<p>I'm the kind of person who like to plan stuff out in advance, even when it's unecessary.</p>
<p>Beyond my science core (8.012, 18.02, 7.012) I'm having issues picking my HASS class. I narrowed it to the following 2:</p>
<p>21H.001 - How to Stage a Revolution (12 credits, CI-H)
freshman advising seminar (6 credits)</p>
<p>-or-</p>
<p>21F.471 German 1 (9 Credits)
21F.076 Globalization (9 Credits, CI-H)</p>
<p>I am really interested in 21H.001, but I also really want to learn German. I believe I could take 21H.001 in the fall and then take 21F.401 (German 1, 12 credits) during IAP. Is this recommendable? Would the IAP class teach me the basic language skills as well as the full semester? Is it too intense? (it alone reaches the IAP freshman credit limit) I would like to take German 1 during 1st semester or IAP because that would allow me to take 4 semesters of German by the end of my sophomore year and then do MISTI the summer between sophomore and junior years. </p>
<p>Also, if I take German in IAP then I would forgo learning a programming language (Matlab or C++, I already know the basics of Python and Java) during this time. Will this lack of programming experience be a detriment later on? Could I pick up useful programming on my own or through UROP and other classes?</p>
<p>Additional questions, how many semester of German are necessary before doing MISTI and is it recommendable to do MISTI between junior and senior year?</p>
<p>Why not take German I-IV freshman and sophomore years, then take 21H.001 at some other point when you have an open HASS slot? </p>
<p>I am sort of biased against taking a 12-unit class during freshman IAP, unless it’s one of the classes that spills over into IAP like 18.02A or 8.01L. As you’re saying, IAP would be a great time to learn a programming language. At this point, you don’t know whether you need to take IAP as a time to regroup and prepare yourself for the upcoming semester, and it would suck if you made a big plan depending on taking German during IAP and then actually got to IAP and realized you needed a break. </p>
<p>The IAP language courses definitely do cover the same material as the term courses, but they’re quite intense. </p>
<p>I would also encourage you to think about taking 5.111/2 instead of 7.012 during freshman fall. 5.111 in the spring is a much smaller class (most of your future friends and pset buddies will be taking 5.111/2 in the fall), and is annually poorly-reviewed. 7.012 is a great class, and you could always take it sophomore fall unless you’re thinking of a course 7 major, but 7.013 covers basically the same material. IMO, the tradeoff between 7.012 and 7.013 is much more favorable than between fall 5.111/2 and spring 5.111.</p>
<p>I actually want my chem class to be 3.091 because I’m interested in Materials Engineering. Not sure if this affects your advice.</p>
<p>Most people I’ve met have advised me to take whichever subject (bio/chem) I’m weaker at during first semester because of P/NR. I can say that while I do love chemistry, I have disliked the little biology I have been exposed to (it has always seemed like a history class in its style to me, and since I love history and have never been attracted to bio, it has always seemed better to take history classes and has made bio classes seem pointless to my personal interests); I know the class will be difficult for me due to the fact that I have a weak background and my disinterest in the subject matter. Let’s just say, at this point in time, I see myself getting a C (if I’m lucky) in Bio while getting a B in Chem and I would rather get the C during P/NR.</p>
<p>What about pushing German back to sophomore/junior year? This is starting to seem ideal, but at the same time, it will interfere with MISTI, probably pushing it back to the summer between junior/senior year. The downside to this, I see, is that I see myself possibly involved in major research at that point in time and it will be hard to leave that to go start a new project elsewhere, and then coming back to research that I had, effectively, abandoned prior to the summer. Aren’t most research projects done continuously? Is it detrimental to have gaps, summer-long ones, in your research? </p>
<p>It seems to me the best time to do MISTI is between sophomore and junior years but the best time to start foreign language class is sophomore year. On the plus, I am fluent in Spanish and could do MISTI Spain, or the upcoming Chile, but I would rather do it in a language I am trying to learn, not one I have mastered.</p>
I would also suggest taking 3.091 in the fall rather than the spring, maybe even more strongly. Most people take chemistry in the fall, and the people who take it in the spring are disproportionally people who failed it in the fall. </p>
<p>
I know what you mean, and it’s taught very differently than that at MIT. </p>
<p>But if you’re not interested in bio at all, 7.013 in the spring might be an even better choice – it’s traditionally considered to be easier than 7.012. (For either class, there will be endlessly put-upon course 7 people in your living group whose raison d’etre is to get their engineering friends through 7.01x.) You could also check out 7.014, which has more of an environmental focus. At any rate, you don’t need to take biology your freshman year – it’s the one science GIR people often put off until junior or senior year – and you could wait to take it until you have a good handle on what it takes for you to get through an MIT class.</p>
<p>Sorry to be pushing this so hard. It’s just that spring chemistry is generally considered to be Not a Good Idea.</p>
<p>
I haven’t commented on this just because I don’t know much about MISTI. Shoot LauraN an email/PM – I think she did MISTI Spain one summer, and she might know more about the other programs. </p>
<p>
Yes, it’s true that most people do UROPs continuously from the school year to the summer to the school year again. And it’s useful to have spent serious time and effort on a small number of projects, in terms of grad school admissions. But it’s not automatically detrimental to have gaps in your UROP time, particularly if the gap is because you spent that time doing something else interesting and useful.</p>
<p>Programming classes over IAP are super awesome and generally don’t take listeners. I even teach one of them!</p>
<p>14.01 (Intro to Microeconomics) is indeed a HASS.</p>
<p>Professor Sadoway stopped teaching 3.091, so I’m unconvinced that taking it in the fall is still your best bet. I’d probably wait and see what you hear from your friends first - I don’t know how the new professor will be.</p>
<p>My daughter is doing almost exactly what you described for taking German and going to Germany via MISTI.</p>
<p>She took German I and Globalization first term freshman year and German II second term freshman year.</p>
<p>She started German III in the fall of her sophomore year, but she is not really very good at languages and the homework was all consuming, so she dropped it. BUT she had enough German to apply to the MISTI Germany program.</p>
<p>So she will be going to Aachen, Germany this summer to do research on biofuels. She is in course 10-b and has had a UROP since IAP of her freshman year. </p>
<p>The MISTI Germany person pretty much made everything happen and she was contacted by several people in Aachen to do research.</p>
<p>MISTI Germany is paying for her flight as well as giving her a stipend of 650 Euros a month. Her room will cost 200 Euros a month which leaves her with 450 Euros a month for food, travel and other expenses. Since she cooks for herself, she knows that she spends very little money on food. Students in Germany can get rail/bus passes for very little money that lets them travel anywhere around their state. She is not officially part of the Aachen RWTH UROP International program, but will be able to take advantage of the two week intensive German classes offered in early June and the two, two hour classes offered per week over the summer. She will also be living in a dorm with other international students.</p>
<p>So two semesters of German was enough for her to apply to the program. Her research will be done in English. Other programs require more German.</p>
<p>She had originally thought that she would go through to German IV and have German as a HASS Concentration, but now she thinks that she will concentrate in Economics instead. But she will be able to go to Germany this summer!</p>
<p>@Mollie, I’m still thinking I’ll take 7.012 in the fall and 3.091 in the spring of my freshman year. However, I’ll also consider the alternative or taking 3.091 freshman fall and 7.013 freshman or sophomore spring (I doubt 7.012 sophomore fall would work because Course 3 requires 3 classes in the dept sophomore fall).</p>
<p>@AMWMIT79 Thank You for the info. Would 3 semesters be plenty for a MISTI program in German (I’d rather do it in German than English to learn the language better), or are 4 the necessary minimum?</p>
<p>Also, a new thought popped into my mind. Would taking 18.03 and 18.06 concurrently be too much (also with 8.022, German 1, and F/ASIP)? Not being a bio person and more of a math person, 18.06 might actually be easier for me than 7.013, or am I completely off-base? Also, how is 6.00? I already know some Python (one-semester high school equivalent), so would 6.00 be useful or am I better off not taking programming classes in a language I already know (does 6.00 cover a lot of advanced topics that I have probably not yet seen)? I heard Python can be incredibly useful for Course 3 and 8, so such advanced topics may be helpful.</p>
<p>Once again, thanks for all the great replies.</p>
<p>6.00 is really useful if you’re planning on being 5/7/10/another course that requires you to do a lot of scientific analysis using Python. It’s not really geared to be an intro to course 6 class - a lot of the stuff is about using different packages for data analysis.</p>
<p>My daughter only had two semesters of German her freshman year and is going to Germany (in a month) after her sophomore year. All of her research will be done in English. She needs the German to get around.</p>
<p>The more German you take, the more options you will have. But you can see that for my daughter two semesters was enough.</p>
<p>^ 6.01 assumes programming knowledge, so I <em>strongly</em> suggest getting some programming experience (in any language) beforehand. High school counts, taking an IAP class counts, but I wouldn’t go in with nothing.</p>
<p>Oh, I should also say that we had three German au pairs and three German exchange students. They didn’t teach my daughter any German, BUT we know from them that kids start learning English in Germany in the first grade. </p>
<p>If a kid gets through Gymnasium – to the 13th grade – to get the abiteur (their version of the high school dipoloma) and therefore go to University, s/he is fluent in English. It is hard to believe that you will learn enough German in two years to be as fluent in German as they are in English. If you do anything technical, almost everyone will answer you in English once they hear your accent. You will learn the most German by trying to hang out with German students in your free time. Therefore, you can take four semesters of German, and will be better prepared than my daughter, but you don’t really need to (Just in case you want to take those course six classes instead, which is actually what my daughter is doing).</p>
<p>And one more thing. The entire German grammar is taught in the first two semesters. Semesters III and IV concentrate on reading literature and writing. What you will really need to practice is speaking German. Maybe you could get that by joining a German conversation group. Writing in German is very different from writing in English, which would also take a lot of practice, which you won’t have by the end of the 4th semester. Most science papers are written in English anyway. (I know all of this because I took some German and one of our German Exchange students majored in English in University in Germany and also has a certificate to teach German to non-native German speakers as a second language. We talked about this.)</p>
<p>Some additional info: you actually have to apply to get into language classes during IAP because they are always oversubscribed, so there’s no guarantee you’d be able to take German I during IAP. It might happen, but I wouldn’t have any groundbreaking plans depending on it.</p>
<p>I would say most people probably take a class for credit during at least one IAP, but most don’t take a class every IAP. And many of the courses that are offered for credit are intended to be fun – the course 9 sheep brain dissection class, for example, or the engineering competitions. </p>
<p>Very late response, but by the way, OP, 21H.001 is a great class. The creative approach to that class is hard to be seen even in universities that have strong history programs.</p>
<p>Is Intro to Micro/Macoeconomics a good HAAS course to take freshman year? If so, should I take it before or after my CI-H class? Or should I just stick with a more “traditional” HAAS-D class?</p>
</p>