<p>So I'm in Wharton, and I have a question about classes:
Can I take Math 104 in the spring, and something else in the fall (and what requirement am I allowed to take instead in the fall)?</p>
<p>I've heard from several students about the horrendous 104 curve in the fall because the engineers are also taking it...and I haven't taken calculus since junior year (and then I didn't take the last term of BC--my school's math is kind of weird). So I want to avoid taking it in the fall, and a current friend, who is taking 104 now (but took 103 in the fall) said it's not bad at all.</p>
<p>So right now my fall looks like:</p>
<p>MGMT 100
Econ 10
Japanese (high level)
writing seminar
...???</p>
<p>I don't know what else I'm allowed to take in the fall. I would take stats, but it <em>almost</em> looks like I need to have completed math 104 first??</p>
<p>i don’t believe you have to take math 104 first semester as long as you’ll be able to fit in your other required courses later? but whartonites can correct me on this one</p>
<p>… incidentally, scribbler, i think we have a mutual friend from your school who is also going to wharton in the fall - recognized your username from her livejournal, haha</p>
<p>As someone who is beginning in the Ph.D. program in math at Penn next fall, why not just study the material in advance? You can find the course website over here:</p>
<p>Just get the book from the library (or buy it) and study it in advance. I don’t know how easy you find maths, but that stuff is something I assume a good student should be able to learn by himself to at least some degree. If you get stuck you can ask questions on some math related forums on the web e.g.</p>
<p>Most people have problems on maths courses, because they fall behind at some point. Usually, the best way to counter this is by simply knowing the basics before it’s covered in a course. This way you’ll also understand the big picture better from the lectures.</p>
<p>My strategy in college was actually to read every single course by myself doing all the exercises of the previous year, before I enrolled in the course. This allowed me to think about implications of the material and ask good questions from the professor.</p>
<p>The course website talks about a common final exam for a bunch of courses and it is scheduled between 12-14 which works out to a two hour exam. Old exams are also posted on the course website together with the chapters from the book. You can look at the index of the book through amazon’s search inside feature or just google “stewart calculus djvu” and download a scanned (i.e. pirated) copy of the whole thing if you don’t have a guilty conscience…</p>
<p>One tip for incoming students is that what distinguishes average students from the best, is that the best students like to study their subject outside of what is taught in courses. You often hear people tell how they’re excited to learn something when course XX is lectured next fall, spring or whatever, when nothing prevents them from just picking up the corresponding books and studying it right now.</p>
<p>Many people are just machines in high-school studying vigorously everything the teacher throws at them hoping to get straight As and doing all kinds of pretentious crap to impress adcoms (I’m not American and I’m very cynical about this EC stuff :)). This is often enough to get into even the best schools. The problem at many universities is that you might end up taking courses for which your prerequisites are less than perfect and the only way to overcome it is to just study on your own. This is especially true if you want to start optimizing your background for grad school, which might include taking advanced courses (i.e. grad courses) that are outside your comfort zone. For this reason, there’s really no point postponing stuff that only pushes other essential stuff further into the future.</p>
<p>yes eof, but I have no desire to a) continue math (as much as I like it, I only like it to a certain extent) b) study math this summer. If I’m going to study, my time would better be spent studying Japanese.</p>
<p>And don’t trash the holistic american college admissions thing. I prefer it SO MUCH more t han the Asian thing where you just have to pass one test and that’s all they take into account (intelligence and community are based on more than book-learning). Also, some people do just do EC for college, but I can say with 100% assurance that everything I did/do, I did/do it because I really enjoy(ed) it.</p>
<p>Sorry, for trashing the college admission thing. It’s just that I am seeing so many people stressing about their ECs on this forum. I think that at that age, it’s a lot more important to just enjoy life instead of stressing. Unfortunately, the fierce competition and the low requirements set by high schools, makes it impossible to distinguish top students only by their academic records. It just leads to a vicious cycle regarding stuff outside of school.</p>
<p>Regarding your choices, it’s just seems like you need to figure out what you want.</p>