if you have any questions for us...

<p>Just an example to give some of you incoming people an idea of how ridiculous the exams can seem:</p>

<p>My Bio 41 class this past Fall Quarter:
Number of students enrolled: 321</p>

<p>Final Exam Statistics:
Maximum possible score: 200
Lowest score: 23.5
Highest score: 187.5
Average score: 143.19
Standard deviation: 23.92</p>

<p>Grades given:
A+: 4
A : 78
A-:8</p>

<p>So a good number of the people in the class got some flavor of A, yes, but you still had to work like heck to be in that number.</p>

<p>julyinoh: The LSJUMB experience is in many ways whatever you make it. Being on alcohol probation, the wild partying and such doesn't happen on band time now, but inevitably in an organization like this, people will make friends with other band people, and those friends will party together. So I guess my point is, if you want wild parties with band kids, you can easily find them. If you want to be in the band to make music, that's possible too (really!). I lean towards the second option; believe it or not, I've actually learned quite a lot about music through the band, including a second instrument and the basics of band arranging.</p>

<p>Now as far as the atmosphere of a performance goes, yes, it's wild. When you have 50-ish people dressed in "rally" running frenetically into a performance spot and playing hard-driving music while rocking out like there's no tomorrow, it seems pretty wild both from the audience perspective and the bandie's perspective. And that's what makes it fun!</p>

<p>superwizard- Thanks a lot for the information. I can’t say I’m not surprised to find somebody on CC who just took the Arabic placement test…haha, it’s great though.</p>

<p>
[quote]
have you formally studied arabic recently (I haven't since grade 7 and I placed out of two quarters).

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Well, I've been in Arabic class since 10th grade, so I'll have three years of experience with it...but the class is really pathetic. I haven’t learned anything useful there since the absolute basics in first year, and most of what I know I either learned from outside source books or on the streets---I live in Oman, so I’m pretty accustomed to hearing the language being spoken. Again though, my “formal” (ie: classroom) training has been exceedingly weak.</p>

<p>Overall, my modern-standard Arabic is pretty good. I assume that’s what the class and the placement exam are in…but how rigorous are you expected to be? I mean, does he expect you to know/does he use when speaking the inflected case endings? I’m better at reading and writing in general, but when the topics of conversation stay in areas I’m comfortable with vocabulary-wise, I can talk up a storm. Is Professor Barhoum Egyptian? I ask because I’m thoroughly used to Omani and other Gulf/Levantine accents, but find it quite hard to listen to the North African dialects. </p>

<p>Any chance you remember what kind of questions he asked you? Did he start with really basic things (What’s your name? What day is it? Where are you from?), or stick to descriptive things (What is this? What color/shape/whatever is the chalkboard?), or was it more like a real conversation (How do you feel about being at Stanford?). Also, did he speak slowly and carefully, or did he just let it flow like a normal conversation? Man, the whole placement is based on an oral test? That’s strange…I know people out here who speak it fluently but can’t read a word. They’d be in trouble when they got placed into advanced Arabic. Congrats on getting placed out of two quarters…will you take the third quarter class? Let me know how it goes, if it’s really hard or anything.</p>

<p>Thanks again for your help. Where are you from, by the way? It’s just not that common to meet somebody who studied Arabic in school. It’s cool though, and I’m looking forward to seeing you around the department next year if we’re both around.</p>

<p>celestial605- Thanks a lot for the post. That philosophy class looks interesting in its own right, whether or not the proofs are helpful. On most days I’m a techie as well, so I’ll be sure to keep the regular WRITE-2 classes in mind. Haha, I’m glad to know my high school experience has been good for something.</p>

<p>Sooo I actually gave the wrong philosophy class. This is what my friend actually said:</p>

<p>The class I took was PHIL 50, Intro to Logic, and it was definitely a good introduction to proofs. The proofs are in FOL language rather than in numbers, so they are not exactly like, oh, geometry proofs, for example. But FOL is the basis for all the math proofs, and its a really cool class (and there are some proofs with numbers. You get ore of those in more advanced logic classes I believe).</p>

<p>PHIL 150, First Order Logic, is very similar to PHIL 50 from what I've heard (although possibly slightly more complex).</p>

<p>wow skatearabia that's a lot of questions you got there ;)

[QUOTE]
I mean, does he expect you to know/does he use when speaking the inflected case endings? I’m better at reading and writing in general, but when the topics of conversation stay in areas I’m comfortable with vocabulary-wise, I can talk up a storm. Is Professor Barhoum Egyptian? I ask because I’m thoroughly used to Omani and other Gulf/Levantine accents, but find it quite hard to listen to the North African dialects.

[/QUOTE]

Where do I start... First of all Dr.Barhoum is lebanese so he's accent won't be hard to understand. He expects you to speak proper arabic (Fos-ha). </p>

<p>
[QUOTE]
Any chance you remember what kind of questions he asked you? Did he start with really basic things (What’s your name? What day is it? Where are you from?), or stick to descriptive things (What is this? What color/shape/whatever is the chalkboard?), or was it more like a real conversation (How do you feel about being at Stanford?).

[/QUOTE]

He pretty much made it into a conversation (he asked me: how's your city like etc etc etc)</p>

<p>
[QUOTE]
Man, the whole placement is based on an oral test? That’s strange…I know people out here who speak it fluently but can’t read a word.

[/QUOTE]

My fault I wasn't clear enough. He definitely asked me to read and write. He also asked me several grammer questions so it's definitely not all oral.</p>

<p>
[QUOTE]
Where are you from, by the way?

[/QUOTE]

So I'm originally Lebanese but I was born and lived in the US (Cleveland) for 10 years. Then I moved to the UAE (you should know where that is lol) and lived there for 8 years. After that I moved back to the US and here I am studying in Sunny California.</p>

<p>^^ Hah, yeah the UAE is pretty close to home. I've been in and out of the Emirates for the past ten years (visiting my dad), so if you were in Al-Ain or Abu Dhabi, maybe I've seen you!</p>

<p>That's a good deal with the Fus-ha. Actually, now that I think of it, there really couldn't be any other way to give this kind of test, huh? Well, that was a pretty dumb question on my part. Anyway, I'm relieved about the reading/writing parts of the exam.</p>

<p>And Phil 50? Seems like a good choice for this application-based math kid.</p>

<p>Thanks again!</p>

<p>Thanks everyone so far. Quick Question: How are the wifi networks at Stanford?</p>

<p>Great, unless you're at a co-op called Terra.</p>

<p>stern rules</p>

<p>Seriously it depends on your dorm. Ujamaa just got wifi (woopee) so we're celebrating that even though most other dorms have had wifi for years now!</p>

<p>Yup. Most dorms have wireless; I also hold office hours in the dining hall, where there is wireless. Libraries, the bookstore cafe, and Tresidder Student Union also have wireless.</p>

<p>celest what subject do you help with? Bio?</p>

<p>I'm a TA for Psych 1. I'm also teaching Bio 44X, but I don't hold office hours for that.</p>

<p>cool!
(10 char)</p>

<p>This is weird. Look at our timestamps. We should just chat on AIM or something.</p>

<p>Heck, shouldn't we all? It'd make responding to simple stuff easier, ya?</p>

<p>9: What do the current Stanford students here think about double majors?</p>

<p>
[quote]
9: What do the current Stanford students here think about double majors?

[/quote]

It depends. Some things to think about:</p>

<p>1) Do you physically have time to complete the two majors you are considering?
2) If you have time to complete the two majors (plus any other GERs), do you have any time to do stuff for fun, such as an activity class, something else for interest, or research?
3) Are both subjects so interesting to you that you'd love to study both in depth? (If not, perhaps you could consider a B.A.S. or major/minor. See <a href="http://www.stanford.edu/dept/registrar/bulletin/bulletin06-07/pdf/DegreePrograms.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.stanford.edu/dept/registrar/bulletin/bulletin06-07/pdf/DegreePrograms.pdf&lt;/a> for more details.)</p>

<p>If you have thought about the above things, then sure, why not? :)</p>

<p>People manage to pull off double majors, but oftentimes they're stuck with 20 units a quarter...which usually does not mean fun times. Also, it depends on the classes: techie classes are often like 3-4 units, but their workload is more than, say, a 3-4 unit fuzzy class. Consistently so. So plan carefully, and make sure you can do the workload. And don't worry too much about it now...you'll have access to a ton of resources on campus that'll be more than happy to help you decide what to do. :-)</p>

<p>can anyone tell me what the whole pass/fail thing is; i read somewhere that you can choose what you classes you would not like to count toward your GPA?!?! Then, isnt it pointless to take all the hard pre-med classes pass/fail if it doesnt go into your GPA?</p>