I was just wondering what classes you’re taking and how you like them?
I’m a junior and an education major with a concentration in history and a possible minor in sociology.
I’m taking:
Reading 1
Developmentally appropriate practices
Development of symbolic representation
Educating Diverse populations
Medieval Society
Birth-2 Fieldwork
I love all of my classes except for my history class; it’s a lot more religion than I was expecting.
I LOVE my fieldwork placement; I’m in a kindergarten classroom
I’m a sophomore math and CS major with a music minor and a possible minor in dance.
I’m taking:
Number Theory
Computer Organization
Software Systems Design
Anthropology of Music
Class Voice
Movement Improv
In addition, applied music-wise, I’m taking:
Orchestra
Jazz Combo
Rep/Colloquium Class (music requirement)
Private lessons x2
Chamber (not for credit)
Band (not for credit)
I like all of my applied music courses and most of my academic courses. Anthropology of Music is weird; it meets my musicology requirement though. We have to do field trips and stuff to different venues downtown and interview people. Professor is definitely treating it as an anthropology class instead of a music class.
The CS courses are a lot of work, but the material is interesting.
6.75 units, which is approximately 23.625 credits.
But only 5 units are academic classes (the rest are applied music and ensembles), which is approximately 17.5 credits.
I looks like a lot on paper, but it’s not too bad.
Statics and Dynamics - I like the content in this class and find it interesting, but its a bit overwhelming at times because we have 2-3 hours of homework every night.
Surveying - I thought I was going to love this, because I go surveying at work, and I love my job. But the professor is the worst and makes it as boring as possible. At least it’s an easy A though.
Geology - not awful, but not as good as I expected. We just play around with google earth all lecture and don’t really learn anything, so I’m rather nervous for the test. I would skip lecture and learn on my own as it seems more time-effective, but we have iclicker questions most days…
Linear Algebra - Not terribly exciting, but not too bad.
Moral Issues in Business - I thought I was going to love this class, but my dimwitted professor makes it awful. I may file a formal complaint against him, actually. His grading is completely arbitrary - my friend an I will get the exact same comments (word for word) on assignments, but drastically different grades. It makes no sense.
I can’t wait until October 16th when my moral issues class is over. I’ll have far more time to focus on my other classes and time for my activities.
Meteorology 201: Love it, professor is awesome and the class is interesting since it’s related to my major. Only drawback is that it’s at 8:00 a.m. 25 minutes from my dorm, but it’s whatever. Weekly homework is time consuming, but I’ve done well on that and the weekly quizzes, so I have an A.
Freshman seminar: Boring, but an easy A.
Chemistry 110: The most notable weed out class at Penn State. Awful class with 300+ people in it. I have my first exam tomorrow, and even though I’ve gone to all the review sessions and taken all the practice exams, I’m not feeling great about it. I’m hoping this doesn’t hurt my GPA.
Math 140G (calc 1): It’s alright, the teacher is a nice guy but frequently makes mistakes in class. Homework can be confusing. Best part is we only have pass/fail quizzes (which can be made up) instead of exams so it’s a lot easier to get an A than in the regular Calc class.
Psych 100: Another 300 person lecture class, but I really like my professor, so it’s not bad at all. No homework besides a syllabus quiz, so this was a smart choice for a gen ed elective.
Honors Seminar (topic is “American Identity”) – homework is just reading from various dystopian novels. A couple of essays. No exams. Professor is very lenient and very nice.
Public Policy – 400 level Political Science lecture. Not too sure how I feel about the class. The subject matter is really interesting and the professor is supposed to be really good – she is very clear with her expectations and goes into detail about every single assignment. Types up 1-2 pages of commentary on assignments so you know exactly where you stand in terms of strengths and weaknesses. But she has a tendency to let discussion get out of control so we don’t get through everything in time – we’re already behind on the syllabus and it’s week three.
Paganism – Religion course on Greco-Roman paganism. Huge lecture hall. Power point presentations. Everything is posted online and I find the material very interesting. A couple of essays + a midterm/final with an extensive study guide provided a week in advance.
Graduate English Seminar – Part of my University’s MA program. Pretty challenging material considering that I am 1) the only undergraduate in the course and 2) the only non-English major but I think I can handle it. There’s a couple of projects and some brief reading responses. Grading scale is compressed so that the lowest grade you can get is a C+ (which is good I guess?) I’m putting the most effort into this course.
Okay, not really, but man am I feeling the pressure!
@metsfanAJM I personally know someone who wrote “Be more like the chemistry department” in PHYS 211 professor feedback at the end of the semester. You will be wishing you had CHEM 110 back soon enough.
i’m a freshman, thinking of majoring in biochem and premed!
Chem 115- basically the honors honors general chem class… the great thing is that we only have 30 or so people in the lectures! It’s pretty interesting and so in depth, though it’s been 2 years since I took AP Chem so I’m a little rusty on a few things.
Calc III (multivariable)- ugh, it’s math.
5th semester chinese- this is literally the class where I turn off my brain; I’m a native speaker and the class material is unbelievably easy.
Psych 202 (intro to psych)- content isn’t too hard, the prof is a good lecturer.
It actually hasn’t been so hard so far, but I am worrying about my midterms, which start in about a week to a week and a half from now; I’ve been keeping up with the work and looking over my notes often, so I think I’m in a good spot, but we’ll see haha!
I do want to up the difficulty next semester if I do well on these first couple of exams though…
Linear Algebra = boring but manageable
Systems Principles = super interesting but kind of tricky
Probability in CS = manageable but also interesting
Physics I = cool but really hard
Greek Civilizations = i’m crying my brains out internally every lecture
I’ll let you guess if I’m a STEM or humanities major
@metsfanAJM That’s what I have to do, too. I don’t want to make the classes out as harder than they are (A’s in CHEM 110, CHEM 112, PHYS 211 so far, personally); it’s just that the big classes and sometimes-bad teaching don’t go away. The good thing about the Chem department is that you can take your booklet with you after the exam and they put up the answer key later that night, so you know your score almost immediately. On the other hand, PHYS 211 had such a ridiculous curve last semester that I ended up with over 100%. So maybe it balances out!
