors go by last name? in other words do students with last names starting with A meet with the advisors first?</p>
<p>I don't think it's by alpha. My D's name is early in the alphabet but certainly not early enough to be one of the very first...and she had the very first appointment with her advisor for registration.</p>
<p>Adrian- No, your advisor/advisee meeting is not alphabetical. I'm not sure exactly how your appointment is determined, but it's probably random and it has to do with lots of things over which you have no control. For example, advisors have the choice of having individual appointments in the morning or afternoon. The old hands know to tell the registrar they want morning appointments, but some of my friends had well meaning newbie advisors who asked for afternoon appointments, thinking their advisees would prefer that. I wouldn't worry too much about it until you get there, since there's pretty much nothing to be done about it now. If you end up getting assigned a bad appointment time, it's worth it to ask your advisor if you can possibly switch to an earlier one. If that doesn't work, just show up for your appointment early and hope for the best.</p>
<p>Advisor appointments are pretty much luck of the draw. My advisor had a dentist appointment (who knows why.....) on the official day of advising and met with us the day before. She gave us our codes at the meeting so that we were able to register at 8:00 a.m. on the official advising day. </p>
<p>A warning about registration though -- even though I registered at 8:00 a.m. on the first day, a couple classes that I wanted were already full with continuing students. This may happen -- don't panic! Just get on the waitlist and sign up for something else you would also enjoy. Then (this CANNOT be stressed enough) go to the first class meeting for the class you're waitlisted in. If you aren't there, the prof. will drop you off of the waitlist and take the people who show up. The prof. will almost certainly take some people from the waitlist right away, but if it's something you want and you don't get in, tell him/her that you are really interested in the class and want to stay on the waitlist. During the first two weeks, upper classwomen (who know the game) are class shopping like crazy and many people in each class will likely drop in order to take something else. </p>
<p>It is also very common for people to sign up for 24 credits knowing that they will only keep 16 - 20 and drop the rest. They just want to reserve a spot and then check out the classes to see which ones they will actually keep in their schedule. So lots of spots open up that way.</p>
<p>In reality, you have a really good shot at getting into classes that you are waitlisted for. I got into a class last Fall where I was the 16th person on the waitlist.</p>
<p>All of that said....if you are taking mostly intro classes, you won't have as many worries about getting waitlisted. Lots of classes, in addition to the classes that are "First Years only" have a number of spots reserved for First Years. I'm waitlisted this Fall for Macro Econ with a very popular prof. because half of the 32 spots are reserved for First Years. grr..... :-)</p>
<p>Some of the hardest classes to get into, and the ones that you may have to wait and take later, are Acting I, many art classes (some spots in drawing reserved for First Years tho) and some of the really popular dance classes. There could be others, but those are the ones I know of.</p>