<p>Hi, what are the non-science classes like at Caltech? I've heard mixed things about them.</p>
<p>I have found that the humanities classes I've taken at Caltech were very, very well taught. A lot of people agree with me that the best (at teaching) professor here is someone in the history department. The course offerings are varied enough that I've been able to find something new that interests me a lot every term. Some of the humanities courses are taught with a bit of a science bent, which makes them more enjoyable to people who weren't big on humanities in high school. I've only taken two social science courses, but they weren't as well taught, probably because they were both large intro courses. ASCIT has a website where students can list course reviews which is really useful for picking a well-taught HSS class.</p>
<p>A large percentage of people double major with a humanity or social science, so plenty of people enjoy the HSS courses enough to want to take extra ones on top of their likely already heavy technical schedule.</p>
<p>Well, I'm only a frosh, but of the three HSS classes I've had, I'm enjoying the social science the most (Ec 11), but that's probably because I find the subject interesting. The class is well lectured, but there isn't much personal interaction since it was a large lecture of 50-60 as opposed to the small 15-20 person sections in freshman humanities classes. My frosh hum second term, an English class, wasn't so great, but the one first term was the best history class I've ever had, and I went to a high school that was pretty well focused on humanities. And everyone else says that non-frosh hums are even better.</p>
<p>The only thing I miss in terms of course offerings is a foreign language class. My language from high school is Latin, and the only Latin class offered here is an introductory language class that uses the same textbook as the one I used in Latin 3 in high school. However, a Francophillic classmate has told me that the French literature classes are pretty interesting. In fact, pretty much every other major modern language has two to four course offerings.</p>
<p>Thank you, that is really helpful (especially as I come down to the deadline for deciding... tomorrow!)</p>