<p>i heard of pass/fail courses at a bunch of ivy league joints...does this apply to first year columbians?</p>
<p>yea its available 1 class / semester. And you know, even sweeter than that, 3/4 of the way through a class you can decide if you want to change it to pass/fail or if its already pass fail, you can change it to a real grade!! Lol columbia's system is gonna be game for asian gunners.</p>
<p>If you recall from the summer advising sessions, pass/fail classes don't count toward credit requirements for SEAS kids. Apparently engineers have to earn real grades. Oh well xD</p>
<p>And you can't pass/fail any core requirements.</p>
<p>Thats more like Brown's optional policy</p>
<p>You can pass/fail just about anything at Brown. What are you talking about?</p>
<p>My post was geared toward the OP. But I was saying Brown has a system where you choose either "Satisfactory/No Credit” or number grading. </p>
<p>SMH*</p>
<p>right, you basically can't pass/fail anything of importance and expect to get credits for it.</p>
<p>it's better to just not view it as an option. there are other, more creative ways of gaming the system. one hint: major advisors can approve ANYTHING, including just waiving requirements outright.</p>
<p>do you want to elaborate on that Denzera?</p>
<p>I second that motion, idontcare.</p>
<p>look, you'll figure out how to game the system if you need to. figuring out your schedule and attack plan for your major/minor/core requirements can be really complicated. but there are ways to get around things if you absolutely need to. this is part of playing the bureaucratic game where you learn that columbia may or may not deserve its reputation as a big red-tape place, but you can work with it. Some examples include: (1) taking an incomplete in a class you can't handle, esp. with the assistance of counseling & psych services, (2) appealing to late-drop a class, with forms your advisor can give you, (3) having your major advisor sign off on a replacement class for a requirement, or on waiving a requirement outright, (4) pass-failing, and so forth.</p>
<p>It's not cheating - it's learning the rules and using them to your advantage when you have to. I didn't have to do all of the above, certainly, but students as smart and creative as most columbia students will pick up on ways to game the system if they have to. some things require a lot of chutzpah to pull off, sometimes people go too far or don't know how to properly deal with the decisionmakers, but generally speaking you'll find that Columbia has a vested interest in helping you graduate, and is willing to assist you.</p>