<p>I’ve just received a bunch of forms from the Dean’s office. Among them is an application form for Freshman Residential Seminar, and after reading through it, I’m really intrigued. I think I’m going for the FRS101 Interpreting Human Experience, but I need more information and opinions from current Ephs who are now participating, or have participated in FRS. I’ve got three specific questions,</p>
<li>Where do FRS-ers live? Frosh Quad or Missions?</li>
<li>In practice, is it some sort of a clique that isolates itself from other first-year students? In other words, do FRS-ers interact with other Ephs?</li>
<li>I read from the introduction sheet that some people say it’s a “disturbing” academic experience in that most people are prepared to be really argumentative. Do people feel competitive? </li>
<li>How heavy is the workload at FRS?</li>
</ol>
<p>Please contribute if you know anything about FRS. Many thanks!</p>
<p>It was specified somewhere that FRS was term-long(fall), thus if I'm not wrong, there's no one attending FRS presently; however, anybody's insight might be crucial in helping us decide. I'm actually in the same situation, interested in the same course and asking the same questions.</p>
<p>i was also pretty interested. from what i understand, it's like any normal class with the only difference being that you have the opportunity to be in an entry with those classmates and extend the learning experience. my only concern is what building the frs students are placed together in.<br> is it frosh quad or missions??</p>
<p>One important aspect of FRS (not necessarily a positive or negative) is that your entry will consist of people who self-selected to take whatever class you're taking. This may or may not be a noticeable effect, depending on the class: when I did FRS a few years ago, the class was the fairly generic Interpreting Human Experience (which is actually a really good class; I think it's being offered again this year and would recommend it) and our entry was fairly normal. I've heard that in some past years, the class has been Religion 101, which garnered FRS something of a reputation as the "weird" entry because the kids who chose to take it were disproportionately religious, non-drinkers, and non-athletes compared to the rest of the population. That reputation might linger slightly, but I don't think it's a big deal these days; I haven't heard anything particularly odd about this year's FRS entry (which I actually think was Religion 101 again).</p>
<p>I think one of the FRS sections offered next year is a class called "Perspectives on Sex". I'm sure it's a great class, but I'll be surprised if the people that self-select to take that class are representative of the general student body. I also imagine that it must be slightly strange to have detailed discussions about sex with the people you live with on a daily basis, and that might have some effect on the social dynamic of the entry. Again, this could be good or bad, depending on your individual tastes, but it's something to think about.</p>
<p>And, to answer your questions more directly:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>One entry will be in FQ, one in Mission. I don't think it's been decided yet which is which; if it has, the JAs don't know about it.</p></li>
<li><p>My entry was no more a clique than any other entry (which is to say, not very much, although the entry system does cultivate a certain mild level of insularity). Historically speaking, I've been led to believe that some FRS entries have been more cliquish, although as I said above, this probably depends a lot on the specific class being taken.</p></li>
<li><p>FRS is not competitive at all as far as grades go (I have no idea how well most of my entrymates did); which is typical of all Williams classes. You do learn more about your entrymates opinions than you otherwise might, which can lead to issues if someone says something in class that you find offensive - misogyny vs. feminism and atheism vs. evangelicalism were probably the biggest sticking points in our class. Overall, though, I didn't find the experience nearly as "disturbing" as some other classes I've taken (philosophy 102, for example). </p></li>
<li><p>The workload is comparable to any other low-level seminar class, i.e. pretty light as far as writing-intensive classes go. We probably had to write about 20 double-spaced pages over the course of the semester.</p></li>
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<p>could you please post as soon as possible if you find out which frs seminar is being housed in which area? i'm interested, but definitely want to be in mission.</p>
<p>Last I heard, Interpreting Human Experience will be in Mission (Mills 2) and the SexRS will be in Frosh Quad (Williams F). I'm not really sure how reliable this information is, but it seems reasonable, because Mills 2 is inherently gender imbalanced. I hope that helps.</p>
<p>I don't live in Mission, so I'm not sure if I'm exactly right on all the details, but basically, most Mission entries have four long hallways that each share a bathroom, and each of these hallways generally houses only a single gender. In Mills 2, one of the hallways is taken up by a machine room or something, so it only has three branches. I think that this year two of them had guys, and only one had girls (I'm not sure), but it's hard to say what they'll do next year.</p>
<p>In the past, one hallway has been all male, and the other two mixed (with one predominantly female, including doubles). The entry as a whole has pretty much been gender-balanced, though.</p>