<p>How is UIUC anyway?</p>
<p>i can't really advise you on UIUC as i don't know much about it myself. I've heard good and bad points regarding it, however i wouldn't consider it as a transfer option infront of UT.
I'm not an international student persay. I have studied in the US for the past 15 months, however transfering killed my gpa/class rank as they blatantly refused to give me honors credit on the weighted scale even though i took calculus and other such courses in 10th grade. UT's Plan II appears for students that aren't definite in their futures and are still searching and spreading their resourses and themselves</p>
<p>Well, lol, I'm transferring out of UIUC. It's a good school, awesome parties, and such, and students are friendly, but there is a great disparity between those who study and those who don't. Sure you have the students who win National Science and Math competitions, but then you'll get used to the ambulance pulling up to a dorm to rush a student to the hospital who've drunk themselves half to death. Make sure you pick a good dorm, the rooms are kinda small, but not too much, and most dorms are huge. But its teh students that make the dorms fun. Yes, UIUC students know how to party!
I think I've had my fill of partying, and now I've got to think about my future. But if you're an engineering student, I'd heavily recommend UIUC, alot of recruiting goes on here. The girls here are awesome, looks-wise that is.</p>
<p>But I successfully transferred out to Brown, Cornell, Harvard and UPenn, so I guess it does have a good reputation academically. One complain I have is that some classes are too big, and some are taught by TA who do it just for their money. And their grading can be quite subjective. On that note, if you pick the right professors, A's are VERY easy to come by.</p>
<p>If you want more info about transferring or about UIUC, I'll try to help as much as I can.</p>
<p>How hard is the chem major for Science and Letters Curriculum?
I HAVE TO transfer to UIUC b/c my current school only offers the very tough chem. major. I am thinking about med./patent law/etc. for grad school.</p>
<p>BTW, how hard are the gen. ed courses? I have heard there's a lot of required courses for that. Do you need to take a year of history for western culture and a year of non-western history?
Could you recommend me any very highlighted professors(especially easy graders) and breeze courses?</p>
<p>
[quote]
How hard is the chem major for Science and Letters Curriculum?
I HAVE TO transfer to UIUC b/c my current school only offers the very tough chem. major. I am thinking about med./patent law/etc. for grad school.</p>
<p>BTW, how hard are the gen. ed courses? I have heard there's a lot of required courses for that. Do you need to take a year of history for western culture and a year of non-western history?
Could you recommend me any very highlighted professors(especially easy graders) and breeze courses?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Chemistry major is not too tough, I wouldn't call it easy exactly. There are separate Chemistry and Organic Chemistry courses for Chem Majors, which makes it a little harder to get A's. Only a litte bit, alot of students tend not to study so much. </p>
<p>I would suggest that if you want to maintain a good GPA in the Basic Sciences, choose a non-Chem/Physics Major, you'll make life very easy for yourself. Professors do grade on a curve, but this can work to your advantage. In Physics I, I got an F on my first exam, but thanks to the curve ended up with an A+ in the class, seriously! And A+'s and A-'s do exist, but if you take Chemistry/Physics/Biology etc courses for non-majors, you will get by very easily.</p>
<p>The college has a few gen eds requirements, but take the right courses and they'll all be easy A's. And you need only a semester of Western Civ and Non-Western Civ.
For more info, go to:
<a href="http://courses.uiuc.edu/cis/gened/urbana/2005/Fall/%5B/url%5D">http://courses.uiuc.edu/cis/gened/urbana/2005/Fall/</a></p>
<p>Of course, picking the right professor is everything, and I would suggest that you take at least one "blow off" course each semester as a confidence booster. If you do well in one class, it seems to carry over to your other subjects as well. I took an easy Music Class to fulfill a requirement, and got an A with less than 10 hours of work during the semester. ALot of advanced composition courses only require 40 pages of writing, which you can usually filled up with a couple of papers and did nothing the rest of the semester! This also depends on how cool you TA is, and this is one major advantage and disadvantage of UIUC. </p>
<p>And there is lots of things to do with all the free time you'll have left over. Students are partying ALL the time, and this can be distracting. But you will make lots of friends and will get to know everyone one you floor pretty quickly. But some dorms are much quieter than others, especially the engineerying dorms.</p>
<p>Advanced Physics and Math courses, on the other hand can be pretty brutal, alot of engineering students here are amazingly brilliant and they will upset the curve alot. And some classes have quotas for A's, like top 20% get A's, but this is upto the professor again.</p>
<p>If you want more info about the right professor, and about blow-off courses, I'll be happy to share. :)</p>
<p>I am not saying that I want to take only the non-major courses. There should be at least some rigor for them. How hard is the second organic chem course @ UIUC? How is the course curved? Difficult tests? What about the labs - Do you need to take just one lab or two lab courses?
I already took the first one last term and got only a B on it. It was tough as hell, MUCH harder than the general chem sequence.</p>
<p>BTW, is there such a major called non-chem/Physics Major?
I typed that in the UIUC search engine but the results are blank.</p>
<p>lol, by "non-chem/Physics Major" I meant choose something that isn't Chemistry or Physics. Sorry for the confusion. Ex: Psychology is a "non-chem/Physics Major".</p>
<p>Organic II course is pretty easy, but I need a bit more info, are you planning to be a Chemistry major at UIUC? </p>
<p>But I do know that one of my friends who's in Chemical Engineering took the major Sequence of Organic Chemistry (Elementary I, Fundamental I & II) and received A's in all three. He studied mainly from the lectures, and read the book on weekends, and did past exams. He did put in a fair amount of work, but nothing extraordinary. Unfortunately, there is a curve in Organic II, only 20% can get A's, and trust me, the curves matter alot. Hardly anyone gets a true 93%, and most have to rely on a curve. In Organic I & II, I got A+'s but only had around 90% in both courses.</p>
<p>Alot of students do get B's & C's, but I doubt they study much. Good thing is that lectures are being recorded online starting last year, so I attended maybe 4 Orgo lectures last semester. I just watched them online at my convenience. </p>
<p>Again, pick the right professor, since some profs merely create new exams from past exams. The online study materials available for you are very extensive, and I guarantee that if you even do about 75% of the recommended stuff, you'll get an "A". Trouble is, UIUC is a party school and alot of students show up hungover to exams, and hence don't do well. If you can keep yourself from being distracted, you'll do fine.</p>
<p>Once you start getting really advanced, like Biochemistry & Physical Chemistry, the students are more serious. Fortunately, some profs have very generous curves, I personally know one Biochem prof who gave 40% of his class A's last semester. </p>
<p>I think you'll notice a general trend here: PICK THE EASY PROFESSOR!
I can't stress this enough. It will make a huge difference. And UIUC students are pretty friendly, you can ask anyone in your dorm about which courses and profs are easy.</p>
<p>BTW: My Organic Lab course had extra credit, you could earn an extra 5% on every exam. My Molecular Biology course had 6% extra credit, so there's tons of opportunity to do well in a course.</p>
<p>Actually, I am willing to major in the Sci & Letters Curriculum Chemistry(easier option), not the Specialized Curriculum. As I told you before, my school's curriculum is way too tough. So this is my primary reason for transfer. I want to take well-rounded subjects to achieve a higher GPA, since my interest is somewhat shifted to law schools and other professional grad schools that weigh GPA heavily.</p>
<p>BTW...
How hard are the orgo II tests?
At my school, they're all multiple choices and the course is curved to have 65-75% class average. 75% for this course would be a B+ or an A-, though I am not sure. And what biochem and molecular bio courses did you take?(including full course code with #)From what professors?</p>
<p>Could you also name easy professors from different departments?(not ridiculously easy laughable courses but you know what I mean :) )</p>
<p>Also, how is SPCM 101(public speaking)?
Is it more like a presentation speech? Discussions in groups? Or 1 to 1 conversations?
Again, plz recommend the best professors?(and of those, please also mention profs that give you extra credits)</p>
<p>Hi cool, sorry for the late reply.
May I suggest to you taking a humanities major instead, such as philosophy, or psychology. Both those majors are very easy to do well in. </p>
<p>But if you want to continue chemistry, I've talked with my friends, and these are currently the easiest profs out right now:</p>
<p>Organic Chemistry:</p>
<p>Stanely Smith (old, boring, nice guy, recylcles old exams)
AVOID Tyson Miller (very exciting, but a killer on grades)</p>
<p>As a chemistry major, you'll have to take 436 as Orgo II. You only have one choice of professor, Peter Beak.</p>
<p>He's tough, there's no other way to say this. But luckily there is almost always a curve in the class. I believe last semester the curve was 65% for an A. To sum it up, Orgo II (for chemistry majors) has hard exams, and you will probably have to rely on the curve for an A, and the curves are pretty generous, so I wouldn't worry too much.</p>
<p>I have not taken Biochem as yet, that was my next course. I did take MCB 150/151, it's an easy course no matter which prof you take. IB 150 has lots of extra credit and is very easy no matter who you take. </p>
<p>I took MCB 250 with Ferguson, it was one of the funnest classes I've ever had, and the grading isn't too bad either.</p>
<p>SPCOM 101, I'm glad you asked me this. I took it Freshman year. Unfortunately TA's teach this class, and TA's change almost every year so I can't help you much with who to take. It's a speech class, you'll be preparing and giving speeches every two weeks or so, so the workload is light. Just follow the rules in the course text, and you'll be guaranteed an A.</p>
<p>This has traditionally been a "blow-off" class, but you might get unlucky and be stuck with a horrible TA. My suggestion is take the class, see how your TA is, and if you don't like them, switch to another section.</p>
<p>Hey, I actually meant CHEM 332 orgo 2. I might have already told you that I am choosing the EASIER option of the chem major, which is still a B.S.(Whereas other schools would give you a B.A. for this amount of work)Besides, I only have to take a min of 30 credits of chem courses. That means I am not required to take CHEM 436. Do you know any good profs with CHEM 332? What's/How's the work in this course?
And for how many scheduled hours do you need to work in an orgo chem lab per week(perhaps CHEM 333 elementary orgo chem lab?)?</p>
<p>Also, how are MCB 100 and 101?</p>
<p>bump, don't want to lose this for the crop of spring transfers</p>
<p>so, are you thinking about transferring to UIUC?</p>
<p>I am not, I want William and Mary.</p>
<p>is it hard to transfer to UIUC for Music? I know engineering and business is damn near impossible w/ out steller stats.</p>
<p>Thanks so much for posting this! I'm in a similar situation, having taken a year off from school (MIT) and being enrolled as a visiting student at the state university (Rutgers). I'm planning to apply for transfer admission to yale this year so your thread really helps!</p>
<p>I was wondering if it would look good that I took the highest level class offered in my major my freshman year and got an A? It is a junior level class. The reason I want to transfer is exactly that. The academics at my school are horrible. My freshman English class reminded me of elementary school. Seriously, the professor spent about three weeks explaining the difference between a complete sentence and a fragment.</p>
<p>psr13, what school do you go to?</p>
<p>I bet you've never heard of it. It is called Hope International University and is in Fullerton, CA. It's a tiny Christian school. My roommate has a mom who teachers here and apparentely her mom comments on how stupid most of the kids here are. It's sad really.</p>