<p>Hey, Im an incoming Freshman and I got some questions,</p>
<p>1) I am considering pre-med (not 100%) but I want to major in Economics. However, I did not take any AP or IB science classes (only honors), is it possible for me to fit all the pre-med requirements in my schedule?</p>
<p>2) I figured out that freshman can register to classes at the orientation, but what is the shopping cart app in opus? </p>
<p>3) Any piece of advice for a freshman?</p>
<p>1) Yes, that’s easy as long as you have at least 1 econ. class in your schedule this year. You can also choose to double up in chem and bio if you feel comfortable (if not, take chem. first). Ask collegestu how to do it (however, he started w/AP credit, so went a different route) b/c he is a science plus econ. You are merely econ + pre-med which is even easier.
2) Shopping Cart is where you can load classes into it and then essentially go to it during registration and auto-enroll in all of them at once provided no schedule conflicts.
3) Study hard lol. Also, don’t overextend your EC involvement. Try out a few good ones, but don’t become obsessed w/doing them all. Try to make a nice footprint in a couple of orgs/clubs of serious interest. Also, do not be afraid to ask for help, it’s what your profs. are for (this place costs 56k, better use them as much as they allow). It is also what your peers are for, Emory is not cut-throat. Courses do not grade on curves that make you directly compete w/one another. You get what you get on w/e scale they provide (except b-school, but you are pre-med and econ. so what I said applies). Aim for perfection, don’t expect it. </p>
<p>Do not expect A grades to just fall into your lap, and definitely don’t whine when it doesn’t. This isn’t HS, there is some grade inflation, but you still must, by and large, put in a good amount of work (as in more than HS, for many it’ll feel like less, but it’s actually more. It only feels like less b/c time and courses are less structured than in HS which also brings up issues of time management. You will not be constantly hit w/HW by every prof. and will have to keep up w/material by your own means. You have no “pacer” in many classes and deadlines can easily creep up. Once you get to the quiz, test, or essay, you better be “read up”, the prof. often will not remind you and essays go much more smoothly when you read the course materials and/or started the research in advance) for a good grade. Nowhere near as much inflation as HS. Yes, I know we love to believe we were so awesome in HS, that all of our As were fully deserved and that we did truly excellent work for it. However, in many classes, especially sciences, that level of excellence will normally not yield an A. </p>
<p>You must really learn and understand the material as many profs. will throw plenty of curve-balls. Your ability to handle these curve-balls and think creatively/out of the box in that moment of time, may be what decides whether you receive an A or B grade (and some cases worse). Tests in HS were much more fair. Whatever they told you would be on the exam was there in close to the context it was presented. Here, having to extrapolate isn’t uncommon, especially in good profs’ courses. Which brings me to my other piece of advice I always give here. </p>
<p>Challenge yourself. Take the good profs. that may be more challenging than others. Don’t merely stress about your grade. Go in wanting to learn and work hard (If you don’t want to do these in a core science class and are merely going through motions for the pre-med track, you should probably leave the track in the first place. When you get to the point where you are only chasing ease, re-evaluate your plans. The reality has become, you don’t really like science and likely don’t want to practice medicine, which is tedious along w/being intellectually and emotionally challenging itself. No point in lying to yourself to chase the money. The MCAT will finish you. You can’t rise to a challenge in a couple of UG courses, you will certainly have a hard time adjusting to med. school where there is no easy route) and I promise you’ll get a solid grade. Tougher, but better profs. make sure that is the case. Doing this will help you in the long run. You’ll get a good GPA in good, challenging classes and thus be able to handle grad/prof. entrance exams better and you’ll be better prepped for prof. school itself. I have many successful friends who are proof of this concept. Don’t take all of the easy paths (only do it as a last resort, like studying for MCAT or schedule conflict). You’ll screw yourself over (out of prep. and perhaps good rec. letters as more challenging profs. are generally much less distant than easier ones as they must engage more w/the class to ensure success). </p>
<p>Oh, and part of this challenge is diversifying your interests or experimenting. Like even though you are econ. pre-med, it wouldn’t hurt to take plenty of social science and humanities courses. Academic experimentation at Emory makes for a much richer experience and you meet and make connections w/awesome scholars in other fields you never thought of before along w/merely expanding your knowledge base (this will make you a more interesting person able to engage in interesting conv./discourse w/o use of random lip-service and rhetoric as you can draw from an array of fields of knowledge and research). Don’t be quick to render things outside of your fields of interest as “useless” b/c they don’t make money for example (or for any reason). It has become increasingly common for Emory students to take a more interdisciplinary/well-rounded approach to their education and interests and it has slowly made the intellectual scene here much more interesting and the students happier. Don’t miss out on the fun.</p>
<p>If you could “like” posts on CC like you can on Facebook, I would “like” bernie’s last post a
Million and one times. Your answer to the third question was spot on. You should rewrite it on one of those chalk boards that I think are right outside the Chem building. Honestly, I wish all freshmen (especially Pre-meds) could read that. Love love love! :)</p>
<p>And completely agree!</p>
<p>There won’t be much time to press like on anything w/in like 2 weeks MMM lol :D. We’ll have to get our asses back to work. I honestly can’t wait. I’m betting most of my profs. will put me to work w/in the first week (this becomes so common after freshman year that it’s ridiculous. I remember profs. last spring semester making us send in assignments while snowed out for the first supposed week or so). Hope everything goes well this upcoming weekend. Don’t get too used to the euphoria of not having much of a workload during the orientation weeks (when the intensity starts to kick up, I don’t want to here random pre-meds crying or whining to their friends in the library about how they really wanna be a pediatrician but hate all of their pre-med courses. Why? because they are no longer easy, and the person is still in “party-mode”. Surely you know better). Who knows, we may end up meeting by happenstance.</p>
<p>Bernie, your realism and sanity in the sometimes insane and overcompetitive world if science makes me smile. 
ALOT. </p>
<p>I’m probably going to be eating my words by the end of the first week, but I’m excited to be busy again.</p>
<p>Yes! Let’s definitely plan on haphazardly bumping into one another! I just arrived in Atlanta a few hours ago! :)</p>
<p>Yeah, I’ll be in Atlanta on Saturday and intend to hang out w/some friends and apt. mates (one is a PACE leader so is already there) on Saturday at campus (may eventually go to CNN center or Cartoon Network tour over there by Tech). They don’t let upperclassmen move in until Sunday so I’ll have to settle for that arrangement till then.</p>
<p>Oh, and as humorous as that statement may be (particularly the one about the person in the library), it actually happened. Waiting for the elevator, I was really tempted to flat out say: “Maybe you can find other ways to help children”, but I was in “nice” mode that day.</p>
<p>Oh, to be clear, it literally takes about 2-3 weeks. The first week will be more fluff/administrative stuff for freshmen classes to allow the class to “settle down” (as in all of the adding/dropping/swapping will end). Then they get serious. Most freshmen need not worry about week 1 (as in week after classes start). I suppose foreign languages are an exception.</p>