First year course-load

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Chicago ✅
1

<p>I would really appreciate it if some current students could respond with details of their first year course-loads. If you could list the courses that you took and what you thought of the work load that would be great. </p>

<p>This is my plan as of now:</p>

<li><p>Three course Mathematics sequence; hopefully the 16100-16200-16300 sequence</p></li>
<li><p>Three course Physics sequence; hopefully the 14100-14200-14300 sequence</p></li>
<li><p>Three course Humanities sequence; most probably “Philosophical Perspectives on the Humanities”</p></li>
<li><p>First two quarters: Either the Biology or the Civilization Studies requirement.
In the third quarter I would like to take the “Mathematical Methods in Physics” course.</p></li>
</ol>

2

<p>hey badman</p>

<p>i have never taken a lab science course here (and most likely never will -_-), so i can't say too much about how hard of a courseload physics will be. but i think that you will have to commit at least 2 hours of lab a few times a week. perhaps someone who has taken a science course here can elaborate here!</p>

<p>i've heard that philosophical perspectives is one of the tougher hum courses, and although taking hum and civ is definitely possible and surviveable, it will be pretty difficult. </p>

<p>my first year schedule is as follows:</p>

<p>autumn:
hum (media aesthetics)
calc 152
bio topic course (biology of gender)
french 203</p>

<p>winter:
hum
calc 153
french 204
civ (music in western civilizations)</p>

<p>spring (current schedule):
french 207 (intro to french lit)
civ
intro to microeon 198</p>

<p>i have to honestly say that i felt most stressed out for the first half of my spring quarter although i was only taking 3 courses. in fact, i never really felt stressed out or overwhelemed during the autumn or winter quarters even though i was taking 4 courses. </p>

<p>workload really depends on which professor you have and which courses you take. so my workload may vary vastly from yours.</p>

<p>expect your hum and civ to be reading and writing intensive. during my winter quarter, i had a week where i had an essay due for french, civ, and hum in addition to 3-4 essays that i needed to write for the study abroad program. that was kind of a death week for me but i somehow miracously didn't feel like i was dying and got it all done. (well i had no choice lol)
and usually attendance/participation counts a percentage of your grade (anywhere from 10-30%, based on my experiences so far), so keep that in mind as well! : )</p>

<p>i actually felt really swamped and stressed out this quarter because all 3 of my courses are reading heavy (civ, not so much bc for some of the secondary articles, i can just skim through it because for my class since you just need a general idea of the authors, not a specific passage to analyze... unless one of othe articles you read is one that you need to use for a paper.) but french 207 was an insane amount of reading (and im wondering why am i a french major?). and econ is quite a bit of reading and it takes me forever to understand and imprint the concepts in my mind... but the material isn't really that bad at all and studying with my friends for upcoming tests is actually.... FUN!!! but that might just be me. :P</p>

<p>as for calc, my teacher gave out very little homework (around 6-8 problems due per class) and the tests were easier than i expected. there wasn't anything extremely tricky on my tests (although there were some questions where you did have to think).
but some of my friends in the calc 150s had a LOT of problems for hw and the tests were really difficult. i think i was just really lucky to have a nice not-as-workload-intensive teacher. </p>

<p>two of my friends were in calc 160s but dropped down to calc 150s. but then some of my other friends liked their calc 160s class and they weren't complaining about it... so i have some mixed opinions but i don't really know too much about the course itself -_-;;</p>

<p>i took my bio topic course in the autumn quarter. since it was a topic course and not the core bio course, i had no labs. all my class did was just read articles and summarize them for a grade and take online quizzes that were open note. we had a final paper and final project, and no tests.
but i know some friends in other bio topic courses who had a few tests and a final exam. </p>

<p>but keep in mind that workload really depends on which teacher you have.
i think your current idea of your courses is quite manageable, although it'll keep you really busy!! it's really all about time management since you only have 2 (or 3) classes per day so you have a lot of time in the day to get your work done if you plan accordingly... (although there are some days when it's 9PM and i wonder what have i done all day long... oops!)</p>

<p>i also can give info about foreign language courses if anyone is interested...</p>

<p>and if any of you have specific questions, feel free to ask me/message me! i can give especially helpful input on the courses that i've taken though.. so if any of you are especially interested in taking media aesthetics, music in western civilizations, french, calc 150s, or the bio topic course i took... let me know!!!</p>

3

<p>Honors Calc and Honors Physics is tough, but it's definitely possible. You're planned schedule looks fine. You'll learn more once you're on campus. You'll have group advisor meetings before your individual advisor meeting to register.</p>

4

<p>there's also a neat-o website </p>

<p>evaluations.uchicago.edu which lets you know what other people thought of certain courses/professors, so when you're deciding on which section or professor to take the course from, or if you want an idea of what a course is like, this website helps! (at least for me!)</p>

5

<p>(it's locked if you don't have your CNET ID)</p>

<p>it's a lot of work, obv, but it should be a lot of fun, and if the sequences end up being difficult for you, you can drop down to a lower level quite easily. PhilPer is a great class-- I wasn't in it, but all of my friends who were in it really liked it.</p>

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<p>Evaluations is purposefully closed to non-students in order to better ensure complete student honestly.</p>

7

<p>lame! As a high school student, I used to check out course evaluations all the time. It was part of my decision to come here, actually.</p>

8

<p>wait....would taking SOSC...specifically Classics of Social n Political Thought and a HUM sequence...most likely Human Being and Citizen along with Analysis (normal) and the econ 20000-20100-20200 sequence be manageable?</p>

<p>So a quarter would be something like..
SOSC 15200
HUM 12400
MATH 20300
ECON 20100</p>

9

<p>Thanks for the report cookiemonkey! Unfortunately I don't think I'm really interested in any of the courses you've taken.</p>

<p>You said that taking HUMA and CIV concurrently may be a bit difficult, but if I don't take CIV concurrently with HUMA I will have to take CIV concurrently with SOSC which is probably just as tough. .</p>

<p>Anyway, I'll definitely check out the evaluations website as soon as I get my CNET id.</p>

10

<p>you're welcome badman!</p>

<p>SOSC and CIV at the same time will be tough, but i've heard that sosc essays were easier to write than hum essays because you don't necessarily analyze a specific passage like you'd do with hum. i heard that you have to just understand the author's main points and then use them to come up with a coherent thesis. but that's just what i've heard and i've read one person's sosc essay and it seemed to do just that.... but other sosc classes may be different. </p>

<p>and some people take sosc their 2nd years, and then take civ their 3rd year. or they study abroad and get their full civ credit while abroad. i heard that most people choose to study abroad their 3rd year but 1st years can also study abroad (some are already this quarter, and i will be in the summer). so you don't HAVE to necessarily take sosc and civ at the same time. : )</p>

<p>annnd im off on a tangent here : P</p>

<p>akx, that looks like a really tough courseload, as you will most likely have lots of problem sets for econ (and maybe/probably math 203) while having to keep up with the writing and reading for sosc and hum, esp since HBC is quite challenging and/or demanding, from what i've heard. (but again, im sure it'll depend on which teacher you have). i don't necessarily think it's an impossible schedule, but it'll most likely be a very demanding one. really it's all about time management because after classes end (usuallly around 3 or 4 at the latest? mine ends at 10:20 AM on tues and thurs!! yet sometimes i get nothing done on those days... oops!) you have the REST of the day free, which theoretically translates to getting work done (but doesn't necessarily work out that way! :P) so with a pretty strong work ethic, i think it'd be manageable IMHO. if anyone chooses to disagree with me... feel free to do so : P</p>

11

<p>Akx, the econ sequence is generally taken in second year. There was talk that the intro econ courses may be required prereqs for the 200s. A number of first years start the econ sequence spring on first year, which is a new offering. </p>

<p>Badman, advisors will tell you to complete the core in your first two years, but you definitely don't have to do that. It used to be quite customary to do hum first year, sosc the second year, and civ the third year. With civ study abroad options, civ can be completed in a single quarter. Hum is basically always taken first year. It's just this past year that taking hum and sosc concurrently became more normal. The expectation of completing all or almost all of the core by third year is new this year, as well. </p>

<p>I think that sosc essays tend to be more difficult than hum essays because sosc essays almost always deal with more difficult, complicated, or dense material than hum essays. It's rare to hear about someone having trouble understanding a text in hum (let's make an exception for Kant and a few others), but it's common to have trouble grasping concepts and nuances in sosc. Since sosc was orginally intended for second year students, the class is usually more demanding than hum, which is intended for first year students. I'm currently in hum, sosc, and civ, so I think I can give you a rough comparison of the three based on my own experiences.</p>

12

<p>cookiemonkey -- did you place out of the lab portion of the sciences through AP/IB credit?</p>

13

<p>I've learned a lot from all the posts above. A big thanks to all the seniors. I've 2 questions here.
1. You have mentioned the level of difficulty of the sosc and hum sequences. How about the course load in civilisation&arts? Are there a lot of essay assignments as well?
2. How much French one is supposed to master in order to get into the 200++ french classes? like how many yrs usually the students in that class have learned thye language?
Thanks again!</p>

14

<p>They're all difficult, but they're all manageable. The level of difficulty really depends on your own strengths and weaknesses, the professor, and the particular class. I was just saying that sosc, before this current year, was almost all second years or above, so in my experience it requires and assumes a certain level of ability and experience that the hum courses don't. I also think that the material can be difficult to undestand, which is rarely the case in hum. The number of essays depends on the professor. Some core classes have two, others have four. It's generally in that range, though. </p>

<p>I placed into 201 in Spanish with four years of poor high school Spanish--no AP, missing almost all of the listening portion of the exam (I zoned out for the beginning and the found myself lost haha), but a natural facility with languages in general.</p>

15

<p>akx06- are you planning on majoring in math and/or econ? if so, i would, first of all, recommend trying to get into honors analysis (i'm in regular analysis as a first year and it's too easy), and second of all, if you are not as "gifted" in writing papers/reading hundreds of pages a night as you are at mathematical stuff, then i would REALLY recommend waiting until your second year to take sosc..that's what most people do. i am definitely more math oriented, and i tried to take hum and civ at the same time the first week, and i had to drop civ after the first class because i knew i couldn't handle the reading/amount of papers. advisors will tell you to finish your core QUICKLY, but there's really no harm in saving civ for third year and sosc for second, for example. as far as econ goes, i would recommend waiting until spring if you are really interested in it. victor lima teaches it in the spring and he's GREAT.</p>

<p>badman- GOOD choice on philisophical perspectives..it's the best one in my opinion</p>

<p>viva- civ classes can be just as wirting intensive (or more so) as hum and sosc, it depends which one you take. the arts classes really vary, so i would ask your advisor when you get here and read course evaluations. i took IB french in high school (standard level) and placed into french 202...i had taken 4 years of french.</p>

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<p>Well, to be honest, the only reason I'm taking the Philosophical Perspectives course is because I might want to major in Philosophy; this course will provide me with a very good foundation for that.</p>

17

<p>Oh, just to clarify, I am a transfer...with the intro econ's done...and therefore also need to cram more things into my schedule.</p>

<p>Also, I got my transfer evaluation today...and oddly they gave me credit for the SOSC core.....and Differential Equations? Pretty random...everything else was dumped into electives. I only have 20 courses I need to graduate...and I would be starting my 2nd year. </p>

<p>My question is: Will I be missing out if I don't take SOSC Core? I was actually really looking forward to it, but are there more interesting options</p>

<p>Oh, and to be honest, I LOVE classes like SOSC and HUM...and I love reading and writing paper. I just think the beauty of Mathematics is much more interesting, and I find economics to be a very demanding science that forces one to really think critically. Hence, the choice of majors =)</p>

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<p>taking math methods for physics and physics 143 is pointless. theres no reason to ever take math methods for physics, really. even if you drop to 130s and still wanna major in physics you ought to just learn vector calc on your own. its really easy.</p>

19

<p>Yeah, I just checked and you're right. I don't need to take the Math 22000 (Introduction to Mathematical methods in Physics) course but I still need to take Physics 22100 (Mathematical methods in Physics). In the catalog, every physics course after general physics has the mathematical methods course listed as a prerequisite. In fact, the 22100 course is listed under the requirements for a Physics major.</p>

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<p>Oh, OK, Akx. You should look into taking sosc since you're interested in it. I also think that if you don't take sosc you'd feel left out since most students have familiarity with a lot of the same authors commonly read in sosc. You sound as if you want to take it, so try to fit it in.</p>