<p>I can't decide if I want to apply or not. The idea of not taking any GE classes with the majority of USC students seems kind of like a negative to me. I want to make friends with students from all over, not just with "students drawn by their passion for learning and insatiable curiosity" (as the letter puts it ).</p>
<p>Do any current TO students have any advice for me? I don't want to miss out on my freshman year experience.</p>
<p>You will still have your two theme courses and diversity course that are not TO-specific, so that will be three GE courses with non-TO students. Courses in your major will not be limited to TO, and you will have 2 “extra” units each semester you can use for courses that interest you - those will not be limited to TO students. In all, only 24 of your ~144 units will be in TO.</p>
<p>Some of the most amazing people you will meet at USC will be in your TO classes.</p>
<p>I can’t think of any reason TO would cause you to miss out on your freshman experience. (?)</p>
<p>Just apply for and do TO. It won’t limit your experience at all, and GE classes are (in my experience) the ones that people complain the most about. They tend to take a lot of work, time, and effort, and there’s a minimal return on them. Also, WRIT 140 is terrible in nearly every way. I’m in TO, and I essentially developed a formula for my friends who had to write essays for WRIT 140 that allowed them to do reasonably well simply by taking advantage of the rigid grading scale.</p>
<p>TO classes are completely opposed to my major (computer science and business), but they’re also among my most interesting ones. The professors and TAs are great, and the students whom you meet only enrich your experience.</p>
<p>And don’t believe the whole “students drawn by their passion for learning and insatiable curiosity” thing. I can tell you that the same proportion of students who wouldn’t do their work in regular classes don’t do it in TO classes. Take a look at a Daily Trojan article called “GE Core is Overly Broad” to read about some of the characteristics of the GE program that could be taken as negative. If you’re not completely opposed to TO (and you shouldn’t be), just take it for a semester so you don’t have to do WRIT 140. You can always drop out, and, if you have the experience that I did, you may find that you don’t want to.</p>
<p>Thanks for the replies guys. It doesn’t sound so isolating after all. The letter made it sound like I would be taking all of my classes with the same select group of students, and I don’t want that. That’s what I meant when I mentioned “missing out on my freshman college experience.” But it sounds kind of interesting, so I think I will apply.</p>
<p>How is the workload?</p>
<p>The workload is intense, but as I alluded, it’s very self-driven. For my first-semester class (with Prof. Kemphighly recommended), I had to read the Iliad, the Odyssey, Dante’s Inferno, Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy and The Genealogy of Morals, Plato’s Republic, Freud’s Dora and Civilization and Its Discontents, along with some excerpts from the Bible and other books. That seems like a lot, but the experience itself was extremely worthwhile. I read all of the books, but I know that some of my classmates read one or two at the most. The assessment for that class was really straightforward: two quizzes (50%) and two essays (50%). There was also a subjective element based on “improvement,” which is true for all TO classes, to my knowledge.</p>
<p>For my CORE 111 class (equivalent to WRIT 140), we had no grades at all. We got highly detailed comments on our essays, and we were expected to fix problems for the next one. Number-wise, we had the same amount as the WRIT 140 classes, and they were actually shorter towards the end. WRIT 140 students have to force themselves to come up with seven pages of pointless essays on things like “academic discourse,” while TO students actually write good essays on interesting things that they read.</p>
<p>Basically, TO takes some work. However, if you’re committed to it and put in the necessary time (which is not exactly difficultyou’ll be surprised by how much time you have in college), the experience is highly rewarding.</p>
<p>Ewww. I would rather not have to read the Iliad, Odyssey, or Dante’s Inferno again. But I’m guessing those are taught in non-TO classes as well. :P</p>
<p>So, you say it’s very self-driven…if I were to not enroll in TO, would I spend just as much time on my classes? Will TO kill my GPA?</p>
<p>Well, if you’ve read them already, there wouldn’t be any reason for you to reread them completely. And it’s only really the CORE 102 classes that focus heavily on the classics. The others are based on a variety of topics. My CORE 112 class (the second semester of writing), for example, is on carnivals and circuses.</p>
<p>I spend probably the same amount of time on my TO classes that I would spend on regular GE ones, maybe slightly more. It’s difficult to calculate, though, since GE classes have such a high variability. As far as your GPA goes: TO will almost certainly have a positive effect on your GPA. It’s graded holistically on improvement and effort, and as long as your professor or TA knows you, you will do fine. GE’s have a less consistent reputation for grades. Some classes are easy and some are hard. And some of the professors are good, while others test for minutia that I would not consider relevant to having a general understanding of the material.</p>
<p>Really, it’s up to you. But I would give TO a try. It’s a really good program, and you can always drop out of it. You will receive credit for the equivalent GE courses to what you have completed in TO.</p>
<p>Agree w/nberg5
In addition to everything nberg5 mentions above, having your TO writing classes completed in your freshman year is a huge advantage for your other classes. The papers you will turn in for your major classes will be on a different level than your non-TO classmates, and you will get better grades.</p>
<p>You meet so many people in college, it’s hard to imagine anything being very isolating :)</p>
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<p>I didn’t do TO so I can’t really compare. I would say that probably half (3 of 6) of the papers in WRIT 140 are of that kind 
The point is clearly to force you to write a very specific paper on a very specific topic (for example, they might give you 3 academic articles about some kind of discourse and ask you to argue in favor or against one of them). </p>
<p>Also, WRIT 140 grading is heavily weighted towards the end. The final two papers/portfolio grades are weighted far more than the rest, so good work toward the end of the semester is rewarded (non-subjectively)</p>
<p>I think it depends a lot on who you get as a teacher. My WRIT 140 AL was wonderful, and she also taught CORE 111. You might be more likely to get a good AL in CORE 111, but I don’t know.</p>
<p>I’ve never heard anyone complain about grades in TO. :)</p>
<p>Well, I’m convinced. I shall fill out my application! Thanks for the advice. :)</p>
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