Freshman Academics . . . Help

Colleges and Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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<p>I have so many questions, I've read various threads on this forum and, although many of them have been addressed, I don't feel my concerns have been fully answered. On top of that new questions have arisen while I was reading them.</p>

<p>** Chem, 3.091 vs. 5.111 **
From what I've read, 3.091 seems to be the chem class for "people who don't like chem." This doesn't describe me at all, I love chem and have a decent background (two years in high school, AP Chem being the 2nd). However, I am pondering a Course 3 major, which aligns more with 3.091. </p>

<p>** Chem vs. Bio in the Fall, Which One? **
It seems that the traditional advice is to do Chem in the fall because the teaching is better and more people do it (easier to get study partners). However, Sadoway no longer teaches 3.091, which means that if I choose that as my chem class, the dichotomy in teaching quality will no longer be as great, I believe. I don't think MIT is known for small freshman classes, so I doubt that bio is so small on the fall and chem in the spring that I won't be able to find people to work with.
Also, I have near-0 background in biology and suspect that, for me, biology will be the hardest GIR. Taking bio during P/NR may be the best option academically. Also, I may take early-sophomore standing by the 2nd semester (depending on whether I want to declare my major earlier) which would take me off ABC/NR. Without a NR backing, bio could be dangerous for me.</p>

<p>** Freshman Learning Communities, Concourse and ESG **
Any anecdotes on their value would be appreciated. Any information on how the two vary? I think either one could work for me, and I do like the idea of smaller classes and a tight-knit group they provide. I'm also pondering a Course 8 major, and want to take 8.012. Is 8.012 good quality within FLCs, or is it better done mainstream? In fact, the only issue I have with the FLCs is that they tend to push me towards taking chem in the fall, unless I take 8.012 within them, to meet their minimum class requirements. Also, although the Concourse HASS class could also be used to meet the min requirement, I would rather do the mainstream 21H.001 (How to Stage a Revolution).</p>

<p>** Extra Numbers Classes **
I've fully decided on 8.012, but 18.022 and 5.112 (depending on chem, see above) are intriguing. I, by no measure, think I'm going to be one of the smarter people when I get on campus. If I'm lucky, I'll be average. However, most people seem to suggest challenging yourself during P/NR, so this is where this question arises from. However, I tend to believe that 8.012, in and of itself, should provide enough challenge.</p>

<p>** Freshman Advising Seminar **
Should I do it, or does it absorb too much time?</p>

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<p>“most people seem to suggest challenging yourself during P/NR”</p>

<p>I don’t know who has been saying this but my advice is to forget about them unless you have <em>extensive</em> background in a subject and will be bored silly in the normal class. First semester freshman year is for adjusting to college and getting your GIR’s out of the way. You will have plenty of time to challenge yourself later, most people find each year to be progressively more difficult (but, its easier to motivate yourself because its subjects you actually find interesting). </p>

<p>Also, you will have way more pset buddies/meet more people in the regular classes. I took one extra numbers class and it was just totally not worth it. It was way more difficult than it needed to be, and I couldn’t find anyone to pset with or ask questions if I was confused on something. I barely scraped by in the class because the adjustment to college was overwhelming and the class moved so quickly. I probably would have learned more in the regular class.</p>

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<p>Thank You Empire Ants. I was leaning towards no on extra number classes, but I felt it merited asking. I definitely will be taking 8.012 because I am considering a major in physics, and that should provide enough challenge. I do have a background in chem (not exactly, “extensive”) so 5.111 should be enough, and 3.091 would involve a lot of new subject matter anyways.</p>

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<p>

You already know where I stand on this – chemistry in the spring is just not as good, no matter who’s teaching. Part of that is because most students (almost all) who take 5.111/3.091 in the spring are those who failed it the previous fall. I mean, you can check out the class reviews for the past few years, if you have MIT certificates already – things could have changed.</p>

<p>Bio is not particularly small in the fall, but relatively few freshman take it. Most people who aren’t course 7 take bio either freshman spring or in some later semester. I also think that MIT biology is sufficiently different from high school biology that everybody comes in with very little background, so it doesn’t really strike me as worrisome that you don’t have much background. (I took no AP science classes in high school, for context. :))</p>

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<p>Allow me to again reiterate the Law of the Extraneous Digit: Do not take on an extraneous digit without a very good reason directly related to your background or interests. Given a choice between 8.01, 8.011 (which appears as 8.01 on the transcript), 8.012, and 8.01L, you better have a superb reason to add the extra digit. The same holds true for 18.02, 18.02A, 18.022, 18.023, 18.024, and for all other Institute classes.</p>

<p>There seem to be two common misconceptions of academic life at MIT:</p>

<p>1) “OMG, Everyone who got into MIT is a genius, and somehow, due to some bizarre error at the admissions office, they admitted me. Clearly, I will be unable to keep up, and I’m not even sure I should accept.” </p>

<p>Nope, the admissions office tends not to screw up. If they admitted you, then you can do well at MIT.</p>

<p>2) “Hmmm… Being graded on the curve against other MIT students will clearly not give me enough challenge. I am sure that there is the odd very bright student there, but I am worried that I might not be pushed enough. Maybe I should take classes that MIT students as a group think are very hard. That might be a reasonable challenge.” </p>

<p>There are people for whom this is true, but the odds are very high that you are not one of them. Your classmates are very impressive people, and the classes at MIT are taught to be a challenge to them. Do not worry that you will be “slacking” in any way by taking 8.01</p>

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<p>8.012 and 5.112 are hard. P/NR is nice, but it’s still a pain to retake classes. You also need to leave time to adjust to college life and being a grown-up or something.</p>

<p>My freshman advising seminar took an hour a week at most, and was extremely fun. Your experience will depend very much on the professor you get as an advisor, but I highly recommend.</p>

<p>I figured I would have more trouble getting an A in a math/science class than in a HASS, so I punted my first semester HASS and took both bio and chem in the fall. I’m pretty happy with this decision, though it did eliminate the possibility of sophomore standing. I was still able to take five classes spring semester (one was 9 credits), and my intended major changed halfway through the semester, so I was fine with the credit limit and an advisor not in my major.</p>

<p>If you’re at all a bio nerd, you should take the professors into account in deciding when to take bio. I’m particularly interested in genomics, so 7.012 (focus on genetics and microbiology) in the fall with Dr. Lander and Dr. Weinberg was probably a lot more interesting than 7.013 (focus on human biology, I think?) or 7.014 (focus on ecology) would have been.</p>

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<p>My answers:</p>

<p>1) 3.091 will not give you a clear advantage if you intend to pursue Course 3, so I don’t think that will be too much of an issue. It is more like whether you would like a traditional chem curriculum (think the topics covered in AP Chem) but just enhanced in 5.111/2, or whether you would like a chem class that strays a bit from what you learned in high school (3.091 does semiconductors and crystals, for example).</p>

<p>Also, it is very rare that anyone would say 3.091 is hard - it is actually often considered one of the easiest courses, since if your score >50%, then you pass. This is very possible as long as you put in a decent amount of effort and don’t just blow the class off completely. Thus, having a study group or not would probably not be that big of an issue.</p>

<p>2) I think it is a misconception that bio in the fall is small and chem is large. I definitely think the last few years have seen a shift in the balance between the two - for example either this year or last year 7.012 was so big that not everyone could fit in the same lecture hall the first week of class. Whether you take bio or chem in the fall, you will be able to find study partners, as each class is definitely 200+, guaranteed. (you also have to consider that bio in the spring is split between 7.013/4) Personal bias here, but having tutored all the 7.01x courses, I would say that 7.012 mirrors most closely to what the bio major is like at MIT, so if you are interested in the life sciences and aims to pursue it further, it is not a bad idea to get a head start on it in 7.012. 7.013/4 is more geared (IMO) for people who do not really like bio and just want to get the class out of the way (although this does not equate to “easy A” by any means).</p>

<p>I would say that biology can actually be the most difficult GIR (tied with physics - depending on how good your math and physics skills are coming in), since MIT bio is just SO DIFFERENT from high school biology. I got a 5 on AP Bio with hardly any study but I struggled really hard in 7.012. The pass definitely helped me a lot otherwise it would have destroyed my GPA. Thus, it might not be a bad idea to do Bio under the safety net of P/NR.</p>

<p>Oh, if you want the option of declaring advanced soph standing, make sure you take a CI-H HASS class first semester, otherwise you won’t qualify.</p>

<p>3) We have a bunch of die-hard ESG people in my dorm, and they really enjoy the experience of being able to take the GIRs in a small and intimate setting. It’s nice having a lounge on campus that you can always go over to hang out, and also ESG provides plenty of opportunities for upperclassmen to work as TAs or mentors to the incoming frosh, which I think is cool because generally it’s pretty hard to get TAship in MIT courses because we have active grad departments. My understanding is that despite being in ESG, you can still elect to take some mainstream courses, although I am not sure how many…you should see if you can contact them about that - it’s definitely not simply all ESG or all mainstream.</p>

<p>21H.001 is a great course - and I’m a history major here =p</p>

<p>4) What everyone else said. In terms of managing your workload (after advising frosh for 3 years), I would say, in terms of difficulty: 8.012 >= 18.022 > 5.112. The idea that I get is that 5.112 isn’t necessarily “harder” per se - it just covers more material. 8.012 and 18.022 are legit hard - we have frosh who got Cs in both classes this past semester and barely passed (also, it is real that they do fail freshmen even those taking the extra-numbered classes…whether I agree with this is another story…). It is a pain to have to retake classes, so you need to carefully assess what you can handle when you get here. You can always start out with harder classes and then drop down if you don’t think like you’re keeping up - 8.012 runs parallel to 8.01 for a long time and I was actually one of those that went down from 8.012 to 8.01 after a few weeks…it was fine, just know when you need to drop down and don’t be scared to do it. Like what was said above, too many freshmen think that they’re not “MIT hardcore” enough if they don’t take the extra-numbered classes. This is a dangerous mindset.</p>

<p>5) Take it if you are interested in the subject content. It won’t take you more than an hour or two outside of class per week.</p>

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<p>Thank You for the helpful responses.</p>

<p>I guess I should’ve been clearer in my original post, but I am not interested in life sciences. My ignorance on the subject matter is the result of my apathy, which resulted in me not taking classes in the subject matter. I do recognize, however, that my opinions can easily change in college and once exposed to the material I may become more interested in life science.</p>

<p>@mollie, I’m interested in you saying taking biology in a “later semester.” Does this mean people push bio off freshman year? How does that work out? Is it advisable? I can understand that in a later semester, it could be much easier, since you learn better study habits later in college. However, I’m not sure if classes I would take instead of 7.01x (I would probably take something like 18.06, 6.001, 2.001, or 3.021, major classes) would be easier or harder than bio (a freshman class).</p>

<p>@Mikalye, yep, I’m taking myself out of this mindset. 8.012 should be enough challenge (I’m doing it because I’m really interested in physics). No more than one extra digit class for me.</p>

<p>@Lidusha, I don’t think I could survive with no HASS. I love HASS and 4 sciences sounds like major overload, P/NR or not.</p>

<p>@oasis, If you don’t mind my asking, which dorm do you live in?
Based on your description, 7.013 sounds better for me. Still, bio in P/NR is alluring and I have to debate this some more. My friend, finishing up her freshman year, told me to take whichever one I was worse at during P/NR (she did 7.012 and then 5.111). Glad to see that the chem class I take won’t be as consequential to Course 3 as I thought.
ESG requires 2 classes, my issue is with regards to which ones. I would probably take 18.02 in ESG. For my 2nd class, I could take 8.012 or chem (ESG follows the traditional chem fall, bio spring track). Chem is mainstream with ESG recitations. My worry is if 8.012 meets the needs of a prospective physics major. I wouldn’t want to find out that by taking it outside of mainstream I miss out on something.
Unfortunately, I realized that 21H.001 is scheduled at the same time as many freshman advising seminars I’m interested in :confused: If I’m assigned to one of those, I’ll have to take a different HASS (17.40, US Foreign Policy, also seems good). I’d have to push 21H.001 until a later semester, which is a little disappointing. However, I did discover 21H.142 for the spring, which could still mean a history class my freshman year :D</p>

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<p>

Yes – biology is the only GIR that people commonly take later than freshman year. It’s not really a “freshman” class (I don’t think the majority of people who take it are freshmen), and particularly if you’re not interested in taking any other course 7 classes, it’s not a prerequisite for anything. Many of my engineer friends took it as juniors. (And, I should mention, they did absolutely fine, in part because they had a course 7 upperclassman friend – me – who helped them with their psets and held their hands through studying for exams.)</p>

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<p>I live in iHouse, a cultural house inside of New House.</p>

<p>I took 17.40 - the course is very standard (van Evera taught me four years ago, and he has been teaching that class since wayyyy back). Ravel is a great prof - he’s the French Enlightenment prof : )</p>

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<p>I took both 7.012 and 5.111 last semester, and they were both huge classes. Actually, there were more people for bio than could fit into 26-100, the biggest lecture hall there is on campus. The difference was definitely that 5.111 was almost exclusively freshmen, while a good number of upperclassmen were taking 7.012. Still, we had a 7.012 study group going on in my dorm (my “dorm” consists of only 50 people). My roommate is taking 5.111 right now and she really likes the professors so I don’t think teaching quality is a huge consideration. Fall 5.111 was reasonably well taught, but I’ve had better professors since. I think your opinion on 5.111 will depend on your chem background. For me it was “O.o what’s going on???” for the first part (quantum mechanics), then “are you being serious” when we did stoichiometry and it’s friends, to “yayy fluffy things” when we did orgo.</p>

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<p>I remember reading a blog entry by Mollie recommending that people take bio in spring. However, I believe, like Oasis mentioned, some of the trends back in that day are no longer applicable. For example, 589 people took 7.012 in fall 2010; 605 people took it in fall 2009. Btw, Eric Lander received an impossible rating of 6.6 out of 7.0 by students who took his class in fall 2010 (and the 2009 number was 6.7).</p>

<p>Overall rating: 5.1 (7.012) > 4.7 (7.013) > 4.0 (7.014)
Professor rating: 6.6 (Eric Lander) >>> everybody else</p>

<p>This spring, only 366 took 7.013 and 155 took 7.014 (that is, more people took 7.012 than those who took 7.013 and 7.014 COMBINED). So you’ll definitely be able to find psetmates if you take bio in fall and chem in spring!</p>

<p>Also, it is not true anymore that spring 5.111 is horribly rated. For 2 consecutive years now (I only checked 2 years… lol) spring 5.111 was better rated than fall 5.111 by 0.5 points or so out of the 7.0 scale.</p>

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<p>I don’t necessarily recommend taking 7.01x in the spring, I just recommend considering whether 7.012 (especially freshman fall) is a necessary decision. Most people who are dead-set on taking 7.012 can easily put it off until sophomore fall, when the credit limit doesn’t exist. And most people feel their lives are perfectly complete even without having taken 7.012.</p>

<p>I may have made my own decisions about this “back in that day”, but I’ve also been advising freshmen about course selection since the incoming freshman class was ten years old. I’m not sure I’ve descended into irrelevance quite yet.</p>

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<p>^ I’m a little younger than Mollie (w00, current student!) and I’m still with her on this one. I really recommend taking 5.111 in the fall. I’m also a big fan of 7.012/Lander’s lectures. Even in Course 20 and Course 7, you’re ok taking 7.012 as a first-term sophomore, so that would be my recommended path (though it’s not what I did).</p>

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<p>@Mollie: I’m incredibly sorry if my comment came off as offensive. I just wanted to provide some stats from the last two years as a reference for people. As a prospective course 7/9, I LOVE your blog entries and many of your CC posts/comments. </p>

<p>I have basically worked for Eric Lander @ Broad Institute before, so I might be extremely biased, but I guess my contention is that: </p>

<ol>
<li>It is undeniable that Eric Lander has been consistently better rated than other professors.</li>
<li>7.012 in freshman fall is, as oasis said, probably ideal for people who are just not interested in bio and want to get it out of the way (as soon as possible) and move on with their lives. They get to take it “under the safety net of Pass/No Record.”</li>
<li>For prospective course 7/20 majors who want/need to take intro bio first year, I would personally recommend 7.012. </li>
</ol>

<p>PS. I never thought you were irrelevant either!</p>

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<p>for course 10, would it be alright if I took 7.012 in the fall with Lander and 5.111 in the spring (I can’t find who teaches) freshman year? I like chem a lot more than bio, but I haven’t taken chem in over a year. Also, I have a better background in chem.</p>

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<p>@NginEar: I believe you’ll be fine. It’s a better idea for you to take chem (in which you have a strong background) in spring with A/B/C/No Rec as it’ll factor into your GPA, whereas bio/7.012 won’t.
Spring 5.111 will be taught by A. Klibanov and E. Taylor, the latter of whom is consistently well rated.</p>

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<p>I’m not offended, you just have to understand that this question comes up every year – freshmen convinced that the world will end if they don’t take 7.012 freshman fall – and I sort of feel like a broken record pointing out that it’s atypical to intentionally take 7.012 in the fall and 5.111 in the spring. I mean, I would suggest taking both 5.111 and 7.012 in the fall and putting off a HASS until the spring over taking 7.012 freshman fall and 5.111 freshman spring, which is also a possible route. Or even, for heaven’s sake, auditing 7.012 in the fall if you’re so convinced that you can’t live without hearing lectures from Lander.</p>

<p>As far as GPA protection goes, I would be very surprised if the average final grade given in 7.012 is lower than the average grade given in 5.111. If you’re doing poorly in 7.01x, the danger is that you’ll get a B. If you’re doing poorly in 5.11x, the danger is that you will get a C/D or fail.</p>

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<p>Mollie, I heard that many students don’t take more than 3 science/technical classes per semester because it’s really demanding. Is that true for freshman classes as well?</p>

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<p>I agree that taking 7.012 and 5.11x concurrently in fall is an interesting combination and definitely worth considering. </p>

<p>As far as “safety/GPA” discussion goes… It is not uncommon for incoming freshman to either 1) have taken both AP bio and AP chem (or otherwise have strong backgrounds in both bio and chem); or 2) have taken an advanced chem class but not a bio one. </p>

<p>For these two types of students (i.e. who won’t “do poorly” in chem), it IS “safer,” I would say, to have spring 5.01x grade factored into their GPA than the 7.013/7.014 grade–simply because 5.011 is basically a slightly harder version of AP Chem (with almost identical topics/chapters) whereas intro bio at MIT covers more stuff not found in AP Bio or equivalent. I think that’s what Oasis meant when he said: “The pass[/no record] definitely helped me a lot otherwise it [intro bio] would have destroyed my GPA. Thus, it might not be a bad idea to do Bio under the safety net of P/NR.”</p>

<p>STILL, it is always a good idea to decide which bio to take based on YOUR own interests. If you want to learn more about genetic/genomic approaches, 7.012 might be ideal, whereas 7.013 will introduce you to interesting stuff about human biology and cancer, and 7.014 has an emphasis on ecology.</p>