<p>I'm here with my eighth question! :D</p>
<p>8: I've been looking through the Bulletin and I see that some courses are listed as being worth "3-5" units, for instance, and research and theses can be done for "1-10" units. What does this mean? Can you choose how many units you take these courses for? Or is it based on your performance in the class? Or are there other options that affect how many units you receive?</p>
<ol>
<li> You can sign up for however many units you want, depending on your needs. Some classes will have, say, a midterm and final exam for 4 units, but if you want 5 units, you have to write an additional paper. Other classes are exactly the same, regardless of how many units you sign up for; it's flexible to fit your schedule or bulk it up. You will probably need to attend the first class and check out the syllabus to see if there's any difference in assignments for different unit counts. Word of mouth works too :)</li>
</ol>
<p>For research, 1 unit = 3 hours of work. You can sign up for however much you plan to do, and this can be done for credit (read: GPA inflation). You will sign up for the class with your specific faculty member, and he/she is the one who assigns the grade.</p>
<p>some of the classes require undergrads to take them for a certain number of units, but have the flexibilty only for grad students (ie cs106a says 3-5 but all undergrads must take it for 5 units)</p>
<p>To pyleela:</p>
<p>It's very possible to do SLE and LSJUMB. My year, my section had six frosh, and three of them were SLE kids.</p>
<p>Feel free to ask me any Band questions you have. (And that goes for everyone else, too.)</p>
<p>is it as wild as everyone says it is? the LSJUMB i mean</p>
<p>"When I read Annuishka and Superwizard's posts, I had absolutely no idea what SLE was, so I checked it up on Stanford Daily and read some interesting and contradicting articles on SLE. Whether the writer loved or despised SLE, they all seemed to agree that SLE people are quite antisocial and are interested in stuff that the majority of Stanford students aren't interested in. Well, I seem to be pretty interested in the books and writers they read! Will participating in SLE greatly or negatively affect my social life? And do most people really look down on humanities majors? I'm thinking about majoring in literature, but enjoy science a lot as well. Will the culture at Stanford encourage me to go more for science?"</p>
<p>ok, SLE represent! :) SLE people can be very social. As social as the rest of people in freshman dorms...Alondra, the half SLE/half regular all freshman dorm is known to be the most social, while Cardenal and Faisan, the all SLE freshman 4-class dorms are more 'antisocial', meaning that they generally like to hang out in the dorm and do things other than party, i.e. nerf gun wars, LOTR marathons, etc. Not everyone in SLE reads the books. And nobody really has fun writing the essays - it's not as nerdy as it's touted to be but there are "SLE boys/girls" just as there are "IHUM boys/girls" - people who are really into SLE/IHUM and ALWAYS ask questions. In general, being in SLE makes you really close with SLE people. It's a pretty close-knit community and the alumni are really helpful. There are ALWAYS people who skip lecture and the movies. Some even dare to skip section - not recommended, btw. I'm a fuzzie humanities major - there are a lot of us, especially in the PoliSci/IR departments, and there is really no "pressure" at all to be a techie. Stanford is very fuzzie-friendly - I took an introsem last quarter that fulfilled the Engineering Science requirement, but it was a "fuzzie-friendly" class with absolutely NO MATH OR SCIENCE involved, even though it was registered in the CS department and taught by a CS professor...(Digital Dilemmas, CS74N btw). He always asked us fuzzies if we had questions, if we could understand, if we didn't he explained in another way...no tests, half of the grade participation...i've been told SLE/IHum, Introsems, and Language classes are not meant to fail you so the average grade is usually quite good (like B+)."</p>
<p>SLE ME NOW! I was in SLE from '05-'06, so just last year. Your social status does not correlate with SLE. You can be as social as you want. You'll meet many people from different dorms and it's up to you to trek to their dorms to see them. I was in Faisan and we did NOT have LOTR marathon. We watched Mean Girls and Reno 911.</p>
<p>Thank you so much for your wonderful information, ebonytear and staticsoliloquy! :) I can't wait to participate in SLE!! Any preparation recommended for the classes? </p>
<p>....now I'm sounding very nerdy... :)</p>
<p>Bwahahahaha....this just makes me want to take SLE more... ;)</p>
<p>How much of a role do the sororities and fraternities play on campus?</p>
<p>I'd say they're important, but not central. It's not as if the only thing to do is go to frat parties, but the parties do exist. They also may do community service, which is pretty cool.</p>
<p>What exactly is a fuzzie? (Referring to ebonytear's post)</p>
<p>Someone who enjoys studying, and probably majors in, subjects with limited mathematical/scientific content. Possible majors include art history, English, cultural and social anthropology, political science, East Asian studies, and international relations. Fuzzy classes frequently require a lot of reading and writing of papers in contrast to problem sets, which are prevalent in techie classes.</p>
<p>The funny this is when people fall in between being classifies as either 'techie' or 'fuzzy'. This happens quite frquently for example my friend is is an Econ major but planning to Coterm in Management Science and Engineering. He refuses to be called a fuzzy but he definitely isn't a techie either! Another common example are those who major in HumBio (specifically neuroscience). Many names have been propesed for these 'hybrids' such as Slimies, and taking the first two letters of fuzzies and the last 4 letters of the word techie (that one was actually invented by my HumBio Major/Music Minor friend!</p>
<p>^^^ Probably pronounced "foo-shay," eh?</p>
<p>Referring to the whole WR requirement business, is it generally advisable to take a regular class that gives WR2 credit, rather that PWR2 itself? From what I've read here and heard elsewhere, the PWR classes seem like a burden more than anything else...are regular classes or intro seminars (for example, History 20N: Russia in the Early Modern Europe Imagination) that fulfill the WR2 requirement better? If so, why? Less work, more interesting, etc.</p>
<p>Related to that, how is PWR (1 and/or 2)? Is it really that bad? I'm a good writer and have three years of research paper experience (in the second semester of history/government classes at my school we have to find a topic, research, write 12-15+ pages, fully cited, etc), so is there anything in the class that would be new or difficult?</p>
<p>Anybody know about the Arabic placement exam? Difficulty, content, etc.</p>
<p>Is there any course specifically designed to introduce you to proofs? I can't find any in the math department, but Phil 150 (Basic Concepts in Mathematical Logic) seems a likely candidate. But is it even worth it to take such a class? Marlgirl said earlier in the thread that Math 131 (Diff Eq's) gives a little introduction to proofs...for a guy who has only ever done non-rigorous math, is that enough foundation to jump later into more serious analysis/algebra/topology type classes?</p>
<p>Thanks again, everybody, for being so helpful. I feel a bit neurotic about all this seeing as it's still only halfway through the year, but it'll probably fade after a while.</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
Anybody know about the Arabic placement exam? Difficulty, content, etc.
[/QUOTE]
Well not many people know much about it-but I do! I took it a few months ago. I wouldn't really call it an exam what you do is you sit down with the Professor (Khalil Barhoum) and he starts asking you questions. Based on how well you answer he'll decide how many quarters to place you out of. That's all that there is to it! As for difficulty it depends: have you formally studied arabic recently (I haven't since grade 7 and I placed out of two quarters).</p>
<p>I believe CS103 (A and B or X) is all about proofs. It's a logic class, and someone told my that they introduce them well and by the end of it you can do proofs in your sleep.</p>
<p>does anyone know if there's a hindi placement exam? i don't see it listed on the stanford website.</p>
<p>as long as the hindi placement exam doesn't involve reading/writing, I'd love to take it!!! otherwise, is it possible to take spanish at a local JC to get out of taking the language at Stanford during the regular quarters? Quite frankly, I've had enough of Spanish.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Is there any course specifically designed to introduce you to proofs?
[/quote]
You might try Philosophy 11N, which is a freshman introsem. Go to page 25 here <a href="http://fsp.stanford.edu/pdfs/IntroSemsCrseCat2006-2007.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://fsp.stanford.edu/pdfs/IntroSemsCrseCat2006-2007.pdf</a> A friend of mine took it and really liked it; she mentioned that there were a lot of proofs, but I don't know exactly what they were like, so I am asking her and will get back to you.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Referring to the whole WR requirement business, is it generally advisable to take a regular class that gives WR2 credit, rather that PWR2 itself? From what I've read here and heard elsewhere, the PWR classes seem like a burden more than anything else...are regular classes or intro seminars (for example, History 20N: Russia in the Early Modern Europe Imagination) that fulfill the WR2 requirement better? If so, why? Less work, more interesting, etc.
[/quote]
You might have seen me voice my opinion on another thread; I vote strongly in favor of taking a non-PWR writing class. Being a "techie" in general, I am not terribly interested in many of the PWR class choices, whether they be "The Rhetoric of Silence" or "I Fought the Law: The Rhetoric of Resistance". Go here <a href="http://pwr.stanford.edu/%5B/url%5D">http://pwr.stanford.edu/</a> for course offerings and descriptions. Some people definitely find PWR interesting, so I'm just saying that for me personally... not so fun. I got lucky with PWR1: I took "Building Bridges: Brain, Biology, and Behavior" which was PERFECT (check out the classes I've taken, which makes this relatively obvious). Unfortunately, I don't think it's offered anymore, but it was fun because we read popular science articles, wrote a couple papers, and did one presentation. Pretty enjoyable and low key.</p>
<p>For PWR2, nothing looked good to me, so I applied to "Current Concepts in Transplantation", an introsem, and got in. It was very interesting and easy :); we read a couple journal articles and critiqued them, wrote a 6-8 page paper, did one presentation, and had a debate. Totally chill WRITE-2 checked off my list. I was very happy that I could find a class to fulfill the requirement that interested me AND was less work than a regular PWR class.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Related to that, how is PWR (1 and/or 2)? Is it really that bad? I'm a good writer and have three years of research paper experience (in the second semester of history/government classes at my school we have to find a topic, research, write 12-15+ pages, fully cited, etc), so is there anything in the class that would be new or difficult?
[/quote]
Now, since you've brought this up, it sounds like you definitely wouldn't have issues in PWR. You're probably not going to learn much as far as format, but I'm sure they'll work on refining your writing style. Lucky you - I hadn't written a paper over 4 pages in high school =/ I think PWR papers usually range from 6-20 pages, depending on the assignment as well as the class. You will probably write 2 papers, I think... this probably depends as well. So it's by no means awful... it's just that WRITE classes are usually less.</p>