<p>Hi There - We are very excited that our S will be attending Stanford in the fall. We are trying to figure out how best to compliment the recommendations from his advisors with the practical feedback from current students. Any advice you can offer for a potential engineering student this year would be appreciated:</p>
<p>For fall, he's currently looking at:
PWR1
Math 41 or 42
Chem 31A or Phys41
TBD (what would you recommend?)</p>
<p>Secondly, when we look at the 4 year plans outlined in the handbook site most of them start off with 18 credit quarters in the first year which I thought was not recommended. Thoughts on the relevant usefulness of these plans?</p>
<p>What type of engineering is he trying to do? Unless they changed it in the last few years since I went to Stanford, he will have to take IHUM his freshman year. Then he will be assigned a PWR1 quarter during freshman orientation. I would stick with Math 41 or 42 if he isnt comfortable in calculus yet. However I’ve heard lots of bad experiences in Math 42. I would also suggest Chem 31 if he was to do ChemE. Otherwise take Physics 41 in the winter. If he wants to do CS/EE take CS 106A in the fall with Math and IHUM and he will be plenty busy. 3 classes is enough considering the transistion from living at home to living at college. Also let your son plan his own schedule. It will be good for him.</p>
<p>^Nope, IHUM has been replaced by the new “Thinking Matters” curriculum. </p>
<p>[Thinking</a> Matters | Undergraduate Academic Life](<a href=“http://www.stanford.edu/dept/undergrad/cgi-bin/drupal_ual/thinkingmatters]Thinking”>http://www.stanford.edu/dept/undergrad/cgi-bin/drupal_ual/thinkingmatters)</p>
<p>At the outset, every freshman will take at least one of these courses (or more, if he chooses). </p>
<p>+1 to what Marchballer says about students planning their own schedules. During NSO and after, there are plenty of opportunities for freshmen to meet with their advisors to fine-tune their schedule, and also meet other incoming students, faculty and upperclassmen who can give their perspectives.</p>
<p>Zenkoan and Marchballer, thank you for your advice. Planning his schedule thus far has been all his own doing. I just wasn’t sure how to guide him when he asks for my opinion on his selections short of reassuring him that he will have ample opportunities and time to receive all the necessary and relevant inputs he needs from his advisor and other upperclass students when he arrives.</p>
<p>No problem, collegemomnewbie. If your son has his Stanford email address by now, he can also take a look at Courserank to get some sense of what other students say about work loads, time commitments, etc. associated with many courses. (He may have to take some of what he finds there with a grain of salt, and sometimes there may not be enough comments to be of statistical significance w/r/t a particular class, but I usually find some useful data on there. Here’s a link. <a href=“https://www.courserank.com/stanford/main[/url]”>https://www.courserank.com/stanford/main</a> Best of luck to him.</p>
<p>Thanks again for the tip! I’ll pass it along.</p>