How Difficult are Classes?

<p>How hard are the curves in science classes? Are the pre-med courses especially comeptitive? How hard is it to get an A in a class like general chemstry or calculus?</p>

<p>indian dude, well, i know for a fact that UCLA's science classes are really competitive and for anything dat has to do with med. I wouldnt say an A is impossible, but what i heard is competition is very stiff overall.</p>

<p>So far, curves have never hurt me, only helped me. Most science teachers who curve design their tests so that the averages are really low, As a result, most people's grades are raised by the curve.</p>

<p>Personally, I've gotten A's in my two general chem and two calculus courses. As long as you work for them, you can do it. Just don't expect it to be easy. I dont' know about pre-med courses, as I'm an engineer, but there were some pre-meds in my chem classes, and I took the supposedly harder chem sequence.</p>

<p>But straight As wouldn't be as easy as high school. Does it help to have good grades to get a job after graduation?</p>

<p>Of course it would help to have good grades.</p>

<p>And of course straight A's won't be as easy as hs, in fact I don't really know of anyone past their first few quarters who has straight A's. It's not that it's a lot harder to get As, it's that there's just so many unpredictable things that could happen. A lot of classes, finals are worth as much as 50% of your overall grade, you really can't monitor and control your grade as much as you could in HS. A lot of times you may end up with an A- and be just as smart as the guy who got an A, but you got the lower grade due to luck or BS or just other factors out of your control.</p>

<p>do note that an A- is 3.7 on the GPA scale. It's similar for all other colleges. Meaning, you must earn a pure A (after any curves) in order to get a 4.0</p>

<p>"Does it help to have good grades to get a job after graduation?"</p>

<p>an internship these days is also crucial to getting a good job. it's almost becoming like a requirement. with that said, a good gpa can also help open doors to obtaining that internship in the first place. </p>

<p>true story: my friend got a D+ percentage on her chem midterm, and since she felt she did so bad, changed her grading to "pass/no pass." she tried her hardest on the final and got a C percentage. however after the curve, her grade was a B-. unforunately she can't retake the class for a grade because she passed it already.</p>

<p>If you get an A- in a class its a 3.7?? I thought it was always just 4.0 for any A, 3.0 for any B etc. </p>

<p>Did I misread that or does that seem weird to anyone else? So basically if you get all A-'s then you will have a 3.7 and not a 4.0??!!</p>

<p>Welcome to college.</p>

<p>A+ is 4.0 (and sometimes 4.3 for law school apps)
A is 4.0
A- is 3.7
B+ is 3.3
B is 3.0
B- is 2.7
C+ is 2.3
|
|
V
and down down down...</p>

<p>I haven't gotten a grade lower than an B at UCLA, and I've taken some far out classes from my own major.</p>

<p>do all colls./univs follow this format; what happened to the A=4, B=3........ thing.</p>

<p>Every university I've ever looked at has it. Some CCs don't, however.</p>

<p>It's pretty common practice at this level.</p>

<p>UCLAri, how is the format of the poli. sci. classes? Essays, tests...and how hard are they?</p>

<p>welcome to college guys! </p>

<p>although UCLA uses the scale UCLAri has listed out, some colleges use a slightly different way:
A is 4.0
A- is 3.66
B+ is 3.33
B is 3.0
B- is 2.66
etc.</p>

<p>Oh man...that's way too broad a question. It depends on the class, the focus of the class, the professor.</p>

<p>I had one class that was all econometrics (read: calc and graphs.) I've had classes that have totally been dependent on essays, and others that required only an inclass exam or two.</p>

<p>Remember that poli sci is broken up into various concentrations:</p>

<p>American
International Relations
Comparative
Theory
Methodology</p>

<p>American is the most mathematical of all but methodology. IR is a lot of game theory and econ, and has a fair amount of math. Comparative is somewhat low-tech, theory is typically outside of the realm of math, but that's changing, and methodology is just math math math.</p>

<p>Hope that helps.</p>

<p>kfc4u,</p>

<p>True, but the numerical difference is so slight I figured it wouldn't matter. :p</p>

<p>yup, if its haerd for me its hard for everybody and if its easy for me its easy for everybody. It shouldn't make much of a difference.
Actually its an advantage for me, if I get B or a C I can blame it at the difference in the system ;)</p>