Questions For Current Duke Students?

<p>Congratulations to everyone who got in!
Anyone have questions about your future school? :D
Other current Duke students, feel free to answer questions as well!</p>

<p>I will be of service as well.</p>

<p>Civil Engineering major, btw for all the future Pratt students</p>

<p>Congratulations everyone! Get excited for 4 amazing year!</p>

<p>Art History here, for anyone into the humanities! I've also done alot with Chem as well:)</p>

<p>hey loveduke22, what are you planning to do with an art history major?</p>

<p>hey guys i was just accepted ed to trinity and have a couple of questions:</p>

<p>1) Is it common for freshman to have cars on campus?
2) How much homework would you say you do daily and weekly?
3) What is your course load like? Are classes typically early in the morning, is there a lot of time in between classes, how many do you have a day, ext.</p>

<p>Thanks for your time</p>

<p>1) Yes it is, but not so much that you will feel out of place if you don't have one. Unless you don't make a friend that has one, then you're screwed...</p>

<p>2) A LOT more than I did in HS. They say one hour in class = three hours homework. That's about true.</p>

<p>3) Not in a position to answer for trinity</p>

<p>I can give a few more answers to those questions as well:</p>

<p>1) Freshman year is really when you would want to have a car. Parking on East is easy, parking on west I have heard is a pain in comparison. (I've never lived on west as I stuck around on East campus as an RA last year, was in Australia this last semester and will be back on east again next semester) As a normal student you really don't exactly need a car though. I didn't have one freshman year but did last year and the only thing I really used it for was either ROTC related activities or RA activities. (and giving rides to stores) Having a car can sometimes be more of a pain than it is worth. (Duke parking is notoriously arbitrary and cruel about the way it enforces parking restrictions)</p>

<p>2) Yeh, lots of work. If you aren't doing lots of work at university you are wrong. Procrastination can be a big temptation especially since some classes don't actually have "homework" but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be working on those classes. (of course there will be exceptions but as an Engineer I've never taken one of those classes)</p>

<p>3) Schedules are a rather fickle thing especially in Trinity so your mileage may vary. (I can only speak to observations of trinity schedules obviously as I am an Engineer) While in Pratt schedules are pretty much unanimously god awful (I post my schedule on my door and people I don't know make a point of telling me that just viewing it was the most traumatic experience of their lives) Trinity schedules can sometimes be quite lovely. It all depends on your priorities while book bagging and a little bit of luck. I had one freshman last year who second semester had all his classes on Tuesday and Thursday flew home to work from Friday to Monday. Morning classes are going to be the least popular so if you are a morning person you are in luck!</p>

<p>One thing that can really destroy schedules though is lab classes. I take a lot of them which is part of the reason my schedules suck so much. If you avoid taking all lab classes you'll be better off.</p>

<p>twinkletoes- I personally want to go to graduate school for my doctorate, and hopefully teach at the college level, do academic research, things of that nature.</p>

<p>BUT I know some friends who are graduating as art majors, and they're going into some really neat fields. I know someone who's going into "art event planning" for galleries, museums, etc, and she found a job pretty quickly. I also know a ton of people who are going into behind the scenes things at museums like grant-writing, etc etc (stepping stones to, well, curating) and although it doesn't really pay TOO terribly well if you like it then it's worth it. Of course I also know my fair share of people who are just going into consulting, things like that. The great thing about art history is not only do you strengthen your writing and analysis skills with visual sorts of things, but I've learned so much about economics, language, business, culture, etc etc.</p>

<p>AND I'll give my input on those three questions:</p>

<p>Threads: 0
Posts: 1</p>

<p>hey guys i was just accepted ed to trinity and have a couple of questions:</p>

<p>1) Is it common for freshman to have cars on campus?</p>

<p>I think my year maybe 40-50% of students had cars, and everyones right when freshman year really is the time to have one. Parking in the Blue Zone is horrific and you'll never want to drive ever as an upperclassmen because it's like, an 80 mile hike to your vehicle. Anyway, there are a few places you can walk to like Ninth Street, Brightleaf Square...so I mean...you can definitely find off campus places to work/study/shop within walking distance of campus. BUT if you want to go to Target/Wal-Mart/the mall you will need a car. BUT like someone said chances are if you don't have one someone else does. AND if you're the person with a car you get to drive people to the airport at ungodly hours of the morning. So it has its pros and cons.</p>

<p>2) How much homework would you say you do daily and weekly?</p>

<p>I usually stay pretty on top of things and always have assignments done way in advance...on an average day I try to put in atleast an hour or two on each subject every single day, depending on the course. Of course if I have a paper/presentation due I work much more on one subject, but I've done well in many of my classes prescribing to this strategy. And of course I had to spend much more time working on physics than italian art this semester. BUT you'll quickly learn what it is you have to do for each class. </p>

<p>3) What is your course load like? Are classes typically early in the morning, is there a lot of time in between classes, how many do you have a day, ext.</p>

<p>I'm a humanities major in trinity, but I was a chem major for two years. While I was a chem major, my schedule was terrible (albeit better than an engineers)...labs usually run like, 1:15-4:15 for chemistry, 1:15-5:45 for intro bio...in other words a huge chunk of your afternoon one day a week. This semester MWF in class from like, 8:30-5:30 straight which was horrific. Bottom like is there will be semester when you'll be in class A TON as a science major...likely you will hate your friends who have no friday classes. </p>

<p>As a straight humanities major, there's a noticeable difference. With 5 classes, I still start at 8:30 am (I wake up early...there are certainly ways around this), but I'm done most days at 1, and only have 1 class on friday, which I've never experienced before ever. Of course I do teach a lab and am talking a seminar so two days a week are significantly longer, but I can't complain! </p>

<p>Pretty much, non-science majors are in class less than science majors, who are in class more or less the same if not a little less than engineers. You'll find how much you're in class/when your classes are/how much time in between varies from each semester.</p>

<p>loveduke22, are you now a chem minor or what happened with your chem credits?</p>

<p>I've just completed a semester at Duke, so keep that in mind.</p>

<p>1) Is it common for freshman to have cars on campus? I'd say about 20%? 15% of my peers have cars? It's definitely a plus although not necessary.
2) How much homework would you say you do daily and weekly?
Workload really depends, but I'd say maybe 3-4 hours regularly and then when finals and midterms come along, I'll be living in the library most of the time. Finals week was hell definitely.
3) What is your course load like? Are classes typically early in the morning, is there a lot of time in between classes, how many do you have a day, ext.
IT really depends. I'd have five classes back to back (including lab) on wednesdays, so that definitely wasn't an enjoyable experience. It really dpeends if you're an engineer, premed, humanities, science major, etc. My roommate is an english major and she was in class 1/2 the time I was while I was in mainly premed classes. I really think the workload and classtime has to do with what you're studying, if you're minoring, majoring, double majoring, etc.</p>

<p>twinkletoes- I just finished up a chem minor this semester:)</p>

<p>Back to the car question: how does parking work if you're a freshmen? Is there a parking lot on east campus you can leave your car for most of the time, or do you have to pay some kind of parking pass fee, etc. etc.?</p>

<p>Freshmen are allowed to park in lots around east campus provided you buy a permit. You buy the Red Zone pass I think for a little over $200 for the period from August to August. It usually works out to be around $20 a month. I don't think the Red Zone permit allows parking on West Campus except for after 5pm and on weekends and only in select lots.</p>

<p>Sorry for the double post, just saw the questions above so I guess I'll take a shot at them as an engineer (BME/premed):</p>

<p>1). Car: yes, a lot of people have them, they are dead useful and parking is cheap at Duke compared with some other colleges I know. If you aren't planning on bringing on, friend someone who has one. That said, if you bring one, don't ever get caught violating parking regulations, they'll fine you an arm and a leg (and maybe your firstborn as well). </p>

<p>2). Homework, if you are an engineer, you'll get a lot. Most of it will be problem sets and lab reports like math, engineering, science courses etc. And they usually take a long time (sometimes it'd take me 8+ hours to finish a math 108 problem set, call me stupid). Basically my advice is to always have some homework with you and grab every minute of free time you have, find a chair or table, pull it out and do it (or at least look at it), even 10 minutes is better than nothing. </p>

<p>3). Engineers generally have crap schedules, that's a fact. For example, next semester, I'll be taking 2 engineering courses that unfortunates will mean 8:30 classes M/T/W/T/F because that's the only time they are offered. I've seen schedules where the person has ~10 50-minute lectures a week and the biggest break he'll have is a 2-hour lunch break everyday because the classes are all over the place. Additionally, an engineering/science class often feels like 2-3 separate classes due to the fact that you have lab, recitation, and lecture, all three of which could give separate homework assignments so you often feel like you are taking 7 different courses instead of 4. The best you can hope for is that all your classes are concentrated and you get some big breaks in between. </p>

<p>i got another question. i wanna be an econ major and im trying to find the required courses on their site but having some difficulties. Could you guys tell me what courses i have to take and what year/ semester i have to take them?</p>

<p>BS degree: <a href="http://www.econ.duke.edu/ecoteach/undergrad/forms/bs_f06.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.econ.duke.edu/ecoteach/undergrad/forms/bs_f06.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>AB degree: <a href="http://www.econ.duke.edu/ecoteach/undergrad/forms/ab_f06.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.econ.duke.edu/ecoteach/undergrad/forms/ab_f06.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Generally the following is recommended</p>

<p>Fall Freshman: Econ 51D
Spring Freshman: Econ 55D
Fall Sophomore: Stats 103, Econ 105D
Spring Sophomore: Econ 110D, Econ 139D</p>

<p>Have fun finding five awesome Econ electives..</p>

<p>thanks a bunch. </p>

<p>i read that most of the econ courses only require multivariable calc, is taht true? does that mean i only have to take one math and one stat all four years? Also, is 102 easier than 103?</p>

<p>I think 102 is a lot more relevant to econ than 103, not sure about hardness. Generally though, my trinity friends are of the opinion that math 103 is a course that should be avoided unless one absolutely must take it. Seeing as how one would be competing with a significant number of comparatively hardcore engineers and having gone through all the engineering math courses, I'd say that the opinion is valid.</p>

<p>i might become an econ major but i only took 51 and i'm not taking anything econ or math related next semester... is it too late to become an econ major if i do decide?</p>

<p>oh is 55 easier than 51?</p>