<p>So, most of these threads are about getting into Michigan or wait lists or other things. But, I was wondering how are the classes at U Mich. How does the first year compare to the other years at U Mich? I've heard the classes there are incredibly competitive and its very hard to pull a GPA above a 3.7. I would be in LSA, with a degree in Poli Sci. Any comments or anything about that department and the classes or faculty?</p>
<p>a 3.7 in LSA is not hard.</p>
<p>math and the hard sciences are comparable in difficulty to engineering</p>
<p>difficulty? maybe… workload? certainly not.
Also, you have a case for hard science, not quite as good a case for math. many engineering student cruises through 400 level math classes as their electives, not as common for something like 400 level physics.</p>
<p>The courseload for a hard science major can be as hard and time-consuming as you want it to be. Upper-level MCDB, Chemistry, and Physics classes are no joke, especially when taken concurrently.</p>
<p>Michigan is competitive and demanding, but it is not cutthroat or unreasonable, particularly not in the Social Sciences and Humanities. </p>
<p>This said, maintaining a 3.7+ GPA is not easy, but with effort and effective studying habits, it is certainly manageable.</p>
<p>“The courseload for a hard science major can be as hard and time-consuming as you want it to be. Upper-level MCDB, Chemistry, and Physics classes are no joke, especially when taken concurrently.”</p>
<p>As I said, the difficulty sometimes is comparable, but the workload isnt.
We get labs. Hard sciences get labs. (in groups or individual)
We have problem sets. Hard sciences get problem sets.
We have ridiculously time consuming group projects all the time (4 in a half term class is the record for me so far). It is not as common a concept in upper level or lower level science class. (and sometimes, the random assignment with ridiculously bad team mates make it 10 times harder to get crap done.) </p>
<p>I am not discounting the fact that that hard science is hard. But it is certainly not as time consuming.</p>
<p>Also, there is no way you can convince me math can be comparable unless one chooses only the hardest math classes to take throughout his career. As I said, a lot of engineers cruise through 400 level math classes as elective. There are also many cases in which the individual engineering department offer a prereq course that covers the same thing as a math course but go more in depth because the equivalent in the math department is cupcake.</p>
<p>as you can see from grade statistics, a 3.7 is top 3-5% in engineering and to be top 3-5% in a pool of students with generally higher high school stats than LSA students makes it even harder.
3.7 is only around top 25% in LSA, hence it’s easier.</p>
<p>"3.7 is only around top 25% in LSA, hence it’s easier. "
Theres not that many people with 3.7s. I would say 3.7 is equivalent to top 15% in LSA and top 7% in engineering (7 because of underclassmen).</p>
<p>I think that’s the hard part about engineering, not only do you have hard classes, but you have group work that takes forever, and at the end of the day you could just get a B, or even B-, if your team doesn’t work well. A lot of people don’t realize that engineers practically take ONLY math/science classes starting from freshman year, I had a friend of mine majoring in psych take an intro computer science class, and he thought it was hard. But, what he fails to realize is how much harder it is for engineers. engineers have to take that class, plus math, plus, chemistry, and a lab, plus some other engineering core class, all in one term.</p>
<p>“A lot of people don’t realize that engineers practically take ONLY math/science classes starting from freshman year, I had a friend of mine majoring in psych take an intro computer science class, and he thought it was hard.”</p>
<p>I’m not much of a math person, but I would LOVE to just take math and science classes instead of having to deal with all these humanities and language requirements.</p>
<p>Plus, engineers are allowed to print more pages than their LSA counterparts. That’s enough for me to wanna transfer to engineering ha.</p>
<p>It’s also worth mentioning that most LSA people end up going to grad school. If you’re pre-med you have to go through another 6+ years of torture (which costs hundreds of thousands of dollars) following graduation. Engineers, if they go to grad school at all, usually get a Master’s, which is much shorter. So, engineers, while they certainly do work a lot in undergrad, are free to enter the workforce following college making close to six figures, while an LSA degree is not very useful unless you plan to go to grad school.</p>
<p>making close to 6 figures following college? um… have you looked at the average salaries? I’m sure a few people do, but even if you work in california, in a highly paid engineering field like computer science or electrical engineering, the norm is 70-80k, and that’s in very expensive california!</p>
<p>I’m sure you love math/science classes when you are blending in some other classes. I had a term when I took:</p>
<ol>
<li>thermodynamics (core)</li>
<li>dynamics (core)</li>
<li>materials (core)</li>
<li>engineering lab (core)</li>
<li>advanced math elective (required)</li>
</ol>
<p>try doing that first, and then see how much you love it.</p>
<p>^
yeah, god forbid anyone loves math and science, right?</p>
<p>sigh that’s what’s wrong with america. this constant fear of math and science. it is such a pity</p>
<p>Omg… Viewing those posts made me to conclude that I won’t be able to be challenged as a math major in Umich? Is it easy to transfer to Engineering from LSA?</p>
<p>Qihqi, maybe you should wait until you are actually in college before you conclude that it’s not going to be hard enough. </p>
<p>And I’d imagine if you found it so easy that you were able to get near 4.0, then you should be able to transfer no problem. I had considered applying for LSA and transfering to Engineering later (easier to get into LSA), and was told it was easy to do.</p>
<p>if you are in a math/science major, you might think u are very smart coming in, but you will be challenged. </p>
<p>the point of my post was that classes are fun when you are not totally inundated with homeworks and exams all the time, and engineers have a lot of time consuming work, in addition to the fact that the material is difficult.</p>
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<p>You can be as challenged as you desire. Under no circumstances will you not be able to find sufficiently difficult courses here. I speak from experience - I’m an electrical engineer with a bunch of math classes under my belt. Some of the math courses were a breeze. Some were so difficult that I could have spent all my time on them and not mastered the material.</p>
<p>Yes, not to worry. My daughter was a great math student in high school, who easily scored a 5 on the BC Calculus AP. She found the math sequence very, very challenging.</p>
<p>DS is an math major. I can vouch for the fact that you can take very challenging math classes all the way through. Start with the 295/296/395/396 series, number theory, etc.
He could have spent more time studying - but only if he could get by on zero hours of sleep. Head over to East Hall any night at 3 a.m. and you are guaranteed to see students studying away.</p>