<p>DrumNDukie- I'm an EOS major, so I'll do a quick rundown.</p>
<p>EOS 11 Dynamic Earth- This course is easy if you have Professor Baker, who's a bit scatterbrained. Take it with Emily Klein. She's a geologist, the undergrad chair of the Environmental Science program, and a pretty cool person. The course is mostly lecture style (powerpoint presentations) with exams making up most of your grade. There are some papers, though. Exams can be a bit picky, so don't blow them off. It's an easy A IF you stay on top of the reading. </p>
<p>EOS 12 Dynamic Oceans- This was my favorite course I took as a freshman. It's usually team taught, with three professors teaching each of the three sections (geological, biological, and physical/chemical). Professor Corliss taught the geology section when I took the couse. He's very thorough, a clear lecturer, and a great professor. I also had Professor Searles for the biology section and Professor Pratson for the physical/chemical section, but I'm not sure if either of them will be teaching the course next semester. Professor Lozier may be teaching the physical/chemical section instead, and she's one of the best professors at Duke. The best part of the course is a weekend field trip to the Duke Marine Lab at the end of the semester. You go out on the research vessel, dredge samples, explore Shackleford Banks, etc. It's really a neat course to take.</p>
<p>AS BS CS -- this is one of the only required English courses for the major. AS is reading in genre, BS is reading historically and i don't know what CS is, but it's something along those lines. I took 90AS as a first semester sophomore and mine was about NYC-- my class had just one freshman in it, but it was initially geared toward freshmen and sophomores. it wasn't particularly hard, and i did well in it, but apparently my professor isn't the easiest. in the english department, i've sort of felt that as the course numbers grew, the difficulty sort of increased-- there's much more reading in higher level english courses, more demanding writing, etc. some professors teaching at least a 160s actually say they don't want anyone below a junior in their courses. it won't kill you to take one, but as an english major, i would not recommend it your first semester of college. (unless it is a focus one, in which case they're doing the high number to fit in with the general theme that above a 100 is 'general interest'). however, that's not always the case as my idiot roommate who messed with the margins on her term papers and wrote poorly took a 169 to get an alp -- but that doesn't mean she did well in it. as an english major i personally feel that an english 26 is useless, because there are definitely a bunch of fun, easyish classes to take to introduce you to the major that count for something. (because honestly, having something count as an ALP is useless since everything will as an english major).</p>
<p>but i do recommend if you are considering an english major to get at least one (if not two) of your major requirements out of the way in your first year: your 90 course, and your critical theory-based course</p>
<p>Chlor- my roommate took intro japanese, and is now taking Jap 63 slash is a Japanese major. She absolutely loves the program. If you want to talk to her, I can definitely get you two in contact.</p>
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I've never taken one, so I don't really know anything about the difficulty level of them, but I'd kind of assume that they'll be difficult since they may be intended as "weeders."
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<p>Humanities departments at any university very rarely weed out students. I wouldn't worry about this.</p>
<p>About English 90AS- I don't know the other two profs, but Allison Dushane was in my German class last semester. She's a grad student from California, and she seems like she'd be a pretty fun professor.</p>
<p>One of my friends is an English major and I believe the AS/BS thing indicates whether the course is arranged by genre or historically. I know you have to choose between one of these two approaches for that class.</p>
<p>I'm a pre-med and I have a few questions. I'm doing the Exploring the Mind Focus program, and I'm doing pre-med. I'm going to take Chemistry 23L as my elective this semester but am unsure about what to do regarding Bio and Math. I haven't taken Bio since my freshman year of high school. I pulled off a 5 on the AP Calc BC test, but I struggled to get a B in the class (though it was lame cuz all our graded assignments were actual AP questions). Does anyone have any suggestions about which two bio courses and which combination of math classes I should take?</p>
<p>In the spring, you'll need to take Bio 25L in order to get into the 100/200 level biology courses. For math, I'd suggest Math 41 in the spring if you don't feel comfortable with your background (covers both 31 & 32 material). You need the strong math background for Physics 53 & 54. </p>
<p>As an important note, be aware that if you take Chem 23L, you may have to take Biochem 227 in your junior or senior year. </p>