<p>I've mentioned this briefly before, and I was wondering what your opinions were.</p>
<p>Like any student, I want to have a good GPA at Penn. However, in some intro courses, the material is very easy, and as a result, there tend to be terrible curves and grade deflation.</p>
<p>Can someone please give me an accurate idea of Econ 001 and 002 and their respective curves? I've heard what you get on the exams, RAW, is your final grade-That is frightening to me.</p>
<p>I want to have a 3.6 plus, so I don't know how this is going to happen-I'm nervous that I'll study hard, but still get a B plus OR lower on my econ 001/002 exams. </p>
<p>Should I take some easier courses to supplement/boost my GPA?</p>
<p>I’m only a rising sophomore but, to be honest, I love the curve. Take Stat101 for instance. I got a 58/68 on the final in Fall 2011 thanks to leaving studying for the final to the last 3-4 days. In any regular, non-curved class that would’ve resulted in a B, or B+ if lucky. But in this case I received a respectable A-. </p>
<p>The curve is very lenient, IMO. </p>
<p>Also, I personally found Econ001 and 002 to be easy courses. I personally don’t think you need to worry about those two. </p>
<p>That said, I found my writing seminar to be extremely difficult as the workload was just insane (there’s really no comparison to the other courses). I also thought the grading in PSCI-150 was a tad unfair–it made attaining an A/A- impossible unless you consistently received an A in all the many required essays over the term. I received a B on one and an A- on another and, despite a very good final, ended with a B+.</p>
<p>If you were in a decent academic program in high school (AP/IB), I don’t think you’ll find freshman year very difficult at all. I found it surprisingly manageable, barring a couple courses (ex: writing seminar).</p>
<p>Intro Econ courses are not that hard from what I’ve heard, it’s the math and science courses that are pretty difficult. Econ 101 is a little more difficult from what I have heard. None of thw courses are unreasonable when taking a normal schedule, you just have to use your time wisely. Writing seminar is actually not that bad compared to the problem sets you get in some science courses, it’s just a ton of busy work every week.</p>
<p>You should be fine if you take a reasonable course load (don’t overload yourself) and study smart and efficiently. Studying in college is more about quality than quantity. Try not to take more than three difficult classes a semester, it may seem fine at first but when midterms come around taking a ton of challenging courses becomes very stressful.</p>
<p>You should try not to be overly concerned about grades. I’ve found that I do much better when I put less pressure on myself and just focus on learning for the sake of learning.</p>
<p>Thanks Poeme-I’m not worried about difficulty, but grading-Many have said that what you get is your grade, which seems pretty harsh. Yet, if you are in the top 1/3, I suppose you will get the A, right?</p>
<p>Does the curve get more generous with higher level courses?</p>
<p>For a lot of intro courses generally 30% get As. It’s not always exact though. That’s actually not too harsh of a curve. The upper level courses are sometimes curved a to a B+ but that can also vary and in some classes there may be another absolute scale, that’s not exactly fixed. But mostly test averages are in the 60s or low 70s in my major at least, so an A could possibly be around 80%</p>
<p>Ok, so I have a chance of doing well in Econ 001 and 002.</p>
<p>I heard for math (high courses) sometimes 50 percent of the class or more gets an A!? Is this true for upper level courses in Econ and other subjects?</p>