<p>I've heard love stories about the form and spine-chilling tales of woe about the latter. I'm majoring in Bioengineering and may be doubling or minoring into Microbiology, so BioE10 seems like it'd be the more logical choice all around, buuuuut...</p>
<p>So, anyone got any advice?</p>
<p>Oh, right, other courses:
Math 53
Chem 4A
BioE 24
Some R&C Class I haven't picked yet.</p>
<p>I am also a bioengineering major and I have signed up for BioE 10 for the upcoming fall semester. From what I heard at CalSO, E10 is a class mostly for people who are majoring in Civil or Mechanical because it covers structure and other traditional engineering concepts. Since bioeng is a non-traditional engineering major, they made a class just for us so that we can cover more biological concepts like anatomy and physiology.</p>
<p>Thing is, I’m already taking Chem Major chem as a non-chem major, and might be stuck in a relatively difficult English class. I’m pretty confident that BioE10 makes a lot more sense from a knowledge standpoint, and if I had no interest in Med School I’d sign up for it without a second thought. However, while I’m not quite as dedicated to medicine as I was a few months ago (largely because I’ve realized that it wouldn’t leave much time for Powerlifting, which isn’t something I plan to stop), I don’t want to rule it out, so GPA is a bit more of a factor than I’d like it to be.</p>
<p>It’s entirely possible that I’d be fine in BioE10 (given that I got into Powerlifting mostly because I’m a huge nerd for anatomy and physiology), but I’d rather not go in without feedback from people (besides the one CalSO student assistant-y person I asked) who’ve taken the course…>.></p>
<p>I am just curious, why are you taking Chem 4A?</p>
<p>Insanity. If it proves to be too challenging, I intend to drop down.</p>
<p>E10 is completely and utterly useless. it is not a prereq for anything despite what the administration says.</p>
<p>I took E10 so I could have more flexibility major-wise (I intend to double major in another engineering). E10 is indeed a waste of time, but it is a very easy class. From what I heard about BioE 10 is that the professors last year were very bad and the course was extremely difficult. I had mixed results about whether the class was worth taking for the knowledge gained, however - many people said they might as well have taken E10 because they didn’t learn anything but their GPA got hit, and other people said the material was interesting and if there were a better professor teaching it would have been good. so try looking up reviews on the professor who is teaching it (although I heard last year they switched professors half way through)</p>
<p>For your schedule, E10 might be a better fit unless you are a real curve killer type of person. For most incoming freshman, Math 53 will be a real shocker unless they’ve already taken calc 2 or 3 at a comparable institution (I’m not talking about a CC or any school that would have a real easy curve), Chem 4A will be brutal (I’ve heard horrible things about it, but have not taken it yet… but <20% A’s = super hard class), and depending on your R&C that might be another big time sink. </p>
<p>I’m not trying to discourage you at all, and I don’t like how CalSo encourages people to take only 3 classes… but you should know what you’re getting into and make sure to plan it out so you’re able to take some classes p/np (none of the ones you listed can be p/np) or you can drop one. But if you’re confident in your math and chemistry abilities, it’d be great to get those out of the way early and you’d be way ahead of the curve.</p>
<p>tl;dr: take e10 and try to find an easier r&c and you should be fine.</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>RE: Math 53, I doubt I’ve taken anything that qualifies as the same, but I know the material pretty well and have a pretty easy time with most math.</p>
<h2>Chem I’m a bit less confident on, but I’m not sure if that’s a consequence of my being a generally less-dedicated student when I last took it or of my actually being a mediocre chemist (hence my willingness to drop down or sideline into OChem - speaking of which, any insight into the wisdom of the latter?).</h2>
<p>Yeah, it appears that the BioE10 professor hasn’t changed and is truly, truly terrible.</p>
<p>Okay, here it goes:</p>
<p>I’m going to be a Soph. (BioE major) in the fall, and I took BioE 10 last fall. I had a lot of friends take E10, so I know both sides of your “issue”, as it were.</p>
<p>1) BioE 10 is tough. The professors are INSANE (especially Conboy - psycho, ex-KGB, basically a class-A b****) and the work is challenging.
2) E10 is a piece of cake. As long as you go to like one or two lectures, you only have one Final (what I mean is, no midterms/whatnot) so it’s a good class to take if you want to torment your fellow BioE’s in BioE10 with. </p>
<p>Flip side:</p>
<p>1) BioE 10’s class information is phenomenol. You’re really on the cutting-edge of BioE research, and as a student doing research right now, it’s a good class to give you the all-around basics of BioE (well, actually just a small portion - let’s face it, a semester is not NEARLY enough to cover everything that’s going in the Biotech industry/world today).
Summary: Prof’s = crap. Class = awesome. Tests = open-book/note. Curve = super generous. A 65% on the midterm last time was a solid A-. 70% was an A.</p>
<p>Is it still at 8 AM? Cause that sucked waking up that early, especially on days that P-Sets were due, cause everyone procrastinates and stays up WAAAY too late finishing those damn things. Very helpful though. Oh, and GO TO DISCUSSION! Ask questions - those GSI’s know their stuff.</p>
<p>2) E10 is boring as ****. Seriously. Oh, and other BioE’s will hate/ridicule/refuse to associate with you. Forever. haha just playin’, but you will get a fair amount of flak if you still decide to take E10 over BioE 10. </p>
<p>Hope this helps.</p>
<p>P.S: Print out the lectures before each lecture. Even if you don’t read them, it is much better than sitting in the computer lab from midnight to 2 AM for 100+ lecture slide pages to print since the printer in your room jammed around page 10…
(since you can use them on the midterm/final)</p>
<p>ROFL ex-KGB.</p>
<p>Yup, basically everthing that Indian said. </p>
<p>Class is pretty tough, prof. Conboy covers the biology part of the cousre and is pretty bad at explaining things clearly. On top of that she has an accent which it made it hard to understand at times, and on top of THAT the class was at 8 AM = very very sleepy = not enough brain power at the moment to try to figure out everything she’s saying.</p>
<p>It gets better though when Kumar takes over for the part that covers the applications of BioE. He’s much better at lecturing.</p>
<p>Yes make sure you print out the notes before class and allow room to write what the professors say on them. I’d also recommend getting a recorder if you couldn’t write everything down, which really helped me.</p>
<p>Upside is that the curves on the exams are CRAZY and they’re open notes. My raw C on the midterm turned into an A+. Final was a breeze.</p>
<p>Problem sets can be a pain, so make sure you do those BEFORE the night before they’re due, and it also really helps to group up with other people in the class to work on them.</p>
<p>And finally, definitely choose BioE10 if you’re gonna do BioE.</p>
<p>Another thing to add.</p>
<p>There’s no book, so you won’t need to spend any money on this class. They professors do recommend that you get a Biology textbook for reference though, which basically means you don’t need it and shouldn’t buy it. I got through the class without it and used Google for any references I needed. The book is pricey as I remember and everything you need to know will be covered in class.</p>
<p>Turns out I can’t do BioE anyway; the lectures conflict with Math 53.</p>