I’m an incoming freshman and I think the schedule I was planning on might be too much, but I’m not sure what to drop. I’m a molecular and cellular biology major, but theres a small chance I might switch to biomedical engineering. I’m also pre med. Here’s the courses I was thinking about taking was:
Intro to Biology + lab
General Chemistry + lab
Accelerated Calculus 1 or Normal Calculus 1 (maybe calc 2 if I get the AP credit)
Art First Year Writing Seminar
I was told that’s too many rigorous class for the first semester. The thing is I’m a bio major and pre med so the bio and chem classes are basically locked in right? Should I just drop calc? I don’t really want to though because I was kinda planning on taking a good amount of math classes… should I figure out how to manage those classes or just drop one, if so which one?
You can take bio as a sophomore. Trust me when I say that college classes are much harder than highschool classes. People have done those three classes together before, but the general advice is to spread them about. You don’t lose anything by taking bio as a sophomore.
Also, if you have AP Chem credit, I highly suggest you take Freshman Orgo instead of gen chem
Yeah that combination is referred to by students and advisors as “the trifecta of death.” Pre meds come in and take those three together and aren’t pre meds anymore. And if you somehow get even alright grades with that, you would have spent so much time studying that you would have missed the boat on making friends or doing anything fun. Even two of those three together will be pretty hard.
If you’re thinking about switching to engineering, it’s more important that you take math freshman year. I would drop bio and replace it with something easy. If you are seriously considering engineering or have a 5 in AP calc AB do accelerated semester a. If you’re wishy washy and don’t have the AP credit, do the non-accelerated.
It is confusing to a high schooler, but you don’t need to take all the classes for your major right away. I think the best premed schedule is chem/calc freshman year, physics bio sophomore year, orgo biochem junior year, MCAT junior summer, then finish your major senior year. You won’t be behind by any means taking bio sophomore year; it’s really common. You can also take a pre req over the summer. Not taking bio freshman year won’t hold you back since you won’t get into bio upper levels until junior and senior year. You can spend time knocking out easy axle credits and figuring what you want to do early on. The only premed class you really need to take freshman year is chem.
How hard is the Intensive Elementary Spanish class, (that’s the language class I placed into)? Would it be an easy enough course to replace bio with and get a good grade pretty easily? I know it’s more hours than bio, I don’t know if that matters at all.
I agree with fdg… Chem, calc, and bio freshman fall semester turn many pre-meds into HOD majors before Thanksgiving. IMHO you goals for your first semester should be: 1. Adjust to the new rigor of Vandy, 2. Adjust to not being the smartest kid in the class, 3. Adjust to your new social environment, 4. Adjust to your new freedom, 5. Take a light load to maintain a solid GPA so you stay in the med school game. Spring semester you should be ready to ramp up the academic schedule.
As a pre-med you have 5 classes you must survive, chem, calc, bio, orgo, & physics. If you can AP out of calc and take stats do it (check with your top med schools required classes first. Most will accept stats if you AP out of calc. If you major in engineering you can’t avoid calc.). If you can AP calc you just eliminated 20% of your week out risk. The last thing you want to do is load up on 3 of the most difficult classes fall term freshman year.
This central time causes my sleep/wake-up to be out of whack(at Urbana-Champagne right now) lol. I would not advise taking those 3 together at all, and would agree with the others except I’m not sure if it is ultra important to knock gen. chem out first since it has been suggested you take ochem and bchem as a junior by another poster (that weirded me out at first, but since ochem has decreasing importance on the MCAT, may it will work), maybe you should consider biology first. It is somewhat challenging, but does not really require the best chem background to handle (from what I’ve seen). It could allow you to progress through your biological sciences major(s) faster.
However, I now do question ochem and bchem in junior year as I don’t know if Vanderbilt is a school that has migrated to allowing students to co-enroll. In addition, I am also unsure as to how often it would be offered because ideally it would be supplemented by ochem 2 and not ochem 1. My friend there reminded me of this: http://www.vanderbilthustler.com/news/article_2c7f10ae-7003-11e4-884f-3346d26572e0.html so OP may want to ask around about it.
@bud123 : I don’t know why gen. chem has received a weedout reputation at Vanderbilt (only one of those 3 is particularly bad…but I guess them together is rough for some freshman. Though some with extremely good prep can certainly handle it while having a social life, many have lop-sided preparation and expectations). It is the most standard level class out of those 5 with biology a close second and ochem a close 3rd. Math and Physics are the ones I would be concerned about because the exams and content in those classes are pitched at higher levels (by higher levels, I mean similar or better than similar caliber or even those regarded as more prestigious schools). Maybe Vanderbilt students have better math and physics backgrounds than they do say AP chem and AP biology (as in less variation in math and physics preparation than life sciences). I think many schools are like that but it is interesting to see itself manifest itself in the array of opinions of what counts as a true weedout and what doesn’t. If I look at the cognitive complexity of the problems put on the exams and everything, the physics and math courses certainly take the cake and the reviews on math on CC for example, seem to suggest it about math (don’t hear much about physics on here), but the reviews on gen. chem being ridiculously hard just seem weird to me. It is nowhere near the same level as physics (really not even some of the biology instructors).
Yeah, you can co enroll in biochem and ochem here, it’s pretty common. Biochemistry is offered both semesters as well. I think orgo 1 is offered both semesters, and orgo 2 might just be second semester. I recommend orgo and biochem junior year because additional maturity really seems to help in doing well in those classes, whereas the other pre reqs seem to require less college experience to succeed.
As for gen chem, it is true it’s not the hardest of the pre reqs. However, it is a major weedout because of the psychological environment of the class. Basically all STEM majors have to take it and everyone is really stressed about it, so it makes the tests pretty nerve wracking. I would still recommend it freshman year because it has a lot of annoying daily homeworks that makes it seem like a class more geared to people fresh out of high school. Like you said, it’s also the least challenging one, so it’s a good way to adjust to the rigor of science classes here.
If you want to major/minor or become fluent in the language, take the one you place into. If you don’t really care and are just doing it for the axle credit, drop down to the lowest level possible for a super easy A.
@fdgjfg : Does Vanderbilt have webassign or ALEKS for gen. chem? Students say that the latter is a real pain (it is adaptive so if you screw up a problem, it piles on more work). It is likely good at getting students more practice (so the instructors can write more challenging exams), but it ultimately adds to the workload. Students at my school pretty much knew most of the instructors were probably intentionally making it harder than normal (likely knowing that a sizable chunk had AP 4/5), so kind of stress but take more of a “let us just get past this approach” and then folks freak out when they get to ochem because they usually fall into 2 camps. Those riding high from good grades in gen. chem and biology and those who feel pressure after not doing that well. Many in the former group end up with a nice slap in the face and reality check and a surprising amount in the other group are less complacent, know what they are getting themselves into and either improve or select lower level instructors if necessary. There isn’t as much correlation between the gen. chem and ochem scores as one would think (mainly because the instructors with the most students are on a different planet difficulty wise so not only is it a new language, but they are forcing students to learn the new language of chem at extremely high levels… Scenarios that are much higher than problems assigned or the exact concepts covered in class are the new “fair”). As for biochemistry, yes, it should probably not have a hard pre-req of ochem. Useful but far from necessary to succeed. Does take lots of discipline to keep up with all those minute details though.
Yes, they used aleks as well as sapling when I took it a few years ago, so there was homework due probably 5 out of 7 days a week. It may have changed since then though, but I’m pretty sure they still have some way of giving annoying online homework. The annoying thing about them is that they help you learn how to do simple problems, but the test has more complex problems like you see in recitation or book challeng problems. So students end up basically being required to waste study time that could be better spent elsewhere.