Prerequisites at Penn

<p>So quick question for current students...Are prerequisites at Penn enforced? Like say I wanted to take ECON 101 (which has a prereq of MATH 114, ECON 001, ECON 002), would anybody care if I took say ECON 101 and ECON 002 concurrently having already satisfied the prereqs of MATH 114 and ECON 001?</p>

<p>Why would you do that to yourself? First of all, econ101 is generally taught by ****ty professors, so you don’t want to take that freshman fall anyway. Take econ002, a writing seminar, and 2-3 other interesting classes that hopefully also fulfill something (including language if you haven’t tested out).</p>

<p>To actually answer your question, I’m not sure. I’m pretty sure econ101 is kind of like econ001 with calc, so you probably don’t really need econ 002, but you might not be able to register without it (actually, on second thought, I don’t think you can–I remember my friend freshman year had tested out of both econ001 and 002 and still had to get permission from the department frosh fall). Some other classes don’t enforce prereqs as much…like, stat is a prereq for finance, and I definitely hadn’t taken stat when I took finance (so I had to learn a tiny bit of stat for the class, but it wasn’t hard//had formula sheet).</p>

<p>You can always try and register for it (it might not let you–if you put it in preregister, though, that’s a waste of a spot, do it after), but I highly recommend against it.</p>

<p>In short: yes. While I have no interest in econ, one of my friends tried to register for 101 and take calc 2 over the summer (for 114). They didn’t allow him to do that to say the least, and for good reason. The classes are hard enough with having background experience, just coming in and thinking you’re good enough doesn’t mean you can keep up with the class pace. The prereqs for classes aren’t arbitrary, if anything they’re not restrictive enough. Just do the prereqs and take the class when you get to it, it’s not a huge deal.</p>