I love math but I’m not great at it - B+ in Honors pre-Calc/Trig/Algebra II (my school combines these into one year. My pre-Calc grades were more in the A-/A range though) and I’m taking AP Calc AB as a senior. How hard is applied math at Northwestern? I either want to major in that or engineering, but I’m learning towards math. I’m just worried about whether I can handle it or not. I’m good at math, I think, but not great. Also, what’s the workload like? Is it lighter or heavier than the engineering workload?
I can’t say for sure since I’m not in the major, but since Applied Math is in McCormick, I’d bet the coursework is about as difficult as other engineering majors. Plus, first-year students in all McCormick majors (and those undecided) take the same set of classes, so for those, you’d have exactly the same workload as everyone else.
Many people complain about how hard McCormick course work is, so I think most people would agree that it is quite hard.
If you get in, and try Applied Math and engineering and find them too difficult, you can always switch to majoring in Weinberg and be a Math or Statistics major or something else (switching schools is super easy at NU). Many students do that after being dissuaded by the difficulty of McCormick coursework.
Have you taken a look at the Applied Math website yet? If not, doing so might help you.
Website: http://www.mccormick.northwestern.edu/applied-math/