I’ve been accepted into Cal as a Regent’s Scholar nominee (and the interview went well, so hopefully as a regent’s scholar).
I’m fascinated by physics and am pretty set on majoring in it, however I also thoroughly enjoy chemistry and potentially would like to add it as a second major later down the line. As an incoming freshman, does this course load sound manageable with a dedicated work ethic (hopefully still leaving a little free time?)
Fall 2016:
Math 53
Physics H7A
Chem 4A (I know the labs are intense, but I’m willing to put in the work)
History Breadth Course (thinking Medieval Studies, but not sure)
I scored a 5 on AP Calc BC, so I can skip out of Math 1A and 1B, and a 5 on AP English Language, so I can for sure skip out of the first semester of R/C and maybe the second depending on how I do on the AP Lit test. As for the sciences, I scored a 5 on AP Chem and AP Physics C: E&M and a 4 on AP Physics C: Mechanics. I value all of your opinions on this matter! Any input would be greatly appreciated!
You may want to try the old Math 1A and 1B exams to make sure that you know the material by Berkeley standards.
Note that Math 1B includes some differential equations stuff that high school AP courses or other college courses may not cover, so you may have to self-study it. See the note at the bottom of https://math.berkeley.edu/courses/choosing/ap-exams and https://math.berkeley.edu/courses/choosing/lowerdivcourses/math1B .
Otherwise, the course load seems fairly typical, although you should know that two lab courses means an above average workload, and Physics H7A and Chemistry 4A are likely to be somewhat more intellectually difficult (but probably more interesting to you) than Physics 7A and Chemistry 1A. Old exams for all of these courses can be found at https://tbp.berkeley.edu/courses/ , so that you can see how your knowledge from AP courses stacks up compared to the Berkeley courses.
Chem 4A is hard. I had the exact same idea when I was coming into Berkeley and took 4A because I thought it’s one of the possibilities I can major in. I ended up majoring in mechanical engineering as I realized I would like to join the industry and keep things real. Both chemistry or physics major essentially require to continue with PhD if you want to keep it at that path.
To answer you, I think it’s manageable with dedicated work ethic, but I leave it doubtful that you’ll even have little free time.
It’s too early to tell, but do let me know if you are more interested in going to the real world after college and tackle some real-life problems or staying in the world of academia for a while and do some lab work and usually theory-intense. I personally find the latter path to require much more thinking and simply not for everyone, but if you have what it takes, then certainly go for it. Both pure chemistry or physics majors make you stay in academia for a while.
By hard do you mean time-consuming or intellectually challenging (or both)? I am interested in continuing on for a PhD in the future but I’m not entirely set on it, as I want to keep an open mind. Also what do you think of the workload difference between H7A and 7A? I’ve looked around and physics majors seem to encourage doing H7A over 7A, especially if most of the 7A material was already covered in AP Physics (and I’ve taken that).
However, I do want to enjoy my college experience and the classes I take and if these classes seem a little overkill at the same time maybe I can try and find a workaround.
Both time-consuming and intellectually challenging. Some people would end up getting A’s, but considering just about everyone in the class tries their best, giving a bell-curve distribution centered at B- is demoralizing for too many students who sacrificed so much, imo.
As for the honors series, it depends on the professor. I took a honors physics course myself and I actually had less homework and easier exams (open note/book everything, something you would never see from a regular series), but that’s how the professor wanted it. It ‘should’ be more intense in general though, so whatever.
As for doing PhD or not, you should have a solid idea after 2 years or so or even less.
If you can’t decide on the courses, do what I did which was very helpful - overenroll in all the courses that are within your interest and after a week or the first problem set or the first exam, you should have a good idea which courses do you want to retain or not. I found this to be the most informed way to decide your courses. Just make sure that if you don’t like it, drop the class and don’t look back.
Thank you so much! This advice is extremely helpful! I will try out your over enrollment method, which seems like a brilliant idea.
Yeah, the only rule of thumb is that any course can be a keeper and any course can be a dropper including the ones you listed above.
I made a pretty silly mistake of calling my dad who didn’t know or understand my situation and he was telling me to keep it b/c a good student wouldn’t drop classes and that affected my decision.
If you feel like you can’t do it, then you shouldn’t do it.
I’ll keep that in mind when determining if I should keep the course. Any ideas on how to prepare for Chem 4a the summer before? Textbooks, websites, videos, problem sets etc. ?
Anything you can learn about molecular orbital theory would be great.