It’s hard to believe it’s already been half a month since my last bi-weekly!
So as fun as clubs and the myriad social events you have in college are, it’ll be time to hit the books soon. After all, we didn’t just get into our Harvard for our stellar looks and charm, did we? In all seriousness, Harvard is a pretty serious academic institution, but don’t let that overwhelm you. This post is important enough that I’ll be breaking it up into two chunks.
While there are a lot of advocates for small classroom settings, I’m a huge advocate of large classes. Why? The course will have to enough resources to meet the demands of so many students, which means office hours more days of the week, and more study buddies. If you end up having to miss a lecture, even if the course does not post notes, you will most definitely have someone who can fill you in. For difficult classes, historically large courses also mean more tutors available to you if you need to utilize the BSC (Bureau of Study Counsel). I’ll expound on the BSC and other resources more in Part 2. That’s why I do recommend taking the most popular classes freshman year - you’ll make friend and gain a quintessential first year academic experience.
Before considering any class, whether in the list below, or any other, look through the review on the Q (CUE)-guide. Since not everyone may have a HUID yet, check out:
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courses [DOT] cs50 [DOT] net
(I think CC mutes links).
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Econ 10. Even if you’re not headed into investment banking, or any other part of finance or consulting, an Economics foundation is pretty important. Plus, I think you’ll get to sit in Sanders Theater for the lectures, and I loved Sanders Theater. Your section leader will make or break your experience. When I took it, there were problem sets, midterms, and a final. No projects. Advanced students (with corresponding AP credits) sometimes skip this and head to Econ 1010. I highly recommend this class.
Government 20: Foundations of Comparative Politics. A class I didn’t take but wish I had. It’s a reading-heavy course, Government is a historically popular concentration, like Economics.
Ethical Reasoning 22: Justice. This is a fairly popular class, and also one I didn’t take. At first, I didn’t particularly regret not taking this one as much as Gov 20, since I got to take another ethics class (bioethics) with Prof Sandel.
Science of Living Systems 20: Psychological Science. I think a lot of kids go for this class because of Profs Gilbert and Pinker, who are fairly renowned in their fields.
Life Sciences 1a. This class attracts pre-meds. I wasn’t a pre-med, and took this in lieu of SLS 20. I liked the material overall, and didn’t think it was so bad as a non-science concentrator. Watch out for when you schedule lab hours (mine sadly overlapped with the best parts of Annenberg dinner).
CS50: Intro to CompSci. I heard MIT’s version uses Python in their intro courses, so I was impressed with the way the course packed in C and some web dev. There’s a bit of a late night culture associated with it - it was my only class without daytime office hours.
Stat 104: Introduction to Quantitative Methods for Economics. Even if you’re life-sci, take this instead of 102. If you’ve already done AP Stats, I suggest taking Stat 110 with Prof Blitzstein - the class is challenging but rewarding.
Finally, note that I would strongly suggest you pay attention to your placement tests. If you’re really dedicated you can ignore them and go for a more challenging offering that what’s recommended, but keep in mind that a strong foundation is important especially if the course is part of a potential field of study.
Stayed tuned for more info. I apologize if I won’t be able to get to PMs right away. If there are enough similar questions from previous posts, I’ll answer them in a public thread later.
Cheers,
The Crimson Hatter