<p>I want to be a premed at Cornell and I just filled out the tentative schedule that they want us to have. I found out that I go over the 18 credits. Will someone tell me how the average premed schedule compares to my tentative schedule?</p>
<p>I know for certain premeds usually take Bio, Chem, FWS, and PE during freshman year but I'm not sure about Calculus and Spanish. What should I shave off to stay on track yet minimize hours? Please help. Thanks.</p>
<p>Even though I take basic spanish I still have the problem of having 19 credit hours (1 credit hour over the maximum 18). So I was wondering what to do about this excess.</p>
<p>Well I'm actually wondering what course is not really necessary as a freshman so that I won't have to have such a huge load. Thanks for all the help.</p>
<p>I know a lot of people who took both the first year and they work out fine. You won't be alone and if you utilize help/office hours around you, you'll be fine. If you can't handle it, you can always drop one and take it later (one of my friends dropped Chem and is taking it this summer; another one avoided all of his science classes until this year, sophomore year).</p>
<p>Most people don't have your problem because they need only one semester of foreign language to complete the requirement and they need only one semester of calculus because they have AP credit for the first semester. Thus, they simply take foreign language one semester and calculus the other semester.</p>
<p>You have to be a little more sophisticated because you need more semesters of both foreign language and math than most people do.</p>
<p>Maybe you should consider waiting until sophomore year to take calculus.</p>
<p>If you are premed DEFINATELY take bio and chem during your first year. Generally you should take Bio and chem both semesters, with stat and calc in the same year. Soph year (if you are a bio major) you take evolutionary bio (1 sem), and organic chem (2 semesters and 1 semester lab). You need to have taken intro bio and chem to take these. Next during junior year you must take 1 semester of genetics, and two semesters of biochem (unless you do autotutorial, which is supposively easy and only 1 semester). You also have to take a year of physics in there somewhere. I'm taking orgo and phys together and doing evo bio one semester and orgo lab the next. </p>
<p>It's not a big deal to wait to take the math courses, or even the language courses. Stat and Calc 1 are pretty easy. Most CAS premeds I know are waiting to take a language and getting math out of the way while its still fresh.</p>
<p>In case the goddamn key still doesn't work: You can produce the apostrophe character by pressing and holding the ALT key, then typing the numbers 3 and 9. That will give you the apostrophe.</p>
<p>I would hold off on a fifth class until second semester (move either math or spanish to the spring). It's a lot easier to make friends, adjust to college, and get involved in stuff if you're not buried in school work.</p>
<p>And as a reminder, although bio is a 4 credit class, you have a lot of work in lab and lecture. The classes are very much seperated, so you'll have lab tests and you'll have lecture tests, as well as a fairly involved research paper in lab.</p>
<p>How prepared are you for the bio and chem classes?</p>
<p>People who took AP bio and AP chem in high school often take the introductory courses anyway at Cornell. (Bio actually encourages this, and chem doesn't seem to mind.) If you're one of these people -- especially if you got 5s on the AP tests in both subjects -- you might be able to handle more than 18 credits (and the very fact that you took the AP courses in both subjects is a good argument for why Cornell should waive the 18-credit limit for you).</p>
<p>On the other hand, if you didn't take AP courses in these two subjects, you need to realize that some of the people you're going to be competing with in two challenging courses are much better prepared than you are. And that's a good reason not to overload your schedule. Remember, if you're pre-med, you don't just need to take these courses, you need to get good grades in them.</p>