Current Vandy Freshman

Colleges and Universities A-Z Vanderbilt University
121

<p>Huh?</p>

<p>I was clear from the start about what my agenda was - to get to the bottom of an issue I was personally interested in. I don’t see how anything I’ve said can be construed as fear-mongering. >.></p>

<p>I don’t get to visit schools because of my financial situation, so I have to do things like this to ensure I don’t make a big mistake, to determine whether I “fit”, as you say. I don’t have the opportunity to take less…‘forward’ measures.</p>

<p>I’m not looking for a fight as much as I am pressing for better answers. I apologize if I came off as hostile, and hope you’ll forgive me. I’m done now. >.></p>

122

<p>Philovitist, your posts are really misinformed – Vanderbilt has good diversity and interaction. Posted below are some YouTube Videos of Vanderbilt’s College Halls–</p>

<p>Girls:
[Stamballin</a> (Vanderbilt) - We got 'em - YouTube](<a href=“Stamballin (Vanderbilt) - We got 'em - YouTube”>Stamballin (Vanderbilt) - We got 'em - YouTube)</p>

<p>Guys:
[College</a> Hall Party (Vanderbilt) - YouTube](<a href=“- YouTube”>- YouTube)</p>

123

<p>“Big booty itches. Your argument is invalid.”</p>

<p>Like I said, I’m sure I’ll be fine. ^_^</p>

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<p>What proportion of nashville music woukd you say is country? Like, percentage-wise.</p>

<p>And how diverse are the students’ music interests? Like, percentage-wise.</p>

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<p>Philovitist: Vanderbilt’s Blair School of Music is amazing. It is not Julliard and Nashville is not NYC but it is still amazing. And Nashville is so accessible. There are studio musicians playing in many of the bars who are super talents. Our son goes to concerts all the time in clubs in Nashville that are rock and very contemporary. He also likes to go to Nashville’s world class Symphony Hall on discount student tickets. It is amazing. Sort of like where the Boston Symphony plays. Cozy and fantastic venue that flooded sadly and is now reopened. All great tours do a stop in Nashville and there are many small venues where the pleasure is great to see live acts. I am not going to give you percentages. My son has never been to see a country act and I would say he is part of the student body who buys tix constantly for weekend shows. The country studio musicians are so talented however and add a lot to the town.</p>

126

<p>I’m a current freshman at Vanderbilt, so I guess I can add my own opinions as well, and maybe give some helpful information as well. </p>

<p>As for diversity, Vanderbilt has a lot of superficial multi-cultural agendas going for it, which is great, but in brutal honesty, the community is fairly Caucasian and southern, and that’s sadly something that isn’t very arguable. That being said, I’ve always felt welcome by the Vanderbilt community, even being an Asian introvert, so the lack of much diversity has never really been too much of an issue for me. </p>

<p>A lot of people in this thread have asked about Greek life, but I’m not to keen on that department, so I’ll refrain on commenting about something I know nothing about :)</p>

<p>Lastly, for those with academic questions/pre-med questions, I guess I could address a few. Pre-med is incredibly hard here, and don’t let anyone fool you about that. If you come from a high school with a weak science curricula, you will be eaten alive by standard weedout courses, so make sure you start with the basic sciences first. Even then, each basic science course is a challenge, and you will have to be prepared to commit a LOT of time studying for them. </p>

<p>I studied 36 hours for one of my Biology exams, and still only pulled a 92 on it. That being said, if you are not afraid to commit the time, pre-med here is very doable, and A’s are very much attainable. I finished first semester with a 4.0, so it is possible. </p>

<p>Unfortunately, I’ve seen a lot of people succumb to their first semester here, either partying way too much, getting distracted by other things, or a lot of the times, just not putting in enough work into a class. To be a pre-med here, you have to be prepared to give up a lot, but that’s just the way the pre-med life works, and that’s universal to all universities as far as I can tell. </p>

<p>Vanderbilt started out with nearly 60-70% of the Arts and Sciences class as pre-med. There were 600 students taking general biology. It is now second semester, and that number has dramatically dropped, with only 400 or so enrolled in biology this semester. </p>

<p>Ultimately, what I mean to say is, if you are willing to commit a large majority of your free time to working hard rather than slacking off, Vanderbilt is a great place for fruition as a pre-med and science student, but if you begin to slack off, it can eat you alive, and you don’t want to be in a situation where you have to drop the pre-med track. </p>

<p>Hope that helps! Feel free to ask me any questions regarding academia. If you have questions about social life here, I would be the worst guy to ask, since I don’t have one :)</p>

127

<p>Heylo!</p>

<p>Any advice for making it less…terrible?</p>

128

<p>@TheChance
Thank you for your insight. Can you tell me what a typical freshman year schedule of classes would be for a student in the school of A&S?</p>

129

<p>Majors in A&S really don’t require many hours; many classes are picked to satisfy “AXLE” requirements, which is Vandy’s liberal arts core. Students will usually take 6 or maybe 9 hours for their intended major; freshman year, that’s likely to be a math/science course (or both) as well as an “Intro to MAJOR” course. The rest is filled with courses for AXLE, and could literally be anything from and field of study, usually just picked by what sounds interesting and what’s available after all the upperclassmen have enrolled. </p>

<p>In addition, freshman take a 1-hour writing seminar during their first year.</p>

130

<p>What proportion of nashville music woukd you say is country? Like, percentage-wise.</p>

<hr>

<p>There is plenty of country music around town, but there is lots of other music … singer/songwriter, indie, soft rock, rock, even metal. There are so many venues! My D showcased Nashville’s unsigned artists on her radio show, and these were mostly singer-songwriter types. She went to free concerts in the park right across from school, inexpensive concerts at venues like Outside/Inn, Cannery Ballroom, Grimey’s Basement (I think that’s what it is called). She saw lots of current performers at the Ryman, including Mumford & Sons. She saw Conan O’Brien’s free concert at Jack White’s studio. There are a lot of great artists down the road at Belmont, and they are your age. If you want to get plugged into the local music scene, it is fairly easy to do.</p>

131

<p>Hey,</p>

<p>As for advice on making things less terrible, it all comes down to managing your time. I know you’ve heard that before, and so did I before coming here, but it actually is very helpful. Generally, I like to allot myself at least 2 completely free days or so before a test to study and what-not, and I try not to put everything off till the last day unless I can help it. </p>

<p>As for the typical freshman schedule, a normal pre-med schedule in A&S tends to be:</p>

<p>Calc 155/150
Chem 102 with lab (104)
Freshman Writing Seminar
AXLE requirement of choice</p>

<p>My schedule was as follows:</p>

<p>Chem 102 with lab
General Biology (BIOSCI 110) with lab (111)
Intermediate Spanish
Freshman Writing Seminar (required)</p>

<p>Hope that helps. Also, I’d avoid taking two lab sciences simultaneously if I could have a do over. Even though lab is one credit hour, it’s actually 3-4 hours a week, so that’s 8 hours of lab alone with only 2 credits gained. </p>

<p>I took 16 credit hours total first semester, and it felt like I was “in class” a lot more!</p>

132

<p>Thanks Pancaked & TheChance…my son was trying to put together a rough schedule and was asking me about taking Chemistry as well as Biology freshman year so your answer was really helpful. I thought it sounded like a lot but i didn’t really know what was right. Would you have taken Bio or Chem freshman year if you could do it again or does it not matter the order as long as they are not taken at he same time?</p>

133

<p>I’m debating between comp sci and premeded neuroscience…Seems I definitely can’t manage both if I go to Vandy. (Or can I?) Any idea which is harder?</p>

134

<p>Hi,</p>

<p>You DEFINITELY need to take chemistry as a freshman, if you are on the pre-med track. This is necessary because, unlike biology, you need chemistry before you can enter intro organic chemistry, which you’ll NEED to take your sophomore year in order to begin to prepare for the MCAT, which places a solid focus on organic chemistry. </p>

<p>As for biology, if your son feels prepared, don’t stop him from taking it his freshman year as well. Not taking both would be a “preference”, but if you can brute force it, a lot more options will open up for you in terms of sophomore year. Furthermore, it is preferable to take bio alongside chemistry than bio alongside organic chemistry, which is a lot harder. </p>

<p>But once again, this all comes down to how comfortable your son is with the sciences. Coming in from high school, I had about 3.5 years of chemistry, including a semester of orgo, so I was comfortable balancing bio and chemistry, but if your son is not very familiar with upper level chemistry, you may want to choose another track or option. I’d encourage you to discuss this issue with your advisor during the mandatory discussion you must have with him/her over the phone before signing up for classes in July. </p>

<p>Philovitist, I don’t know about balancing the two, as each major is from a different school, so you’ll have to check with the appropriate officials. What I do know is that comp sci major is a lot of work, and neuroscience is a fair amount of work as well, and there isn’t much overlap between the two, which will impede you. If you are sure that you want to be pre-med, I’d advise you to stick to one, so you can focus on it, and maintain a solid GPA. </p>

<p>For all pre-meds, the big thing really does come down to just making sure you keep getting A’s and B’s in your classes (preferably As :slight_smile: ).</p>

135

<p>The first semester is very important for pre-meds. They have weed out classes (chem, bio, calc) and need to adjust to another level of academic rigor. At the same time they need to adjust to college life, the options that freedom brings, homesickness, new room mate, and the temptations of a lot of fun activities going on.
In the weedout classes you have the top 1% of test takers in the world. It’s easy to fall behind if you start off poorly. I would take classes in your area of strenghts first semester.</p>

136

<p>I know that not all of the rooms in the freshman dorms are the same size since they are in many different houses; however, can someone give an idea of the size (ie 10’ X 14’) of the typical room in the Commons? Thanks!</p>

137

<p><a href=“Housing and Residential Experience | Vanderbilt University”>Housing and Residential Experience | Vanderbilt University;

<p>Tons of info in there about square footage, furniture, closet size, etc. It really does vary a lot, even within houses. You may get a corner room that’s a mansion or a shoebox in Gillette. I happened to get a big room and it was literally twice the size of some of my unfortunate friends in Gillette or Memorial! Little rooms are definitely enough space to live in but not great for hosting guests.</p>

138

<p>Thank you for the link to the great info Pancaked. I know this is going to seem like a silly question but how do you students get up onto the lofted beds? They seem pretty high off the ground and in all the pictures I see I don’t see any kind of bunk bed ladder. Is lofted the preferred position for the bed?</p>

139

<p>Really depends on the room. In general, people don’t like having lofted beds, as you can imagine. Really saves space though. </p>

<p>In smaller rooms, people loft them all the way up to fit their desk and drawers underneath or even a futon. In some rooms, this is really the only option. People jump through all sorts of hoops to get into these beds; using chairs, desks, or the headboard to climb up. I know there are ladders available if requested, but it just takes up even more space. You can create a small desk area and have the bed at about shoulder height which isn’t so bad (<a href=“http://www.■■■■■■■■■■/photos/littlewheels/4778360830/[/url]”>http://www.■■■■■■■■■■/photos/littlewheels/4778360830/&lt;/a&gt;). As you can see it wouldn’t be terrible to climb up the back, but it’s certainly not ideal.</p>

<p>As rooms get bigger, people prefer to half-loft so that dressers fit under snugly and the bed is at a reasonable height, to the point where you can just jump into it. I feel this is generally the preferred situation if it’s possible. Some do de-loft completely and just find a way to make everything fit. Really unlikely to fit everything with two de-lofted beds in any room. Roommates often work out arrangements so that the beds are at different heights, and maybe trade after the semester. One half-lofted and one fully-lofted is a good setup if the two are willing to work out an agreement.</p>

<p>I know my roommate and I rearranged our room entirely like 3 or 4 times. You get sick of one setup and want to try something new. It’s a good time.</p>

140

<p>Pancaked,</p>

<p>What if anything can you hang on the wall? I’ve bought our son a canvas print of the beach by our house for his room thinking that we could use one of those 3M removable hangers. Is that allowed?</p>