<p>Electrical and Computer Engineering.</p>
<p>wow abduke! I want to major in ECE and Econ too...</p>
<p>one thing I have definitly noticed about Duke during my fourday stay there.........the people are very,very,very nice.</p>
<p>Runawa, can u tell me about ur trip?</p>
<p>I have a question about the FOCUS program. If you're not a strong writer to you recommend signing up for a FOCUS class?</p>
<p>Writing 20 and a seminar are required for all freshmen, so it really doesn't matter. FOCUS just allows you to have your seminars and Writing 20 in the same subject. You do have to do major amounts of reading, though.</p>
<p>If I REALLY didn't like writing, I wouldn't be quick to sign up for FOCUS and its extra seminar class.</p>
<p>I would not recommend focus to anyone. I did not do it, but I don't know anyone who was in Focus and enjoyed it or would do it over. Basically, it really limits what classes you can take first semester. If you want to be pre-med or engineering or something, you will really get behind in the requirements if you do Focus. Plus you have to go to weekly dinners that I know some people found annoying after the first few weeks. Some people are under the wrong impression that Focus is an "honors" program but that's not true at all. In fact, in my friends' experiences, it's the people least ready for college who end up in Focus - the people who need more of a "high school" environment with more structure. The professors work together to ensure that tests/papers aren't due at the same time . . . this is not college! I don't know any scholarship kids who did Focus - in fact I remember Focus kids used to get made fun of sometimes for being sheltered.</p>
<p>does Duke give credit for statistics or Spanish APs?</p>
<p>Credit: Yes to both.</p>
<p>Placement advantages: No to statistics, probably yes to Spanish.</p>
<p>alexatduke - Wow, where do I begin? Only the people least ready for college end up in FOCUS? Wonder why the average GPA of FOCUS students is higher than that of the rest of the student body. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Sorry, maybe you are familiar with a different program or maybe things have changed since I was a freshman 3 years ago. I'm just basing my comments off of my own experiences, and also from friends who were told by admissions officers to consider FOCUS because they might not be as ready for Duke as some of their peers.</p>
<p>And as for the GPA thing - everybody knows there is grade inflation in FOCUS. When I was a freshman, for the entire semester grade of one FOCUS class that my roommate was in, they had to write a 10-page paper on rivers. Every single person got an A. What a joke.</p>
<p>I was in FOCUS last semester (Athens). I liked it, and so did most of the other people that were in my FOCUS. We hated IDC, but that was mostly because of the grad student running it (Rodney Larsen...avoid him like the plague...). One of my seminars was run by a superb professor who'd written a textbook on the subject; the other was run by a UNC professor who was not definitely not out to inflate our GPAs. My Writing 20 class was also awesome (taught by Betsy Gwyn, now Betsy Verhoeven). FOCUS was a lot of work, and the Athens FOCUS had very little grade inflation. I took Organic Chemistry as my elective, and my workload was fairly evenly divided between the two.</p>
<p>Grade inflation isn't so rampant anymore, at least not in the clusters I'm familiar with. Yeah I know people who got all A's, but I know more people that ended up with B averages.</p>
<p>Also, considering how much work is involved in some clusters, I really don't see how FOCUS would be a good idea for someone who isn't academically ready for college. It hasn't been nicknamed ****us for nothing.</p>
<p>I guess it probably depends a lot on the program.</p>
<p>JCR - note that Engineering does not give credit for Stats</p>
<p>is it true what people say about Duke and how elitist people are on campus?</p>
<p>what do u mean by elitist?</p>
<p>Reeze, decide for yourself. </p>
<p>Hey, maybe that'll be good for me. I'm egalitarian to the neth degree coming from a long line of people who resisted authoritarian rule. To be honest, the family founder who came over in the 1600s was a captain in Cromwell's Army.</p>