<p>So I’m currently registering for classes, and I am a freshman in CSOM. My last class will be either Statistics or Calc 1. I will need to take the other class this summer. From what I hear, Statistics is brutal at BC, and Calc is easier in the summer. I’m not sure which class to take and I would appreciate any feedback. I am currently debating between Professor Clote for Calculus 1 or McGowan/Cichello for Statistics.</p>
<p>why are you taking a class over the summer. CSOM folks should be interning somewhere during the summer, not hanging on campus.</p>
<p>McGowan is awesome, but tough (which inherently makes sense since Stat only requires an Alg I background…</p>
<p>btw: Stat with Chambers over the summer is really easy. No way it should be a 300-level course, since it is more basic than AP Stat.</p>
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<p>Because this reply is targeted at a current freshman, I would like to respectively disagree. </p>
<p>At parent’s weekend during a meeting with the CSOM staff and department heads, they specifically stated it’s not a good idea for CSOM students to intern after their freshman year. It was because reports from returning freshman interns were that most companies tended to use them for unskilled non-interesting work. </p>
<p>They followed that up with “Keep doing what you love to do during the summers. The big year you really should be interning is after your junior year.”</p>
<p>They, (the CSOM staff), made a point of stressing that position.</p>
<p>stats and calc are both fairly easy (except for mcgowan’s stats class). go with clot for calc. some people complain about her, but i took that class and you will be fine as long as you took calc in high school. might be a little more challenging with no calc background, but still doable.</p>
<p>in terms of interning, i would definitely recommend to begin interning after your freshmen year. sure, junior year is the big year (in terms of landing a full time offer following that summer), but if you have no internship experience on your resume (freshmen/soph summers) then you simply won’t land interviews for junior year internships let alone offers. almost everyone has sophomore summer internships, so if you have freshmen and sophomore summer positions, you will really stand out when it comes time to the important summer internship (junior year).</p>
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<p>Of course, that is also rather self-serving for Career Services, (since they won’t have worry about Frosh – and their parents – calling…) :D</p>
<p>The fact is that plenty of rising Sophomores will obtain internships, at good companies.</p>
<p>Regardless, the broader point (I think) is that the OP should not be planning on attending summer school (already). IMO, the OP should be taking the basic/prereq math courses for the major during the year (unless the OP is a D1 athlete.) </p>
<p>Working retail is better for the CSOM resume than taking summer courses.</p>
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<p>Hmm. One person’s viewpoint vs the collective multi-year input from a dept staff.</p>
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<p>…which somewhat matches that of a certain undergrad B school in Philadelphia. :)</p>
<p>get internships as early as you can</p>
<p>Dear trojaneagle : Given that my post-graduate degrees are in mathematics, I wanted to advise you to take a course in calculus as opposed to statistics if you had to choose one versus the other - but as a business major, you should have a foundation in both. The reason for pursuing calculus is that the problem solving methodology will prove more valuable in the long term while the statistics knowledge might well be short term applicable in your initial jobs outside of Boston College.</p>
<p>Dear bluebayou : Funny story for you - as part of his undergraduate economics degree (in parallel with his chemistry degree), my son did complete the Calculus BC sequence, the Multivariable Calculus course at Boston College, and then took the statistics course with Prof. McGowan. He found the statistics course to be the easiest from a concepts perspective, but the problems were the hardest, perhaps due to their practical application. To this day, we still joke about a problem on a McGowan test involving a “Hot Dog Production Company” that was a complete wipe-out!</p>
<p>Dear All : Finally, a word on interships - my daughter (second child through Boston College) has just received her first job offer as a coming graduate of the Class of 2013. She did not have an internship last summer in the classic sense as she was running and managing a Youth Camp. While I coached her into explaining how that leadership profile aligned with an internship, the question is asked in almost every interview session that she attends. Think of it this way - employers are looking for diversity in your profile and practical experience as much as possible. Taking another course when you could have overloaded during a semester does not necessarily give the right message.</p>
<p>congrats scott! what industry is the job in?</p>
<p>Going off what scott has said, I would still recommend getting internships as early as possible. That being said, you can still land junior/senior year offers without them, if you have other sorts of experiences, AND can talk at length about them, connecting them to leadership skills among other things. You have to have stuff to talk about during the interviews, and if you think you already do, then so be it. However, to land interviews, you need some relevant experience as well, unless you are a perfect candidate in every other aspect of the resume.</p>