I am wondering how difficult the academic work is at UChicago, especially in the humanities, compared to peer schools. I’m still determining which school I will attend, and though I was admitted to UChicago, I’ve heard the courseload is unmanageable. Is this an exaggeration?
I am particularly worried because I really haven’t read much. Sparknotes got me through high school, and I even had to make up a fake favorite book in my interview so that my alumnus interviewer wouldn’t see right through me. If I choose to attend UChicago, are there any books I should start reading over the summer?
The academic work is difficult, but not unmanageable. Take heart, you can and will learn how to adapt to the courseload. By “the humanities” I assume you refer to the humanities core requirement. From my experience, you can expect around 30-60 pages of reading a week, sometimes less if it is a particularly dense text. Hume classes at UChicago are discussion based, so being able to contribute during class is very important. But as for reading vs. Sparknoting, reading the text carefully is a must for any college that you choose to attend. You’ll only have more catchup to do before final exams/essays if you haven’t read the entire text.
The books that you will read over the school year will depend upon which classes you choose. They all vary, but Plato’s The Republic is a shared requirement of several (but not all) of the Humanities core classes.
Don’t worry. If you got in, the admissions office is confident you can succeed here, and so you should be too. The coursework is not unmanageable, but it is difficult. It isn’t that UChicago is class-per-class harder than other schools, it’s just much that the floor is higher. You can’t really take entirely easy classes. I think some people get caught off guard by how necessary it is to make school your absolute first priority here to be successful.
There are a lot of support networks built in: from your house to tutoring provided free of charge by the university to your professors and your TAs. I’ve overwhelmingly felt like Professors are on my side here - even if they’re harsh graders, they really, really want you to succeed and if you go to them and ask for help, they will help. I think another mistake people make here is thinking success is defined by cruising through without needing help, and that’s couldn’t be further from the truth. I’d definitely think UChicago is unmanageable if I’m going at it alone - but I’m not, and you won’t be either.
You won’t be able to sparknotes your way through UChicago. Please do your readings if you go here - everyone in the class, including your professor, will know you didn’t, trust me, and it will ruin the discussion for everyone. Plus you’ll get a terrible grade. That said, don’t worry too much if you cruised by high school with sparknotes. You’ll learn how to read just by the sheer amount you’ll have to. It will be hard at first, but you will end up a much better reader. I can literally feel how much better I am at understanding what I’m reading and synthesizing arguments, and I can 100% credit that to UChicago.
I would recommend reading stuff for fun over the summer. You are probably not going to enjoy reading the kind of books the core makes you read - at least at first - and one of the signs that the core is working is that you’ll you read Foucault or something for the first time and realize you genuinely appreciate it without your professor explaining what the heck he was saying. Don’t try to self-teach the core, because you probably won’t be able to. Just read what interests you.
If you want specific recommendations - I think everyone should read Calvin and Hobbes, and I’m pretty sure I spent the summer before I came rereading A Series of Unfortunate Events and Harry Potter.
It’s very hard and will take a lot of time if you choose it to be. However, you can just as easily choose it not to be. If you got in though, you probably want it to be hard and believe in the mission of uchicago so you’ll want to push through and read all these great authors and works that have formed the foundation of modern thinking. If you have the motivation you’ll be able to get through it.
Tbh, hume will be the least of your concerns. If you take honors courses you’ll spend 3x more time on those than on hume.
You can’t get by with just sparknoting. Everyone can tell in discussion who didn’t read the text and you’ll write a shitty essay if you didn’t read and reread the book 4 times. My professor told us if we didn’t have a good topic to reread the subject in question 5 times until something popped out and it worked.
Judging from my daughter’s HUM class, the emphasis seems to be on close reading – i.e. taking a small aspect of a work, teasing out the nuances of what’s going on (structurally and/or substantively), and relating it to the work’s larger themes/author’s objectives. Sparknotes will be pretty much useless for that.
Intro science courses (for majors) can be very demanding time-wise and not always well taught. If you aren’t already the type of person who takes responsibility for her own learning, it’s probably time to start becoming that person! That said, let me heartily second everything HydeSnark has said about seeking out all the resources (Harper Tutors, TAs’ and profs’ office hours, piazza (online forum used in some courses for Q&A), etc.) available to you, early and often. The quarter system can be brutal/unforgiving! But I’ve been amazed at how helpful and supportive UChicago profs can be.
Last bit of advice: think carefully about how many courses you want to take each term (3 vs. 4) and how that varies depending on which courses you choose (and whether you’re taking an honors version) as well as your other time commitments/things you want to do each quarter. Time management begins at registration. There are courses where workload is reasonable and predictable and you learn a lot. Try to have at least one of those in the mix when you take 4 courses.
UChicago is hard, even (maybe especially) if you are smart and serious. This is why some people love it. If that’s not what you’re into, you might want to consider other schools. I’ve studied and/or taught at three other Top 10 universities in the US and the academic work at UofC seems more demanding than the norm at any of them. Part of that is the Core and the quarter system, part is grading, part is the assumption that academics will and should be what College students spend most of their time on.
The workload can’t be “unmanageable” if the freshman retention rate is over 98%. The academic demands are high, but the people they let in can handle those demands and thrive.
You should take human being and citizen for hum! It’s a great classic hum class that you won’t regret taking. I’m in it now, and it’s not too much reading. Totally manageable.
@exacademic Agree with your comment about science courses, especially core science courses. They tend to be very large and the teaching highly variable. Then again, its the same at many other universities. Chicago HUM and SOC classes are usually excellent. I sat in a discussion once and it was very impressive.
@FunkyMonkey22, if you are taking on student debt to go to UChicago and you are not a big reader, then I think you should consider all your options. Don’t enroll at UChicago simply because you got in. Enroll if you are confident that it is the best choice for your both academically and economically. It sounds like you are questioning the academic fit. There are plenty of schools that you can cruise through relatively easily, but UChicago is a school that will require sustained effort and reading. Good luck wherever you go!