<p>Trust me niightingale, the discipline that art history classes require (and the memorization) is not at all different from the discipline required for medical school. Of course, you don’t have to decide it all now. Take your premed courses, take a little art history too. Do well in your science courses, but don’t be afraid to major in what you love.</p>
<p>S&P’s post about the discipline it requires to do well in art history prompted this thought because of art history’s difficulty: I wonder how many students take Smith’s open curriculum as a license to avoid courses. My D fulfilled her Latin Honors requirements by the end of her first year (or maybe her sophomore fall) simply because she sampled a wide variety of courses. Her friends seem to have naturally completed theirs as well. But that doesn’t mean that a substantial numbers of students take courses only within a narrow range. Anyone know the answer to this? Do any Smithies know of students who take, say, all humanities classes? Or all science?</p>
<p>For my D, one of the most exciting aspects of Smith has been the ability to fulfill her science major while taking literature (her favorite), history, and government. All courses have been challenging, albeit it in different ways. Although she is looking forward to the intense specialization of grad school, she will miss the variety.</p>
<p>Guilty! D decided at the tender age of 6 that she was scientifically challenged. The Latin Honours distribution allows for some weird exchanges: i.e. linguistics instead of maths, psycho instead of biology etc…
But I won’t despair. her sister, 23, afflicted with the same problem, has just started a sustainability diploma in which she is required to take econ, stats, geology and molecular biology. And she loves it!!</p>
<p>MWFN, it does happen, and the requirements most often avoided are the natural science, math, and foreign language ones. The first two are kinda the obvious ones, but the last one is an “it depends” type of situation. The upper level languages are wicked difficult, and the lower level languages (though no less easier) require a year-long commitment.</p>
<p>Sometimes fate decides 
My D was looking forward to avoiding more history and had no interest in women’s studies but due to several labs and a language placement the only 4th course she could fit in was a history of women She is planning to take Lit and other humanities but history was not on the list.</p>
<p>To get credit for an intro language, you have to take a whole year of it. Many students don’t want to continue a language or take two semesters of a new language just to get a foreign language distribution. </p>
<p>I know a few people who didn’t fulfill the latin honors distribution. My hardest requirement to fill was natural science, which may not make sense as I majored in math, but I ended up taking two 3-credit astronomy courses, the second my last semester (yes, you need 4 credits to fulfill Latin honors - not just one course in an area).</p>
<p>Open Curriculum is like everything else in college really: It is what you make of it. You can (and people do) look at it as an opportunity to never take Math/Science/History/English again. I certainly never took a stats or calc class in college, I fulfilled the quantitative latin honors requirement by taking two computer science courses (“How the Internet Works” and “How Computers Work”) that required maybe a little addition and the occasional bout of subtraction. </p>
<p>But really, OC is a chance to free yourself to do what you want and direct your own education. You can make choices to study broadly or narrowly, it’s up to you. I also think it encourages departments to offer better and more interesting classes. Since theyr’e not garaunteed to have students in any department, they have to go out and compete for them by offering students courses that are really appealing.</p>
<p>I looked at the open curriculum as “I’m taking this class because I want to be in it, and everyone else wants to be in it too. No one here is taking the class because they need a biology course to graduate, and I won’t be expected to complain about taking the course because everyone is here just to fulfill a graduation requirement.” For me, that worked for everything - all of my classes were ones I wanted to take even the ones that I wasn’t particularly strong in or didn’t have any prior knowledge about (I loved the astronomy courses, by the way).</p>
<p>I suppose if you have a high GPA, the motivation to complete Latin Honors requirements is there. But it seems to me to be relatively easy to fulfill, even if you are not academically strong in a particular area since a variety of courses exist for non-majors.</p>
<p>As for the foreign language requirement, what happens if you test out of a language – that is, into 200 level courses? Do you then only have to take one language course?</p>
<p>Yes, you only have to take one course to get credit for a 200-level language. It’s just the 100-level courses - to get credit for the semester, you have to take a whole year, and some students might not think the time commitment worth it just to fulfill a Latin Honors distribution. </p>
<p>And I’m not just talking about Latin Honors distribution - you can’t take one semester of an intro language, drop it the second semester, and walk away with 4 or 5 credits on your transcript. You have to take both semesters to get 8 or 10 credits. The first semester’s credits are only there provided you finish the year.</p>
<p>I agree that the higher your GPA, the more motivated you are to complete Latin Honors. But even if you have a low GPA, your completion of Latin Honors requirements is noted on your transcript, even if you don’t receives a cum laude, summa cum laude, or magna cum laude on your diploma. </p>
<p>MWFN- Yes, if you are placed in an upper level course, you enroll in one-semester long courses and get credit at the end of each semester. You also usually only have class two days a week. It is only if you are taking a brand-new language and starting out in the intro course that you are required to do an entire year in order to get credit for either semester (so if you’re in year-long intro spanish, and you drop the class at the end of fall semester, you don’t get credit for the one semester’s worth of work you did. But if you stay for the whole year, you get two semester’s worth of credit). </p>
<p>Also, intro courses meet quite a bit, either five days a week or three days a week for an hour and a half or more. So if you’re starting a new language it can be a little daunting and make it difficult for you to take many other courses. I dropped French for Arabic and it was a major time problem for me. First year of Arabic I had intro three days a week for two hours plus per class plus homework. Second year it was three days a week for one hour and ten minutes, but the homework was even more intense. Languages are great, but they’re not easy on your time.</p>
<p>I believe the same is true for musical performance – you have to take both semesters to get 2 credits per semester.</p>
<p>I was wondering could APs in Chem/Bio/ and Physics exempt you from any pre-med requirements?</p>
<p>MHC and Penn’s websites are a good resource. Or email your questions to Smith <a href=“mailto:prehealth@smith.edu”>prehealth@smith.edu</a></p>
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<p>[Planning</a> :: Pre-Health Programs :: Mount Holyoke College](<a href=“http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/prehealth/planning.html]Planning”>http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/prehealth/planning.html)</p>
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<p>[Career</a> Services, University of Pennsylvania](<a href=“http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/gradprof/healthprof/apcredit.html]Career”>http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/careerservices/gradprof/healthprof/apcredit.html)</p>