<p>From what I read about it on the website, it seems like a pretty good deal. But websites always sugar-coat it.</p>
<p>What is the core like? Do they really cap at 20 students/class? Do professors teach the core? Are the classes enjoyable? Can you bypass core classes with AP tests? Anything else?</p>
<p>Thanks for any input!</p>
<p>In general: the core is great. I came to UChicago ‘hating’ humanities, and didn’t really take the Core in to account while making my decision- I was happy that I’d have the opportunity to take a variety of classes, but grumbling over Humanities, Sosc, etc. My mind has changed. I’m so, so glad that I took things like Hum, Sosc, Civ, and my music class- I’ve become a much more productive member of a discussion pretty much anywhere, and had my old (what I thought were great- just like everyone thinks) writing skills beaten out of me and replaced with the ability to actually write a concise, clear, and still nuanced paper. </p>
<p>The Core has 9 subjects- humanities, social sciences, civilizations (sort of a history/culture requirement), mathematics, physical sciences, biological sciences, art/music/drama, foreign language, and PE (yes, PE). The classes ARE really capped at about 20 students, although in my experience most of my core classes were smaller (my 3rd quarter humanities class had 7 students). Some lecture-based courses in physical sciences (things like Global Warming, for non-science majors) are larger, but in general courses that should have a discussion are very small.
Professors taught most of my core classes, with few exceptions. These exceptions were in one quarter of Sosc, where I had an advanced graduate student working on her dissertation (she has since graduated and been hired by the University- I took another class with her this spring because she was so good). My calculus teacher was also a graduate student. Some students may encounter graduate students in Hum, Sosc, and sometimes Civ courses as well, but these are people who are GOOD AT TEACHING- not just stuck in the course to save a professor.</p>
<p>You can bypass some core classes with AP scores, but not all- this is mainly applicable in mathematics, the sciences, and foreign languages. AP credit in English or History will not pass you out of Hum, Sosc, or Civ. I took AP Euro, US History, Language, and Literature with 5s on all and now have some nice shiny English and History elective credit that I don’t need (but also wasn’t bored or learning redundant material in my European History civ course or my Humanities courses). Take a look at the AP test guidelines on collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu to find out which scores will qualify you on which tests. In general, you are also not able to use college credit from another school to satisfy the Core unless you enter the College as an actual transfer student.</p>
<p>that was extremely helpful. thank you so much!</p>
<p>Chicago is definitely number one on my list</p>
<p>^^ A minor clarification (admittedly from a prefrosh): The “core” classes that you can test out of with AP scores aren’t really “core” classes. They’re graduation requirements, but aren’t the distinctive, interdisciplinary, U of C “core” classes like HUM, SOSC, etc.</p>
<p>I’m not sure I explained that well, b/c like I said, I’m only a rising first-year, but I think someone else (JHS?) has an informative post on this topic somewhere in this forum.</p>
<p>well thats fine with me. A high school AP class + AP exam are really no substitute for a college education in the subject. As such i would have no problem repeated chemistry or US history or what have you</p>
<p>Exactly what gracello said. Coming out of high school, I thought I knew so well what I wanted to study in college. Then I took SOSC my first year, which made me realize that I actually like the social sciences. My major changed from mathematics/econ to sociology/public policy. Plus, even after only a year, my writing has improved so much that I now laugh whenever I read one of my old essays from the beginning of the year. (Seriously)</p>
<p>My kids weren’t so completely positive about the core as the people who have posted here. My English-major daughter, who entered college with a very sophisticated background in literary theory, just hated her core Hum class. She used to say, “There are six different levels of math to place into, so that I don’t hold back people who already know something and really care. I wish they had at least two levels of literature, so that I didn’t have to sit in class with a bunch of people who don’t know how to read poetry, don’t care that they don’t know, and feel empowered to waste class time expressing their contempt for the whole idea that they should learn it. I’ve been there, done that. It was called high school.” She was also very critical of the core science classes – she admitted that what she really should have done was to take “real” science classes to satisfy the core, but she couldn’t stand the pre-med atmosphere in the classes she could have taken. On the other hand, she loved her Sosc class, where she didn’t already know a lot going in.</p>
<p>My then-pre-med son, who hates literature classes, was head-over-heels in love with HIS Hum, which he still considers one of the best classes he has ever taken anywhere. He had a great experience with his writing teacher, too, who remains a friend, and who really taught him how to write college papers. He had problems with Sosc, but had one magic quarter taught by a famous professor, that ultimately turned him into a social-sciences person. He also loved his Civ classes.</p>
<p>As JHS said, there are no formal levels with the Hum classes. But are there particular profs or topics that are more likely to attract students who care about the subject, know how to read poetry, etc? </p>
<p>How could an entering freshman find out which ones?</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>There’s a “rate the professors” feature someplace. S (science major) is very proud of taking classes with “The” world expert or the one that “wrote the book” (literally) on a particular subject that he likes (usually in the Sosc or Hum classes) and that are great teachers too.</p>
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<p>Interestingly enough, on the Hum side there really ISN’T a sequence that caters to sophisticated literature students. The sequence my daughter chose read like it should be that sequence (Reading Cultures), but in practice it was not well designed or well taught, and it was full of people who didn’t want to be there. Her first teacher also had a strong theoretical position that she refused to make explicit, which didn’t help at all.</p>
<p>The Hum courses that seem to work best are the ones that most closely resemble what Hum was before the current Chinese-menu approach: Human Being & Citizen, Philosophical Perspectives on Literature, and Greek Thought & Literature. All of them embody a sort of highly conservative, traditionalist approach to what literature is, but they seem to be taught with skill and passion, and to engage students. Lots of people also like Media Arts, some because they are really interested in Media Arts, others because they think it’s the easiest sequence going and it gives them more time to work on their Chem or Physics labs. Language is linguistics-oriented, and I have heard mixed reviews; Readings in World Literature seems like remedial high school.</p>
<p>Big-name profs seem to drop into and out of the Core classes for a quarter at a time, rarely in the fall. Some less popular sequences like Philosophical Perspectives or Greek Thought may be exceptions, with tenured faculty teaching sections for 2 or 3 quarters. In her Hum and Sosc courses, my first kid never had any teacher more than a year or two removed from her PhD, in either direction, and her sections changed teachers almost every quarter. The same was true of the second kid, except that for Winter quarter of Sosc he had a tenured anthropology professor whom he loved (and he also loved his newly-minted PhD Hum teacher, who stayed with the section for all three quarters).</p>
<p>The math and science requirements are pretty lax. </p>
<p>Hum. and Sosc. can be big time-wasters for science majors, especially because of the discussion setting, which encourages every self-important, pseudo-intellectual moron to ramble on about his ill-contrived opinions and disrupt attemptsto gain any real perspective. There is a relativ paucity of Hum. courses, from which the heterogeneity in interest and knowledge-base arises</p>
<p>From a practical perspective, select your instructor and section carefully, and realize that if you intend on going to graduate school in any sort of rigorous science, grades in these courses don’t matter.</p>
<p>RE: JHS’ descriptions of the choices within HUM. </p>
<p>Within the core of the Core, there are the CLASSIC Core courses, and the newer, “sexy” (as my academic adviser put it) courses. </p>
<p>In HUM, the classics are: Greek Thought and Lit; uman Being and Citizen; Philosophical Perspectives
In SOSC, they are: Classics of Social and Political Thought; Power, Identity and Resistance; Self, Culture and Society</p>
<p>These are the staples of the UChicago Core. If a student wants the Core to be about great books, if he/she wants to read the Ancients, Marx, Descartes, de Beauvoir… these are the classes to take. </p>
<p>The newer classes are meant to open the Core to all interests among the student body. Most of them introduce more contemporary literature or thought, but the curriculums might not necessarily be as established or recognized (by both students and professors). Unfortuntely, there is an air of elitism among students when comparing Core experiences: a student who took HBC and PIR might think she worked harder and had a better experience than another who took Reading Cultures and Mind, for example. Whether or not this is true, the great thing about the Core is that any student will be able to find a class that specifically caters to his/her interests. No student is ever <em>forced</em> to take a particular class within the Core. </p>
<p>I don’t think anyone can go wrong when picking among the classics of the Core. One takes more of a gamble when picking a newer course, simply because it is newer.</p>
<p>As someone who took the more classic versions of core courses, I can testify that it’s possible to go wrong with them. While I generally enjoyed the reading lists in my HUMA and SOSC classes, I didn’t enjoy so much the arrogant students in them. I had more problems with this in Greek Thought and Literature, which seemed to attract a lot of students who genuinely believe that they have the world all figured out. This was probably my bad luck with sections, but arrogant know-it-alls (or That Kids, as we call them) are much more common in the older and time-tested core sequences.</p>
<p>I’m curious–how do faculty members typically respond to “That Kids”? I imagine they would find them at least as irritating as other students do.</p>
<p>^It depends. Sometimes they’ll just sort of ignore them and move the discussion along. Other times they’ll flat out deny all the arguments that are obviously just meant to grab attention. And yet in other cases they’ll think that the That Kids have good ideas, even if a lot of the students clearly think otherwise. My favorite professors, needless to say, are the ones who don’t let That Kids waste my time with their philosophical musings.</p>
<p>classics of social and political thought, while a great class, also has a penchant for attracting, how to say, “overzealous” students.</p>
<p>Any comments on the Core Bio class? Is it better to take it or take one of the other 2 choices- Metabolism combo or Diversity/Evolution combo? Comments on the Core Bio course evaluations were not encouraging.</p>
<p>As I understand it, there are five choices for non-science majors:</p>
<p>– Core Bio + Bio topics
– 2 Metabolism courses
– 2 Ecology courses
– 4 NatSci Evolution courses also satisfying PhySci requirement
– 2 quarters of a “real” Bio sequence</p>
<p>Core Bio may get mixed reviews (some people DO like it), but the Bio topics classes are very popular – probably the most popular of any of those options. Real science majors sometimes take them as electives, because they’re fun and interesting and, because they are much more focused than other courses, can get quite sophisticated. So the AVERAGE score of the Core Bio option may be fairly high, even if Core Bio itself is sketchy.</p>
<p>I can’t say I personally know anyone who liked their Core Biology class nor have I heard of anyone liking it…but as JHS stated, people tend to really like the bio elective classes you get to take after Core Bio.</p>
<p>And just to add my two cents…take classes with Harper Fellows – esp. for HUMA. I have heard strictly positive reviews from everyone who took a class taught by a Harper Fellow for HUMA. For SOSC/CIV there are many great tenure professors. (Take GTL with Professor Johnson. You will NOT regret it. Everyone who was in that class had a blast and learned so much.)</p>
<p>Pretty much everyone hates Core Bio, but it’s really just because it’s a rather unenlightening class. It’s not hard and doesn’t require a time commitment, but at the end you kind of feel like you just wasted a spot in your schedule. However, I don’t really regret my decision to take it, since I did well in the class and now have the opportunity to take something that’s actually interesting.</p>