<p>At most colleges, it takes 2 years to complete Calc I - IV. WPI does it in one year. A sample ECE curriculum from WPI's website also shows General Physics being taught in the freshman year at the same time as the Calcs. If a freshman is coming in with Calc AB and Physics BC experience (and not opting out of any WPI courses with AP) how hard is it to take these courses all in the same year? Do you have enough time to absorb the material?</p>
<p>My son will be a freshman at WPI this fall, so I don't have much "inside scoop," but their schedule is like that because of the term schedule they're on. The kids are taking fewer courses in a more concentrated time period. (They are, however, spending the same number of hours on a course as a "regular" semester system.) </p>
<p>They claim it pretty much eliminates procrastination and they like that in between terms they are stress free. They also claim that the material is fresh in their mind when the final rolls around. they also like only juggling 3 courses at a time, rather than 4.</p>
<p>I'm not completely sold on the idea, but my kid thinks it's fine. We'll see!</p>
<p>Weenie,
I haven't seen any negative comments about the 7-week term format and I think it's been this way for years. Usually if something is really bad there's a comment somewhere online about it. </p>
<p>Did you son get to choose his profs or just his courses for his first term?</p>
<p>Momhippo:</p>
<p>He hasn't registered for courses yet, and I don't know if he'll be able to choose the section or not. I'll let you know when it's done.</p>
<p>I suppose it's possible that the kids who hate the 7-week terms either transfer or flunk out. Maybe it's one of those self-selecting things.</p>
<p>momhippo:</p>
<p>From what I've seen in other colleges, most colleges only have Calc I - III, and there is no IV.
From what I know, based on course descriptions and current students, the equivalence is like this:
Other Colleges' Calc I = WPI Calc I + II
Other Colleges' Calc II = WPI Calc III
Other Colleges' Calc III = WPI Calc IV
I believe they split up Calc I in that way to make adjusting to college easier for incoming freshmen, but that is just my guess. At WPI, Calc I is for differentiation and Calc II is for integration, whereas those two are combined into just Calc I at most other colleges, to my knowledge. Other colleges' Calc III and WPI's Calc IV are multivariable calculus.
(I will be attending WPI this fall as a Freshman)</p>
<p>Ohh and another thing, course selections are done in June; they give us between June 1st at 7am until midnight of the last day in June to register online. They allow you to pick courses and sections as well, and it ends up written in this format:
MA1021-A02
The first half being the course, and the second being the the term (A in the example) and the section number. Here is a list of all the different courses and sections, for anyone who wants to see it:
<a href="http://www.wpi.edu/Admin/Registrar/Rainbow/%5B/url%5D">http://www.wpi.edu/Admin/Registrar/Rainbow/</a>
They also made a webpage for the purpose of helping incoming freshmen chose their A and B term courses:
<a href="http://www.wpi.edu/+designs%5B/url%5D">http://www.wpi.edu/+designs</a></p>
<p>Weenie: Freshman retention rate is 92%. It looks like most of them like it enough to stay, which is a good thing since it would be hard to transfer credits since WPI's terms are so different. I got stung by this decades ago when I left RIT after 2 quarters. </p>
<p>Huanlai: Thanks for the info! I see what you mean about Calc I being split up. Does everyone try to register at the same time, or is it prioritized by seniority or whatever?</p>
<p>I just finished my freshman year at WPI and personally I love the 7 week terms. Finishing the Calc courses within a year really isnt too bad. I would be done with my physics this year too, but I took physics c-term, and decided not to take physics II d term because I wanted to take the intro course for my major instead. As far as absorbing the material, if you go to class and tkae the time out of class to study and go to office hours or MASH (math and science help) then its not really hard to absorb everything.</p>
<p>The terms definitely get rid of any procrastination habits. If you think about it, by the time the 3rd week of classes rolls around you're almost half way done, you really can't put anything off and trust me you realize it FAST.</p>
<p>Thanks for that post Princess. It makes me feel a little more optimistic!</p>
<p>Princess, What do you think of the faculty so far? Do they seem to care about the undergrads?</p>
<p>Honestly it varies from professor to professor. A few of the professors I've had didnt go out of their way to help out students, but others have gone above and beyond my expectations. The one generalization I can make is that if you make the effort to go to office hours or schedule appointments to get extra help, the professors will help out a lot.</p>
<p>If you got a 4 or 5 on the Calc AB, you should be able to skip Calcs I (derivatives) and II (integration). If you got a decent score on Calc BC, you would have been able to skip Calc III (series). That's the killer one, I hear. I'm lucky I didn't have to take it. Calc IV is multivariable calculus. If you know the concepts of the first three (and do the homework), you should be fine.</p>
<p>Which test is Physics BC again? I think I took the Physics C AP, and opted out of 1110 (mechanics). 1120 is intro to electromagnetic stuff, 1130 is 20th century physics (Einstein-o-rama), and 1140 is oscillations and waves. I don't know if 1111 is 1110 with calculus (the "honors" course) and 1121 is the same for 1120. I believe Professor Koleci teaches these, and she is awesome.</p>
<p>As for those worried about professors caring for undergrads, there really aren't that many grad students here. WPI is an undergraduate university. I also it was recently ranked number 1 in the nation for student-faculty interaction. I certainly haven't had any problems.</p>
<p>7-week terms? Couldn't live without them. I'm kind of sad I won't be able to have them in grad school.</p>
<ul>
<li>A Rising Senior Physics/Math major</li>
</ul>
<p>Tigrael, There is no Physics BC. It was a typo-- should've been Physics B&C APs. My son won't have Calc AP credit. He opted for regular Calc class instead-- same material as AB but not as rushed since no AP test. </p>
<p>Have you always taken 3 courses per 7-wk term? Have the courses you've wanted to take always been offered that term or next?</p>
<p>I have always taken three classes a term with three exceptions:</p>
<p>a) when I take a gym class as well (usually two hours a week; no big deal)
b) when I took a consortium class in A term one year, in which case I had to sign up for three additional classes in B term as it only counted for A-term, yet ran 14 weeks (consortium classes really screw WPI kids over, unfortunately)
c) when I only signed up for two classes (this was the C term after the afore-mentioned B-term, during which I decided not to continue taking Japanese and never really signed up for another class)</p>
<p>Intro classes for the department are usually offered either every term or every other term. Other classes are usually in the same term every year. There are a few courses offered every other year.</p>
<p>I've had few problems with scheduling conflicts. In the intro classes there are usually several sections to choose from, and departments (at least physics and math) don't seem to schedule interesting classes to be at the same time.</p>
<p>If you cannot get into a class that you want because it is already filled, talking to the professor (and having a good reason, like it messing up your schedule or really really wanting to take the class) works a lot of the time. Sometimes there are fire codes, but usually if enough people request it the class will be moved to a larger room. You tend to run into these problems less and less as you become an upperclassman, and I've only personally had to do this once.</p>
<p>I went to WPI a number of years ago. I loved the 7 week terms. Pretty concentrated, but it really works. I would make serious consideration abuot taking your AP credits for calculus at WPI or any engineering school for that matter. Many kids have gotten hurt because they took the credit and found that they didn't learn in the appropriate methodology or as completely as the rest of the curriculum expected. At that point they were really hosed. be careful with that</p>