<p>
[quote]
I have far too many responsibilities, and I just enjoy the natural sciences more.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>And the prospect of gonig to medical school and becoming a doctor who makes 6 figures,lol.</p>
<p>soccerguy, anything "Studies" is generally regarded as a fluff major. Come on man, even you know it. After all, there has to be a way to keep those recruited athletes from flunking out entirely or to give wily premeds the option of greatly inflating their GPAs.</p>
<p>The OP probably had a rigorous high school curriculum, so that probably helped a lot. I know some of my first year classes in college are retardedly easy in comparison to the higher level classes I was free to take as a high school junior/senior. Things might change, but I'd like to think that my high school prepared me well.</p>
<p>Big brother is right. Not so much senior year, but junior year I took: BC Calc, AP US, AP Lang, AP chemistry, Spanish 4. If you aren't familiar with AP US, there is a ton of reading in that and AP Lang. Spanish and math usually had homework every day.</p>
<p>Senior year, I took calculus 2, calculus 3, AP Microeconomics, AP Macroeconomics, Art (sounds like fluff, but actually a lot of work).</p>
<p>Both years I had debate, where there is a lot of work involved.</p>
<p>of course, premeds are lining up to take courses on Eastern European Politics and the American Legal Process.</p>
<p>If the major was called East Asian Affairs would you have a different view of it? Obviously that would make it much more respectable than East Asian Studies.</p>
<p>soccerguy, I can't tell if that was sarcasm or not. Regardless, it seems to me that most premeds opt for Chemistry, Biology, Psychology, or the other traditionally premed majors. Better to do something you have a genuine interest in, right?</p>
<p>Also, did you even bother to understand the point of my main post? Easy majors are easy majors. No amount of name changing is going to manipulate these facts. Dartmouth's Psychology major is denoted "Psychological and Brain Sciences." But come on dude, it's really just Psychology.</p>
<p>Taking a fluff major as a premed is a great strategy, but it's far from an intuitive one. Remember, people get admitted to a top college for their book smarts, NOT street smarts.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Big brother is right. Not so much senior year, but junior year I took: BC Calc, AP US, AP Lang, AP chemistry, Spanish 4. If you aren't familiar with AP US, there is a ton of reading in that and AP Lang. Spanish and math usually had homework every day.</p>
<p>Senior year, I took calculus 2, calculus 3, AP Microeconomics, AP Macroeconomics, Art (sounds like fluff, but actually a lot of work).</p>
<p>Both years I had debate, where there is a lot of work involved
[/quote]
</p>
<p>You can skip calculus and try some higher math courses.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Taking a fluff major as a premed is a great strategy, but it's far from an intuitive one. Remember, people get admitted to a top college for their book smarts, NOT street smarts
[/quote]
</p>
<p>not really.
average smart+hard work+access to quality eduction+money+maybe something else=admission to top college.</p>
<p>Sadly yucca, that sounds more like it. I've met a couple dolts around here who literally have no sense of the world around them.</p>
<p>
[quote]
And in case you are wondering, my high school was pretty ******* hard. I know that our class had 1 Yale, 5+ Cornells, 1 Duke (3 got in), 2 Wash U's (6 got in), 5+ Northwesterns, etc. Average SAT score for top 10 was 2300.
[/quote]
Huh... I never considered my high school to be "extremely hard" or "competitive", but if this is where the bar is set, I guess it was up there. When I graduated ('06) we had 3 Cornell, Columbia, Dartmouth, JHU, a couple others... I think our val had a 2360, someone else had a 1580 (/1600).</p>
<p>Anyway, now that I think about it my freshman year was also relatively easy. I took 17 and 19 credits each semester, respectively, and though it seemed like a lot, I found that I still had quite a bit of free time. This year though, I'm taking 16 cr worth of classes but I've got no free time; always reading, always studying. The mix of orgo, physics, and upper level bio classes is very time consuming.
College is by no means easy but the difference in the way things are set up and run between HS and college makes it much more conducive to learning and working and studying. None of my classes are particularly hard right now, but they are damn time consuming; it's just a matter of reading and studying the material and doing practice problems. I'm also premed in case it makes things any more relevant.</p>
<p>were do you go to school then?</p>
<p>What hs did u go to</p>
<p>"That is because he could apply philosophy to other fields, like mathematics and computer science (see mme-lin's post)."</p>
<p>Which math classes have you been taking...? o_0</p>
<p>College? Easy? Where do you go to college? Princeton has had little mercy for me.</p>
<p>on a previous post of the OP, i guess the OP goes to WUSTL</p>
<p>Quote:</p>
<p>"I'm not doing a joke major like philosophy."</p>
<p>When I was at Duke, one of the hardest courses I took was an introductory logic class offered through the philosophy department. It was brutal and the entire class struggled. After logic, my second most difficult course was linguistics offered through the English department. My natural science and math classes, although challenging, were relatively easy compared to these two monsters. Contrary to popular belief, the humanities and social sciences are often not the slacker majors that so many portray them to be.</p>
<p>to the OP ... it's a little early to draw any conclusions.</p>
<p>I thought Cornell was pretty easy the first month .. not so bad through the first round of prelims (mid-terms). Through this time, which was about a month, a lot of the material was review of HS stuff and there had not been any major time conflicts yet.</p>
<p>And then we moved into new material and had pre-lims, papers, problem sets (HW), and labs hit on top of each other ... as well as an improving social life ... and I got my lunch handed to me academically.</p>
<p>I'd be interested in your comments about turkey day time ... to see if you see have the same experience.</p>
<p>I hear you then lollybo. </p>
<p>In fairness, I went to a state school for a year that actually made me furious it was so easy...the mind is a terrible thing to waste, and I'm not a genius by any means, so I understand your frustration.</p>
<p>That said, my school (McGill) is not as selective as your's, and honours classes are extremely challenging, even to kids who got into top 5 u.s./u.k. schools. I have a friend who got into Oxford and currently has a 2.9 GPA as a result of honours econ. However, we're 3rd years. 1st year is much, much easier than 2nd/sophmore year.</p>
<p>I'm somewhat confused...I recently read that the attrition rate for frosh pre-med students is approximately 40%, and this is primarily a result of the difficult intro bio/chem classes.</p>
<p>I was a decent student in HS (4's and 5's on AP's, 3.8 GPA at a competitive public hs...nothing special) and I have been worried about taking intro Bio/Chem at the same time (as a freshman).</p>
<p>So what is it? Are there a lot of overly-optomistic pre-med students who are stupid, or are these intro classes difficult?</p>
<p>The latter. The classes are considerably difficult, and cover a heck of a lot of material, especially because a number of students who are pre-med use AP credit and place into higher level biology courses and/or organic chemistry. These courses are almost never easy for freshmen who have not yet gotten into the 'college' mode of study, and they are often competing with sophomores and upper level students.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The latter. The classes are considerably difficult, and cover a heck of a lot of material, especially because a number of students who are pre-med use AP credit and place into higher level biology courses and/or organic chemistry. These courses are almost never easy for freshmen who have not yet gotten into the 'college' mode of study, and they are often competing with sophomores and upper level students.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well isn't that just arrogance, a form of stupidity?</p>
<p>I'll admit that I made a few arrogant mistakes with my pre-registration selections. I didn't want to throw my AP credits away, so I applied them to my intro classes (placing me in upper level science/eng classes). After emailing out pre-med advisor, I have decided to take the intro courses.</p>
<p>It is obvious that these courses will be easier than the upper-level courses, but what sort of difficulty is expected in the intro bio/chem courses?</p>