<p>Hey, I'm currently a junior in high school and my friend who graduated last year (now attending upenn) was giving me some advice for college admissions. He mentioned Northwestern and I hadn't really heard of it. I know, I know, I probably should have but the whole college thing didn't really come across my mind until a few months ago...To get to my question, I was wondering if there were any required courses all students have to take. I find English really difficult and don't really enjoy it much at all and I would love to get out of taking English. I'm pretty sure I will be able to get a 4 on the AP lang exam but would that get me out of all my english requirements? Thanks.</p>
<p>[Rules</a> and Policies - Distribution Requirements - Degree Requirements - Undergraduate Students: Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, Northwestern University](<a href=“http://www.wcas.northwestern.edu/advising/degree/distro/rules.html]Rules”>http://www.wcas.northwestern.edu/advising/degree/distro/rules.html)</p>
<p>What are you interested in majoring in? That makes a big difference. </p>
<p>For my intended major (Radio/TV/Film in the School of Communication), outside of my major I’m required to take “eighteen courses outside the department including two from Math/Science/Technology; three from Individual and Social Behavior; and three from Humanities and Fine Arts”. Within “Humanities and Fine Arts” is English, but there’s also Art, Foreign Languages, Drama, etc. I’m not sure how this is in schools outside Communciation, but it seems like it should be pretty flexible if it’s at all similar.</p>
<p>Weinberg has its own specific distribution requirements, I think.</p>
<p>I’ll either apply to engineering or to Arts and Science and major in one of the physical sciences.</p>
<p>Someone please correct me if I’m wrong on this. I’m too lazy to look it up, but I think that even if you APed out of one of the English distros, you would still have to take another one, because you have to take 2 distros for each area and you can only use one AP for each area. I think the “English” category is technically “Literature and Fine Arts,” but, as Periddle kind of said, so many things fit into this category that if you really don’t like English, you can probably avoid taking an actual “English” class.</p>
<p>It seems like within each distro, there is a huge variety of classes, so you should be able to fulfill all the distros with classes you like. Classes can count towards distros that you wouldn’t have thought would count. For example, for the math distro, you can take linguistics classes, cognitive sciences classes, and even certain philosophy and music classes, I believe. You wouldn’t think these things could fulfill the math requirement, but they can. The same goes for a lot of the other distros. While you may get stuck in a boring class once in a while, in general, you should be able to find ways to fulfill your distros that are interesting to you.</p>
<p>Also, besides the distros (for Weinberg, at least - not sure about the other schools), everyone has to take two freshman seminars. These are small classes, about 17 people, and they focus on writing and discussion. Freshman seminars cover a HUGE range of topics, from Harry Potter to chocolate to the meaning of life to aliens to the more conventional things like history, humanities, etc. There’s such a wide selection of seminars, it’s definitely a good idea to do lots of research when you’re picking the ones you want.</p>
<p>Again, if I’ve said anything incorrect here, feel free to correct me! It’s past midnight here, so I might be a little out of it. :P</p>
<p>I hope this helped! Good luck!</p>
<p>The link I provided answers all these questions…</p>