<p>Hey, I got in to UChicago under early action. I was ecstatic when I got in, but as I've more carefully considered my decision to attend, I've realized that the core is not at all attractive to me. I want to major in math, and I've never really enjoyed taking humanities or social sciences that much. In fact, I really dislike these subjects. I'm starting to think that attending Chicago would be sentencing myself to torture from the core. Exactly how intense is the core? Is it significant enough for me to decide not to attend? I know there are core requirements at all schools, but Chicago takes it to a new level. Thanks.</p>
<p>You don’t have to be apologetic. It reflects well on you that you are thinking about this. There are lots of really smart people who don’t want to go to the University of Chicago, and the Core is one of the reasons why not in many cases.</p>
<p>Is the Core significant enough to affect your decision whether to attend? Sure! Depending on your attitude towards things like biology and foreign language, meeting the Core requirements could force you to take 13-17 classes you wouldn’t want to take otherwise, out of a total of 42-48. As a rough estimate, 25% of your college coursework, or one year. You are right that most colleges have some sort of general education requirements, but few require that much, and most offer more flexibility about what you take, and what you can use AP credits to get out of. If you think taking courses outside your area of interest is a cost of college education, there are lots of places where you can get a better deal than Chicago.</p>
<p>Should you write Chicago off because of the Core? That’s a tougher call. There are some countervailing considerations. First, you may not really know that you don’t enjoy humanities or social sciences, because you may never have taken courses that are rigorous and demanding like the ones at Chicago. Lots of math majors, it turns out, DO like their Core HUM, SOSC, and CIV classes. Not all of them, though, and not all the courses necessarily. Second, even if you dislike the classes, they have the benefit of giving you a shared culture with all of your classmates. There are lots of colleges where, as a math major, you never have to talk to humanities students unless you are trying to pick one up at a party. At Chicago, you will have real intellectual contact with peers who are not like you, not just random social contact, and that may ultimately be attractive to you. </p>
<p>Third, everyone pretty much agrees that Chicago is a terrific place to study math. It’s one of the few colleges where there are lots of majors, lots of access to research opportunities, undergraduates doing really sophisticated things – you get the chance to kiss the sky, if you’re up to it. It’s not the only such place in the academic world, but there aren’t so many of them, and all of THEM have their little flaws, too. Including that they may not accept you, or that you may have missed the deadline to apply. Before you detach yourself completely from the idea of going to Chicago, make certain that the alternatives you have are clearly better, with everything taken into account.</p>
<p>Parent of a Chicago math major here. He loves the Core and picked Chicago over other options because of it. S1 advises prospies to sit in on a Core class to see if it appeals to you. He loved the discussion-based focus and was able to get good advice from housemates about which HUM and SOSC sequences he might find appealing. The Core does tend to give everyone a common language and frame of reference.</p>
<p>Agree with JHS above.</p>
<p>Parent of yet another Chicago math major here. My S decided to choose Chicago despite the fact that he was not overly enthusiastic about the Core. He is a junior now and he does not regret this decision at all. On the contrary! His Core classes were taught in a way that did not resemble anything he had experienced before. To him it made a difference that the discussions were fully focused on the original texts (as opposed to using text books and a more general approach). No way, that ‘smooth talkers’ could get away with all kind of tricks to direct the discussions into ‘pet subjects’. No way, that students who had not read the original texts would dare opening their mouths to contribute. It was so different from what my S had experienced in HS. He is rather analytical and methodical and it was news to him that the social sciences, humanities etc. could be so interesting. He is also somewhat shy, but because of the lack of ‘smart mouths’ he could fully participate. My conclusion is that the way Core is taught at UChicago is a much better fit for more analytical students than the HS approach (and the approach used at quite a few other colleges).</p>
<p>TaiTai:</p>
<p>Pretty much same experience here. Didn’t like the idea of the Core much as an applicant, but once I experienced it for myself, I loved it. It really is rigorous inquiry, and nothing like I had ever seen before.</p>
<p>If you’re really skeptical about humanities and social sciences, then Chicago may not be for you. However, there are many options in each of these required sequences, which you ought to explore before you reject them outright.</p>
<p>You will find the core to be a significant part of your first two years here; this is unavoidable. You will take HUMA, SOSC and CIV. If this is a big problem, it may be best to look for an alternative college with no required courses.</p>
<p>Thanks for the input everyone. It’s encouraging to hear that there are so many people who weren’t into the core but learned to like it. In the end, I don’t think I’ll make my decision based on the core, but it will certainly play a role in the decision.</p>
<p>If you really can’t stand the thought of heavy reading, Mind and Social Science Inquiry are good options for SOSC, and Language and the Human is a good option for Hum. If you have AP Bio credit you can get out of Core Bio.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Very encouraged. Do what you can to avoid Core Bio. It makes you cry into your bedsheets at night.</p>
<p>
For some reason I find that extremely amusing. This what makes this forum fun to read.</p>
<p>^^ Exactly what makes it so bad? I’ve noticed that ppl seem to either love it or hate it.</p>
<p>It’s just a lot of work. And if you don’t like reading, the best HUM to take is definitely Media Aesthetics. It involves almost no reading at all, just looking at pictures, photos, etc.</p>
<p>My son does not want to consider Chicago or Columbia because of the overly prescribed courses outside the major. It’s not that he does not like humanities and social sciences but he would like to pursue what really interests him. Say he might be interested in History of Germany, or Linguistics. Other colleges will have requirements in the social sciences but will give the student greater choice of courses.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Ha, I aim to please.</p>
<p>@ PBush: I wouldn’t say that Core Bio requires a lot of work. (And even if it did, I think most of us here are accustomed to a lot of work, yes?) To put it simply, it’s just tedious, boring, and ultimately very pointless. The lectures are read to us off powerpoints that are posted online, so people have very little incentive to actually stay awake while the professor’s talking (me included). The labs are useless. Not only do we not actually have to complete them or even get the correct results (i.e. you can easily fudge the data or ask the TAs for the answers, which they will give to you), they’re laughably stupid. For instance, we spent an hour counting corn kernels in one session, and then four generations of beans in another session. It’s mostly busywork and a waste of time, IMO.</p>
<p>^^^and if you blow it off, you will get burned. Seriously.</p>
<p>what does a 5 on ap bio get you out of? My D is probably an English major</p>
<p><a href=“http://collegecatalog.uchicago.edu/pdf_10/exam-credit.pdf[/url]”>http://collegecatalog.uchicago.edu/pdf_10/exam-credit.pdf</a></p>
<p>AP Bio 4 OR 5 will get her out of Core Bio (BIOS 10130). Either way, she still has to take one Bio elective (anything in the 20000s I think), which is a very wide selection. If she was a Biology major, however, she would have to take a fundamentals sequence which involves a lot of courses and curricula that I don’t really understand. But it’s no matter, because I’m not a Bio major! Woohoo.</p>
<p>^It would get her out of Core Bio. She would still have to do a biology topics course, but those are much more enjoyable than Core Bio, and she can probably find one that she likes.</p>
<p>Just to add to what people have already said, whether or not you enjoy the core depends on many factors. I absolutely love my SOSC class, but my HUMA class is torture. Why? It’s all because of the students in those classes. My SOSC class is full of really smart people who actually offer good comments in discussion, while my HUMA class is full of arrogant philosophy enthusiasts who just bring up random points to sound intelligent. If I were able to remove about five specific students from my HUMA class, I would enjoy it so much more. I guess my point here is that it’s just really hard to predict whether you’ll adore a core class or hate it.</p>
<p>You should also look into the Social Science Inquiry sequence for SOSC which a lot of math/science-oriented people take. Last quarter involved talking about famous social science research (Milgram experiment, Steven Levitt’s paper on abortion and crime, etc.) This quarter is a crash course in statistics and Stata (statistical software). It’s easier compared to the other SOSC classes but might be more attractive than reading Marx for 10 hours a week.</p>
<p>Luckily for me, I haven’t had an experience like JBVirtuoso. But I was equally as apprehensive about the Core as the initial poster, 'cept I’m an English major so I was nervous about all the opposite classes. Although I can’t say I loved calculus, I am happy that the Core required me to take math, bio, and chem, otherwise I wouldn’t have realized that I could excel-- and actually enjoy (in the case of bio, especially, but also chem)-- in these subjects. Sure, I was jumping around in my room the other day when I got an A on a paper, but it’s a lot more rewarding to walk out of a bio final exam and know that you aced it when before the course you were dreading it. </p>
<p>At the same time, if you know that sosc or civ or hum or even foreign language courses are going to be tortuous, you should probably consider another university. If you’re on the fence, visit our campus and attend a few classes. It’s a great gauge to see whether or not you’ll enjoy them as a student here.</p>