<p>If you listen to her burble, you might come to the conclusion that she loves both of her majors.</p>
<p>I've been trying to suggest that she should take DiffEQ at some point. Her interests are more Pure than Applied but DiffEQ is one of those touchstone courses, imo. Though I did miserably in it.</p>
<p>What are the opportunities for help/tutoring are there? I know that many services are provided, but I'm a special kid and I need a lot of help. Even now, I go in nearly every morning for an hour before school to get help (and I'm only in pre-cal). I really want to do a double major- Chinese with math or engineering but I'm thinking that combo might kill me and my GPA...important since I want to go to either law school or JHU-SAIS for grad school.</p>
<p>The math TAs have hours Sunday-Thursday nights, and the math professors tend to be amazing with making sure that you can make office hours if you need it.</p>
<p>If you're starting calculus next year, check out Mary Murphy. I have a friend who took both semesters with her, and another who went to one class and loved Mary Murphy but couldn't do the material. I've only heard good things about taking calculus with her.</p>
<p>D raves about Ruth Haas and Nick Horton. She says Mary Murphy has an outstanding rep but she doesn't think she teaches beyond Math 112.</p>
<p>TOM, in what way are you slow with Math? In D's opinion, if you're slow with computation, that's a bridgeable problem. If you're slow in absorbing concepts, that will probably be fatal in the Smith Math department.</p>
<p>It's kinda useful. I took a Math for the Sciences Course at Wellesley that had parts of DiffEq among other things. You take equations with a bunch of derivatives in it and then you solve to find the orignal equation. It's a lot of memorization of techinques, but useful.</p>
<p>Her inclinations are more towards things like Modern Algebra, Combinatorics, Topology, Galois Theory....</p>
<p>I like DiffEQ because it <em>is</em> so useful and I can see apps for it arising in sophisticated mathematical modeling scenarios.</p>
<p>But another case of room for only so many courses. As it is, there are many courses that she'd like to take at Smith that will never make it onto her schedule, including more languages, Theater, History, more than one English course, Physics, Genetics, a third Econ course, and even a couple of Gov classes.</p>
<p>I'm slow in picking up concepts...I'm willing to put in as much time as necessary to prepare for the next class, but I'm the kid that cries in the back of the class due to frustration. Would I be better off just ditching calc and going with stats only?</p>
<p>I don't think majoring is problematic if you're willing to put the time into learning the material and get the help you need. I'm not fast at learning concepts either, but once I know the concept everything else about it is a breeze.</p>
<p>Besides, you can very easily change your mind about majors after one or two classes. And you need calc to take 245, the introductory math stats course (even though there was no calculus involved when I took it...), so I'd start with it anyway.</p>
<p>(There are other stats courses available that don't need a calculus background, but if you want to be a math stats major or just have a strong stats background 245 is probably the best stats class to start with. There will be professors around during orientation to talk to about your background and the best classes for you, so at least go to the "which math class should I take?" meeting when you arrive.)</p>
<p>Honestly, as a math person, I can see stats being more useful, but if I had to sit through a stats or a calc class again, I would enjoy calc more. Calc is hands down more interesting and more fun. Although as far as seeing material twice, I remember a lot more of my calculus than my stats, so I might be more bored in calc.</p>
<p>My personal opinion is that everyone with a liberal arts education should have math through the equivalent of Calc AB and Intro Stats. There's too much of the world you can't make proper sense of without it. </p>
<p>I think one quantitative class to balance the one intensive writing class would probably be a good thing to do without compromising Smith's "open curriculum" approach. I know that I find the concept of "core" courses to be really annoying (Columbia) and <em>mandating</em> breadth requirements to be arguable even if I support going for the breadth in practice.</p>
<p>"My personal opinion is that everyone with a liberal arts education should have math through the equivalent of Calc AB and Intro Stats."</p>
<p>Ya really think so? I do quantitative analysis in my work, and I don't think I've used anything from Calc AB in my work in two decades. Stats is a different story. And most of what I didn't know I was able to teach myself.</p>
<p>I think the "core" is a good idea. It is called "high school".</p>
<p>Mini, a subtle distinction: it's not as necessary to <em>use</em> Calc in your work as to have a good grasp of what can be done with it. One does not need to be a specialist in masonry and optics to benefit from a lighthouse.</p>
<p>But I can benefit from a lighthouse without any knowledge or optics whatsoever. Same with the internal combustion engine (which still makes little sense to me.) And electricity? Forget it. This ridiculous tale about little no-volume "charges" moving their way through wires made of materials from oppressed third-world countries gives me the creeps!</p>
<p>However, I can't imagine how one can make any sense out of the modern world without an intimate knowledge of Dante.</p>
<p>I took a math class in high school called "discreet mathmatics" that dealt with such things as compounding interest, how to amortize a loan, basic statistical analysis, how a business would do a cost/benefit analysis etc. I have found the knowledge from that class extremely useful, but honestly I just don't care to study calc. and have gotten by quite happily and well without it. Just my own experience and opinion :-)</p>
<p>That said, I think that a quantitative analysis requirment for all students like the one Smith now has to qualify for Latin Honors would be a good idea along with the current WI requirment. But there are lots of valid ways to fulfill that such as a computer science class, statistics or Introduction to Logic. A req. for Calc. at Smith probably would mean that I'd be at UW today -- glad I'm not! :-)</p>
<p>Laurel, well I'm glad that you're not a UW too and I'm not even sure which UW we're talking about. </p>
<p>The math class you took would be at least minimally satisfactory. I wouldn't hold out for Calc (like Chicago does!) though it should be one of the options. I realize that on this question, as with many, I'm something of a hardass.</p>
<p>Mini: playing the Pandora's Box game, I see.</p>
<p>Well, as a Pac-10 fan, that would be my first guess. But the folks in Madison might beg to differ.</p>
<p>My favorite sister in-law lives in Seattle and I like the area very much. UW would make my top 10 for public U's, falling somewhere in the second 5. A good school...but Smith, imnsvho, is something very special. About womens colleges in general, I was one of the skeptics who stayed to pray. There are five that I'd recommend that many young women stop to consider.</p>