<p>I was just wondering if people have enough time to have a social life and also keep their grades up. How many study hours should you put in per week if you want to get like a 3.5? How much time do Econ classes take up? GE? Is it impossible to go out every weekend night/go to parties once or twice a week and keep up your grades?</p>
<p>I don’t think a 3.5 is too hard to manage, I can’t say how many hours for an econ major though. I really don’t know anyone here that parties twice a week, it’s not the best idea. While students like to have fun here, everyone is still very driven and know that grades come before partying. Partying every week and keeping up grades is manageable, just as long as you know to get your work done throughout the week.</p>
<p>A 3.5 GPA is exactly on the A-/B+ border. Just get as many Bs as you get As. It’s manageable. Although I don’t party, I worked 15+ hours a week and had research and other activities. I would say that you have a fair amount of time to do whatever you want outside of class.</p>
<p>it depends on your major, your skill in it, and your skill in it relative to others. Philosophy majors generally graduate with a 3.2 GPA for transfers, and the average grade for majors is roughly a B-. Getting an A is really hard, but it’s manageable. In the sea of failure that is crappy philosophy majors, writing well, clearly, and making coherent points, really makes you stand out. I only know one person who was taking 20+ units, working, and managed a roughly 3.8+ gpa. Don’t ask me how he did that though lol. I wouldn’t go out twice a week. Maybe once a week if you’re really focused. But hardcore partying is usually reserved for like first week, 3 day holidays, spring break, etc.</p>
<p>econ is very impacted, and the admits have really high GPAs, which means it’s probably going to be super competitive. But best of luck if you can manage it all.</p>
<p>Like everyone has already said, it depends on your major and how smart you intrinsically are. I have 2 types of Engineering friends. One type is the super brilliant, Mark Zuckerburg/Bill Gates-esque type who gets good grades on everything and has time to play games and hang out all the time. The other is struggling and dying and I rarely see in social outings.</p>
<p>I’m a History major and I have a high 3.6 (would’ve been a 3.7 if I didn’t take Chemistry and Math classes my freshman year). I don’t study that much and have wayyyy too much time to hang out and do whatever I want.</p>
<p>My friends in Econ are about the same. However, if you want a shot at getting hired by big businesses, like the Top 4 accounting firms, you’ll need to not only study a lot, but have some talent. Of all of my biz econ/econ friends, almost all of them tried to go into accounting. 3 of them got offers from top 4 firms. The rest didn’t and were f***ed. An econ degree is almost as worthless as a BA in History if you don’t get an offer or worthwhile internship via recruiting.</p>
<p>But if you’re talented and can manage your time well, you should be able to study adequately and have time to play. If you lack talent, then you’ll need to compensate by spending more time than others studying.</p>
<p>I think generally a 3.5 in any North Campus major is within reach and should be “easily attained.” For South Campus majors, a 3.5+ means you are a genius or something.</p>
<p>@notaznguy, and beyphy, so do you think that a 3.8 would be a more proper benchmark of North Campus success??</p>
<p>Maybe. 3.8 is really difficult to get. That’s magna cum laude gpa (i.e. top 10%) It’s not the easiest thing in the world to do especially since they’re trying to curb grade inflation. If you’re doing extra curriculars and such, or sports, a 3.5 gpa would probably be seen as acceptable.</p>
<p>@Beyphy</p>
<p>Why is Philosophy major so “difficult” to get an A in? I’m asking because I find the major genuinely interesting but your comment is kind of discouraging. I’m willing to put in the amount of work necessary for a good GPA but are you saying that the professors are overly harsh in their grading or is the major filled with stereotypical North Campus majors who like to party more than studying?</p>
<p>I was a little surprised to see that the Philosophy major was described as tough in this thread. I only know 1 Philosophy major who’s already graduated. Granted, I don’t know what he’s up to right now other than continuing work with the on-campus job he’s had for a couple years, but he’s never made the major sound especially tough. He basically regarded it as “you can never be wrong” with your interpretation.</p>
<p>I have over a 3.9 in a north campus major. I would say that I have decent time management skills, but they could be better. (My time management skills I would say are much better than the average north campus major, slightly better than the average engineer, and slightly lower than the average premed.) I don’t party because I don’t want to. But if I improved my time management just a little I bet I would enough time to party twice a week. I’m not involved in very many extracurriculars though.</p>
<p>Can’t tell you much about econ. I took econ 1 and 2 just for kicks, and I actually spent less time studying for those classes than for my normal classes because I didn’t have to do as much reading. I don’t know about the upper divs or even econ 11 though.</p>
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<p>Getting an A is really hard (especially in the smaller classes.) Doing so requires very careful word choice, coherence, and a decent amount of logic. (i usually find myself using at least a few rules of inference in my papers; It’s usually disjunctive syllogism, although most people do this intuitively.) The difficulty also varies from class to class, and from subject to subject. I’m really good at metaphysics for example, but a lot of people suck at it. Some people love the ancient stuff (e.g. Plato, Aristotle, etc.) i think that’s god awful boring. It just depends what you’re interested in (and good at) i guess.</p>
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<p>I think, probably wrongly, that anything less than an A is a ‘bad grade’ and was kind of dismayed by my near A- average last quarter. i probably overemphasize how difficult it is. But if you’re happy with a B-/B/B+ grade then it’s no big deal. But A’s are really hard to get, mostly because your TAs generally have a very high standard for writing. </p>
<p>I guess the main reason why i find philosophy to be so difficult is because of the lack of resources you seem to be provided with. For most fields, if you’re confused about a concept and want clarity, you can search for it online, use different textbooks, etc. (i did this with my Latin classes) You can’t really do that with philosophy for a few reasons: </p>
<p>1) there are a lot of STUPID people out there who write about philosophy but have no clue what they’re talking about. Some people on wikipedia tried denying that “P –> P” was a tautology, which is EASILY proven through truth tables. So your resources are pretty much limited to SEP (it’s the only source that’s officially recommended)</p>
<p>2) Sometimes you might be learning one specific lecturer’s opinion about a given text, making resources from any material other than the professor’s pretty much wrong. So key notes (and sometimes recordings) are pretty much essential.</p>
<p>3) It’s usually recommended that you send your paper to at least a few people after you finish it so they can try to completely tear down your argument, you can adjust for what seems reasonable, and then have a much stronger paper. But as i found out last fall, NONE of my friends want to take a look at my paper after finals, so i was pretty much screwed over. So i just had to turn my paper in (although tbh i probably should have waited longer since the due date was pretty much open.)</p>
<p>If you want a more detailed account on the intricacies of a philosophy paper (and a fairly good guide to getting an A on philosophy papers) read this:</p>
<p>[Guidelines</a> on Writing a Philosophy Paper](<a href=“http://www.jimpryor.net/teaching/guidelines/writing.html]Guidelines”>Guidelines on Writing a Philosophy Paper)</p>
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<p>Well, the average graduate GPA is generally between 3.1-3.2. If he has that point of view, and i know others that do, i really wouldn’t doubt if he averaged Bs, and maybe even some Cs (i know plenty of others that do.)</p>
<p>Thanks for the link beyphy. I hate to make this into a “how to succeed in philosophy” thread, but would any philosophy majors like to post a list of professors and T.A’s to avoid as well as a list of classes/subjects that are worth the strict grading. (Maybe even a list of the philosophy classes considered “easier”)?</p>
<p>Take:
Kant taught by Burge (people generally really like his class from what i’ve heard although it’s really hard)
Normative Ethics (Lying and Promising) taught by Shiffrin
Hsu’s Skepticism and Rationality class is pretty nice, and Hsu’s a good lectuerer.</p>
<p>Worth it if you like metaphysics/Phil. of Language (avoid if you don’t):
127A with Martin (vagueness)
127C with Kaplan/almog (Naming and Necessity)
127A/B with Kaplan (Frege/Russell respectively.)</p>
<p>Avoid:
100A with McPartland (think he was adjunct so he shouldn’t be back but he was a total Dbag.)
100B with Copenhaver (general consensus that his lecture style was very boring)
Julius (He lectures by reading off of a handout he passes out at the beginning of class. For me, personally, he’s really hard to follow because of that. Although he does assign good readings.)</p>
<p>as far as TAs go, i really like Andrew Jewell and Paul Daniell. The only TA i’ve had that i didn’t really like was Brian Hutler. But overall, the department’s pretty good.</p>
<p>Thanks man, I think I’ll make this into a separate thread.</p>