Hi all,
I was talking to someone today who told me I should be taking “all 200 level classes or higher starting this year (I will be a sophomore),” and she seemed to believe that this was true no matter the specific information. Now, I am looking to go to grad school, so I could see why she would think it would be important to take harder classes. However, based on previous posts and information I’ve gathered from this thread, people seem to be saying that taking all 200 level classes across all disciplines is unnecessary, and that you should try to excel mainly in your field and take your upper-level classes there. I was thinking that, specifically this upcoming fall semester, I would take a few intro classes since I am transferring schools. So can any of you guys tell me if it’s totally necessary to take non-intro classes, or if the person giving me this information was not correct? Thanks a lot for your time.
The spirit of their advice is correct, but they’re applying it too rigidly.
As a sophomore, most of your classes probably will be 200-level or higher, and as a junior, most of your classes will be 300-level or higher. But that’s not to say that you can’t take some intro-level elective classes as exploration - like let’s say you’re a math major but you wanted to take a history class or a philosophy class just for interest. Nobody would expect you to take something 200-level just because you were a sophomore; you’d be perfectly fine taking a 100-level class.
And you are correct in assuming that for disciplinary graduate programs, the programs are going to be less concerned with the level of non-major or unrelated classes. Obviously it wouldn’t look good if a senior takes appropriate classes in her major but all 100-level classes otherwise, but having a mix and exploring some new areas - especially in your sophomore year - isn’t bad at all.
@juillet thanks a lot for the constant great advice!
I also want to add that you want to take care to not strain yourself by trying to be “the best” in all these different fields. Sure it would be nice if you could, say, take 300 level classes in 3 different fields and ace them, but what does that even prove if your goal is to specialize in one of them? And what if you get grades that are lower than they could be because you were trying to do well in higher level classes in different fields? Or what if you sacrifice potential research?
As an anecdote, I double majored in college, and I don’t think my second major made too much of an impact on my admittance to various programs in my first major. Maybe they thought, “oh, she double majored,” but they cared most about the work I was doing in the field at hand, not necessarily the work done in the other.
And also, some programs specifically asked for my junior and senior year GPA, and I would think this is because they realize you’re probably taking more of your upper level courses in your major during this time. Likewise, I think they probably expect you to do some exploring during your first two years.