<p>No, no, please don’t judge Columbia students by one unusually aggressive person. I have plenty of friends at Columbia and they’re nice, friendly people who would never insult Barnard students.</p>
<p>To be honest, I was a little nervous about answering that question (thus my preface about not being a CC student), because I was afraid of a “What do -you- know?” style response that sometimes happens online. Anonymity can bring out bad qualities. I am fairly sure that I would not have received that type of hostile response if I had not mentioned my school affiliation. For the record, I do take approximately half my classes at Columbia and feel qualified to judge the workload level of a gym class. </p>
<p>For confused incoming students, let me clarify my previous statement: I did not mean to imply that taking PE would affect your workload in any way. That was my whole point: physical education is just a way to get exercise and shouldn’t be factored into workload calculations. </p>
<p>It is my sincere wish that incoming Columbia students don’t take this mess the wrong way. When you get on campus in the fall, things will be different. You will have SEAS, CC, GS, JTS, Barnard, and Grad school students in your classes. It will shift your perceptions of everyone and you will learn from every single person you meet. The vast diversity of background is an advantage of going to Columbia and NYC; don’t let the presence of “others” ruin your amazing college experience.</p>
<p>you can’t take bio as a freshman…you must be at least a sophomore. if you are well prepared for it and you don’t come into it with the mindset of just memorizing everything and you have the ability to actually think then bio isn’t that hard</p>
<p>i think your schedule should be:
lit hum
u writing or FoS
1600 chem
1600 physics
a foreign language </p>
<p>unless you are a physics genius you should stay away from 2800 and there is no reason to jump right into orgo when you are making that transition to college…unnecessary stress</p>
<p>There are many VERY good reasons to take frosh orgo, and in my opinion, they strongly outweigh the downsides for anyone who is well-prepared for the course. Dude, you’d be a bit more credible if you didn’t make blanket statements like that.</p>
<p>Thanks guys! So from what I read on this forum, the advantages of freshman orgo are skipping 2 regular chem classes (1 AP class really qualifies me to skip 2 college classes?), taking a slightly lower-stress orgo class with all freshman if I plan to take it anyway, possibly having an easier curve relative to the other orgo class, and getting to be in a freshman class that is taught by a famous professor. Is this a complete view of the benefits I would attain from undertaking a more stressful workload (15 hrs/week?) first semester?</p>
<p>And for physics, the trade-off appears to be an insanely intense workload (30 hr/week?) for an interesting course that will make future physics courses seem easy if I pursue a physics major. Anything I missed? </p>
<p>Thanks again! Oh, and Barnard student opinions are also welcome, haha.</p>
<p>i gave my opinion …if you disagree you’re free to go ahead and say so but lay off the crap at the end…it’s completely uncalled for…it’s one thing to act like a d-bag to HS kids who ask stupid questions but it’s another thing to act that way toward students/alums</p>
<p>anyway, the reason i made such a strong statement earlier is because you said you were considering premed…and as unfortunate as it is med school admissions is a numbers game and if you feel prepared for freshman orgo you should easily crank out A’s in gen chem or intensive gen chem which will help out your gpa. however if you don’t want to do premed then freshman orgo is a great way to cut back on taking intro classes and frees u up so you can take more interesting classes later. this however:</p>
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</p>
<p>is not going to be the case…it might be slightly “lower stress” because there won’t be any premeds in it but you will be competing with the best of the best in chemistry in your year so i dont think the curve will be helping you out much</p>
<p>also if you want to do premed avoid 2800 physics like the plague!</p>
<p>Sorry to bump such an old thread, but is the “replace” option still a viable option? As in, am I allowed to switch into any open slot without having to petition?</p>
<p>The PDF they gave us says to petition only with “a compelling reason” but that doesn’t seem to apply if there’s an open space, for whatever reason.</p>