Harvey Mudd HASS Core

<p>I am a senior coming from a religious school in the Bay Area, CA. It's pretty big for a private high school, about 400 in my graduating class. I have broad interest in the MSET fields; my strongest subject of those is mathematics, but my interests tend more towards the practical than the theoretical, so math will probably end up a strong subordinate to whatever I choose as a career. As such, I'm planning on majoring in math as an undergrad, with an eye towards exploring science and engineering fields for a potential career path and/or passion.</p>

<p>Right now, Harvey Mudd is my top choice for this coming fall; however, I'm concerned about the number of required courses in the humanities and social sciences. I greatly enjoy classes in those subject areas--my favorite class from high school was probably Faulkner Seminar last semester--and my writing is fairly high-quality (IMHO). However, I produce such papers very slowly: I have something of a block when it comes to thesis papers in these areas. (It's a long story.) So I was a little worried to see that HMC requires 12 semesters of courses in these areas, definitely on the high side for the undergraduate experience. For comparison, my second choice, Cornell, only requires 5.</p>

<p>Does writing represent an onerous challenge or time sink for Harvey Mudd students? To what degree is it possible to control the amount of writing one does for these classes? Is it necessary to do so?</p>

<p>Thanks for taking the time to read this.</p>

<p>Except for the first humanities course, writing can easily be avoided if you choose to. Of the 6 hums Ive taken, Ive only had to write actual essays for 2 of them.</p>

<p>Just out of curiosity, how much writing is there in the first Hum course?</p>

<p>Basically three essays of medium length.</p>

<p>wow… three… that’s nothing.
I wrote like 5 for my current senior English class.
And it’s a trimester too!</p>

<p>Next year, they’re taking the humanities out of the Hum 1 class (the inhumanities?) and trying a more multi-disciplinary approach. They’re running pilot classes right now, and the people in the pilot sections seem to like it better than those in the non-pilot sections. The upshot of this is that your Hum 1 class will have more of the kind of writing you’ll be doing in your major classes, and none of the epistemology nonsense I’m dealing with in my Hum class.</p>

<p>

On the other hand, if you decide to study epistemology instead, you’ll have none of that science nonsense. :)</p>

<p>I love epistemology and ontology! The best part about them is that even if you KNOW how the universe and everything (knowledge, thought process, etc) came to be, no one would ever believe you…</p>

<p>whoa, swingy head syndrome from the metabolic inclusion of hydroxyl groups on a certain quasi-hydrogenated hydrocarbon with degree 2.</p>

<p>I think epistemology would be interesting for an intro hum course. then again i like philosophy ha.</p>

<p>^Rocket DA, I guess i’m a little slow. Totally did not get your joke.</p>

<p>Did you have a brain freeze from a slurpie or something haha? I’m so stupid.</p>

<p>he’s took a drink of alcohol</p>

<p>ahhh okay. ha sorry :X</p>

<p>swingy head syndrome: it means as it is said. he’s dizzy
hydroxyl group is -OH. Organic compounds with -OH are considered alcohol. ex)methanol CH3OH</p>

<p>^ at first i skimmed over it and the first sight of chemistry i was like…eh… </p>

<p>buy yeah. i know hydroxyl is -OH. i was just being stupid. Got it when you told me what it meant. : p</p>