<p>Hi, guys! This is a fairly simple question, but how flexible are Reed's distribution reqs? I'm not a big math and science person! Thanks in advance</p>
<p><a href=“The Educational Program - Catalog - Reed College”>http://www.reed.edu/catalog/edu_program.html</a></p>
<p>Thanks for the link @ucbalumnus is there anyone out there who can speak from personal experience?</p>
<p>What do you want to know? On the subject of distribution requirements there is no particular difference between speaking from experience and reading the Reed website; the registrar’s office has laid it out online, and that’s exactly how it works in reality.</p>
<p>@Ghostt sorry if I wasn’t specific enough! The registrar’s website says a math req is optional (can be interchanged with other subjects instead), but it looks the science req is pretty much set in stone. Looking at the science offerings for the 2014-15 year, everything seems very legitimate. I know and respect the fact that Reed is very rigorous, but I’m not trying to take a hard science class especially since I’m a humanities person. Usually schools offer less intense science or math requirements for students they know aren’t oriented towards those subjects. Are there any such courses at Reed? I wouldn’t call them “joke” courses, but rather discussing and reading about science and science-related topics without having to go crazy with p sets</p>
<p>It is pretty much set in stone. You will have to take two units in physics or chemistry or biology. From what I’ve seen, most people who are inclined to the humanities take up biology. I also think what you’re looking for can be found in biology. You will have to take the traditional intro course (Bio 101), and can take up two half unit courses dealing with reproduction and the plants or something in the northwest (check the catalog), which are going to be more “fun” for non-majors I suppose.</p>
<p>There is no class at Reed that would satisfy the science requirement but is not ‘real’ science. Your options for that group are really just chemistry, biology and physics. In each case you would be taking science with prospective science majors.</p>
<p>Most people who don’t care about science take biology (though you can’t just take Bio 101; you also need to take Bio 102), but that is the result of a misjudgement of biology as less ‘hard’ than physics or chemistry. In truth biology is taught in the least methodical manner out of the three and is therefore potentially a very confusing and arduous body of knowledge to absorb. Physics requires calculus and is also a bit uneven through the year. I’d say chemistry looks like the best intro course out of the three.</p>
<p>Some people at Reed elect to take science elsewhere over the summer and get the credits transferred to Reed in the hope that biology at another university or community college would be easier and take less out of them in terms of time and energy since they’re not ‘math and science people.’ That is logistically complicated and kind of pathetic but an option nonetheless.</p>
<p>There is no class at Reed that would satisfy the science requirement but is not ‘real’ science. Your options for that group are really just chemistry, biology and physics. In each case you would be taking science with prospective science majors.</p>
<p>agree. no Rox for Jocks courses, or physics for poets.
Reverse is also true.</p>
<p>Reed is a liberal arts college. The liberal arts by definition include humanities and science, as well as mathematics and social science. If you were to accept an offer of admission to Reed, you should give all these subjects a chance to entice and challenge you, and to broaden your ability to contend in the world of ideas.</p>
<p>I chose to attend Reed based on its reputation and a strong recommendation from an uncle of mine who was a professor of geology. I didn’t prejudge the curriculum but accepted the idea that this college faculty knew what it was doing and I’d try to make the best out of the opportunity. I went on to earn a PhD in a social science and then to a career of research and teaching at the university level. I wish I had taken more math at Reed but I got plenty of exposure to statistics in grad school.</p>
<p>“Some people at Reed elect to take science elsewhere over the summer and get the credits transferred to Reed in the hope that biology at another university or community college would be easier and take less out of them in terms of time and energy since they’re not ‘math and science people.’ That is logistically complicated and kind of pathetic but an option nonetheless.”</p>
<p>What a joke! No reputable four-year college would allow an enrolled student to take community college science to fulfill a science requirement that’s “too difficult” them. Fine if a student needs remedial work elsewhere before tackling the requirement, but Reed is doing something wrong in allowing transfer credit for something that’s not equivalent. Is it possible for “math and science people” to fulfill the Humanities requirement at a community college?</p>
<p>For a college that pretends to be so “intellectual”, the reality is that it’s full of math and science idiots. Indeed, the average math SAT at Reed is below the 90th percentile. However, those who cannot cut it even where there isn’t any real competition are a disgrace. Many reputable institutions even have an explicit math or a quantitative reasoning (“Q”) requirement on top of a laboratory science one. Kudos to Reed’s admission office and liberal faculty and administration!</p>
<p>OP should attend a “flexible curriculum” institution instead of Reed and community college or Portland State.</p>
<p>@rhg3rd yeah I think I’m gonna commit to Amherst-- can’t get much more flexible than an open curriculum lol but I do love Reed for many reasons and respect its curriculum 
</p>
<p>@rhg3rd You have a point, but an overdrawn or doctrinaire one. Reed’s curriculum is demanding – of time. For me, back in the day, while I took 1.5 years of chemistry my first year (thinking I might make that my major), it practically killed me when taking an extra course second semester was competing with math and Hum and Russian language for attention. Sometimes it makes sense to defer a class or two to summer elsewhere. There are some damn fine colleges and universities back home where I grew up in Los Angeles. In fact, I attended summer school to start another language, German. And it worked fine for me later at Reed. I can see the same logic for many other courses.</p>
<p>I read this thread and I think I’m glad the distrib requirements must have been different in the 70s. Pretty sure I never finished a science class. I think math & science might have been the one requirement. Oh, and rgh3rd, this very smart person found Chemistry at Reed very hard, even though it had been one of my best subjects in high school, so I’d be very cautious about throwing around words like “disgrace.” Different people have different strengths. Regards. </p>
<p>^Different people may have different strengths, but an institution making exceptions for individuals trying to circumvent distribution requirements is questionable. If someone takes first-year chemistry at a community college over the summer, then he should be required to complete a third semester course or pass the second semester chemistry course at his home institution in order to fulfill the requirement.</p>
<p>Outsourcing a distribution requirement to miscellaneous community colleges and less reputable 4-year institutions isn’t the way to go. Reed needs to up the level of its students either by admission or course prerequisites or offer a lower level science course. Does University of Chicago allow its students to complete the BSD and PSD requirements of two biological sciences courses, two physical sciences courses and two math courses at UIC or City Colleges of Chicago over the summer? Absolutely not!</p>
<p>University of Chicago does however accept students who are transferring in as juniors after completing the first two years of college at a community college.</p>
<p>Its a pretty smart move, the degree still says UChicago.
Its much more difficult to transfer into Reed as a junior as Hum 110 is such an integral part of the experience.</p>