<p>Hey everyone! I am going to be a Freshman at Harvard in the Fall and I am trying to do a bit of rough course planning ahead of time. I know that I want to concentrate in Economics. I am also interested in pursuing a language citation in Spanish and a secondary field in Statistics. Based on that information, here is the schedule I came up with:</p>
<p>FRESHMAN YEAR: Ec10a/b, Span C, Span 30, Math 1b, Math 21a, Stat 104, Expos 20
SOPHOMORE YEAR: Ec 1011a/b, Ec970, Ec 1127, Math 21b, Stat 107, Span 40, Span 50
JUNIOR YEAR: Ec 980, Stat 110, Stat 111, 4 courses to fulfill gen eds (in SLS, A&I, SW, and C&B), and an Econ elective
SENIOR YEAR: Ec985a/b, Stat 123, an Econ elective, 2 other electives, and 2 courses to fulfill gen eds (in SPU and ER)</p>
<p>Any suggestions regarding my schedule? Classes I should (or shouldn't) take? Really cool courses for an econ person (or anyone) to take in terms of electives or unrelated gen eds? Any courses that were extremely fun, eye opening, etc? Any places where you would suggest I shift around my schedule? Obviously, nothing is set in stone, because I haven't even arrived on campus. However, if anyone has course recommendations, I would love to hear them!</p>
<p>Some of the best courses my daughter has taken over the last three years she found during shopping period. You can’t pre-plan everything; leave yourself room for surprises.</p>
<p>That said, you really should try to get all your gen ed courses out of the way during your freshman, sophomore and junior years. The last thing you want to be doing senior year is gen ed.</p>
<p>^^premeds and econ majors/concentrators tend to have a propensity to want to schedule out their entire 4 years even before arriving on campus …more so than any other areas of focus…because they are so “grade” conscious for their next step in getting into med school or getting that wall street job/consulting with MBB…</p>
<p>…what most entering college students don’t understand is…‘best-laid plans of mice and men oft go astray’…from Robert Burns.</p>
<p>…it’s good to have a “guideline” but don’t forget 80% of students change their major/concentration during their college career…which is okay…college is a time for discovery and experimentation…to make mistakes and grow…to find what you TRULY want to do…not what your parents/friends brainwashed you to go into…</p>
<p>^^ Although I agree that it’s a tad bit early for the OP to start planning out their four years of college, Mother Harvard is quite rigid. She requires students during their first term of sophomore year to pick a concentration and select all the courses they plan on taking to graduate with a degree. Although students can change their concentration, if you want to graduate in 4 years, Mother Harvard doesn’t give much time to “discover and experiment.” The time for that is really during your freshman year.</p>
<p>I am strongly considering an economics concentration and a government secondary field myself. I have a pretty good idea of what I want to do for at least the first semester (barring the seminar quandry). Is it viable to plan on taking 5 courses some semesters to cover any previously lost ground or should I be planning strictly for 4 course semesters throughout? I’ve heard of some even doing six courses a semester, but I’m sure that means devoting no time to a social life.</p>
<p>I’m going to be a pre-med with probably a concentration in either Neurobiology or Molecular and Cell Biology, and I have a rough idea of what courses I want to take. But I’m not going to be overly conscious of my grades. It’s kind of strange, but once I start paying too much attention to grades, my interest in the subject drops significantly and ironically enough, my grades go down with it.</p>
<p>NewYork94: I’m also interested in taking 5 courses at some point (definitely not the first year,) and I’m wondering how stressful that would be. Six is probably an overkill though…</p>
<p>NewYork94: For your first semester, I would take 4 courses and see how it goes. If you’re managing the work-load okay, you might try 5 courses your 2nd semester or take 5 during your sophomore year.</p>
<p>Gibbs, thanks! Has your daughter ever taken 5 courses in a semester and relayed feedback about it? I’m guessing quite a bit depends on what combination of difficulty the five courses are too, though.</p>
<p>You’re not allowed to take five courses your first semester. The one semester I did it, my grades in all my classes dropped, so that was unpleasant. For context: I think I’m in approximately the top 15% here at Harvard, so I do well in general. But 5 was hard. Certainly don’t do it before you have a good idea of what college coursework you can handle in addition to your extracurricular/leisure life, and don’t do it unless 2-3 are going to be comparatively easy or a different type of work than each other. (E.g. 2 problem set classes, 3 with papers. vs. My best friend took 4 paper classes and one creative writing class this spring, which led to a reading week where she had to hand in more than 60 pages over four days, which was awful. Don’t do that!) I may (or may not) take 5 again this fall, even though I’m writing a thesis, because there are 2-3 courses I need to take that should not be very taxing. Much though I would love to learn 5 subjects’ of material every semester, 4 is our norm for a reason. Harvard courses are hard. Anyway, point: if you want to take 5 courses, approach that carefully.</p>
<p>Back to the OP, heavens, you want to have at least 7 gen eds done by the end of your junior year!!! I can’t imagine not. (In fact, I wish I had all 8 of mine done already…[grumpy grumpy]) I sometimes find gen eds rather condescending, so taking them early is good. One of my favorite courses here was HAA 11, Landmarks of World Architecture, which I took my freshman spring. It filled A+I for me. It had a different professor each week, so each week could be rather hit-or-miss. The entire course added up to much, much more than the sum of the whole, though, I thought. I enjoyed it very much. But even as I was taking it, I was like, “wow, I would be so annoyed if I had to take this as a senior; I’m learning a lot because I’m a freshman, but if I were much older, I would find this super patronizing.” I stand by that. Get as many as possible out of the way when you’re still a freshman. Waiting until your junior year to start filling them is a recipe for absolute boredom and misery such as I have not felt since our semester-long drivers’ ed sophomore year of high school. Fill gen eds!</p>
<p>The only thing is that I don’t know HOW I could take the gen eds any earlier than I have them slotted. Ec10 is basically a requirement for freshmen pursuing Econ. I don’t want to lose my Spanish skills by waiting to take classes. The math courses I have slotted freshmen year are prerequisites for advanced Econ courses. Also, expos is required as a freshman, and I have to take an intro stats class before pursuing more advanced courses (I have a limited stats background).</p>
<p>In terms of sophomore year, I have to continue with a full year of Spanish in order to earn my citation. The 4 Econ classes I have slotted are essentially requirements as a sophomore in order to take more advance Econ and stats courses later on, and the math/stats courses are prereqs for the more difficult stats courses.</p>
<p>I just don’t really see a way that I could move my schedule around to get gen eds out of the way early on while still doing an Econ concentration, stats secondary, and Spanish citation. Part of the reason I made this thread was to seek advice regarding reatructuring my schedule if possible. I just don’t see a way I could avoid taking all the listed math, stats, and Econ classes during my freshman and sophomore years, because they are prereqs for the upper level Econ and stats courses that will be electives during my junior and senior years. Additionally, I don’t want to put off taking Spanish. I took AP Spanish during my senior year, and I don’t want to lose language skills by putting off my citation.</p>
<p>Well, if you got a 5 in both micro and macroeconomics, then you don’t need to take Ec 10. I might use that myself actually. In fact, I don’t think you might even be allowed to take Ec 10 for credit in that case.</p>