<p>How is it? I wanna major in BME. I'm applying to the engineering college. Can I also take courses in the humanities... languages... etc? thanks</p>
<p>Just checked it for you:</p>
<p>You are required to take 7 in social science/humanities. You have 5 free electives, meaning you can have as many as 12 in social science/humanties if you want (assuming you graduate with 48 courses). If I am not mistaken, you can take 5 courses per quarter in Tech without paying extra (I did it once and that was enough!) and so you can probably take even more. My friend who pushed herself this way graduated in 4 years with double in economics and compute science on top of 6 quarters of co-op!</p>
<p>By the way, I am surprised how hot BME has gotten -- 80+ students for the class of 04? That's a lot for a mid-size university.</p>
<p>thank you very much</p>
<p>Sam Lee, taking 5 classes in one quarter (I tried it and I had to drop before the add/drop period) and I just couldnt do it. It's too hard!!! lol For those who manage to do it, I applaud them!!!</p>
<p>The strange thing is I got higher GPA in that quarter than almost any other; I was very focused because I had to.</p>
<p>5 Classes?????? Humbug!!!!! LOL</p>
<p>Sam Lee, I'm sure you got a higher GPA if you chose your classes wisely. Just curious, when did you take 5 classes? Sophomore? Junior? or Senior Year? I may try 5 classes again my junior year (with an easier course load of course!) I'm trying to double-major.</p>
<p>Junior year; the classes were upper-level and I liked those better than the lower-level ones. I was double-majoring in chemical engineering and environmental engg. The right combo did play a role; I think I had 3 chemE and 2 envE classes. The envE classes were considerably easier than the ones in chemE. At that time, envE majors in my year had to take a chemE thermodynamics to fulfill the basic engineering requirement and every envE major would say that there's nothing "basic" about it and that it's the toughest class they'd ever had. A year after, the envE dept would have its own thermodynamics class tailored to env engg application and everyone was much happier. I wouldn't be able to do that if they were all in chemE.</p>
<p>Yes Sam Lee, the upper-level courses tend to be much easier than the lower-level courses. Well I'm gonna try my junior year when I get ridiculous prereqs out of the way.</p>
<p>The upper-level ones weren't easier for chemE. I wish chemE got such break though. :) The infamous orgo (a pre-req for chemE) was actually not difficult when compared to the upper-level ones. The computer room in our dept was literally the seond dorm for many of us. My "chemE Lab" that met from 8-5 on thursday consumed probably close to 25-30 hours a week. That could very well be equal the load of 3 classes in other majors. What I meant was they were just more interesting and so I was more motivated. I also knew I had to up my GPA to get into good grad school.</p>
<p>Maybe I should have corrected myself: once you have taken the necessary pre-requisites, the upper-level classes tend to be easier because you chose to take a course on a topic that interests you.</p>
<p>I'm not even sure about grad school yet. Oh GPA woes.....</p>
<p>Damn you Northwestern and you're GPA busting! lol :(</p>
<p>That's one of the main difference between other majors and engineering ones, particularly chemE. For us, there are large number of required courses that everyone has to take. We did choose "specialization" but that referred to only 4 courses while about 30 are required.</p>
<p>I can tell you more about some of our brutal ones: we had a mean fluid mechanics professor that didn't believe in partial credits and our final grades were based on the weekly quizes (his questions were fairly difficult and you got ZERO if you made a tiny mistake somewhere); by the add/drop deadline (after 3 quizes or so), half of the class still hadn't gotten any point and had to drop the class! Luckily, those of us who dropped the class could petition to take a fluid mechanics through ME/BME department. There's also this class on polymer (that's a specialization elective) for which the answer key of the weekly problem set could reach almost 20 pages. I knew 3 people dropped out of the program and switched, one to BME and two to Industrial E.</p>
<p>Overall, I think NU's program in my field is pretty solid. Two of my chemE buddies went to top-5 PhD programs (caltech and wisconsin) and they both did pretty well. I had enough chemE myself and decided to do environmental engg instead at Stanford. :)</p>
<p>I will be lucky enough to get into a top grad program. Sighs. The competition for social sciences is FIERCE. lol</p>
<p>Indeed it is; sigh, I hope I get accepted somewhere nice :)</p>
<p>tenisghs,</p>
<p>Not sure about social-science, but in engineering, the competition is tough for PhD programs, but considerably easier for MS programs.</p>
<p>Well for Ph.D. programs, the financial aid is much better. For MS programs, the financial aid is weak at most.</p>
<p>tenisghs,</p>
<p>That's true and expected. Who would want to pay for courses and then work like a dog for another 5+ years? PhD students, in a way, kinda work as researchers, so they are expected to get compensation.</p>