To Place or not to place, that is the question.

<p>denzera, you are right, I hope he does this himself, right now he is not motivated. The best way to teach Emile not to fall out of the window is to let him fall out but unfortunately the pupil may not survive to profit by his experience.</p>

<p>One thing to note: just because I am asking and exploring does not mean I go to him and tell him what to do. I am educating myself to make sense of whatever he will do. I do not talk to him about courses, transfers, waitlists, etc. All this exploration is for me to learn if there is a cliff ahead, and if I am certain about it I will intervene to prevent his falling over. Otherwise, it is his job. </p>

<p>No, his teachers do not love him. Only two physics teachers, who do not love him, but emphasized in capital letters physics intuition. I ran this by this blog because I do not know what to make of it, do not want to ignore it or extol it. Thanks. What is g-chem?</p>

<p>LOL @ Emile</p>

<p>I am sure you know the Emile reference is from Rousseau's Emile.</p>

<p>That's why I laughed :)</p>

<p>This day and age one cannot count on too many people who may have read the classics.</p>

<p>This ramaswami guy has to be very well done flame/schtick. His posts are pretty funny, though.</p>

<p>what's flame/schtick? Sorry, grew up in India, have a chip on my shoulder, if I were Irish I would be a balanced Irishman, you know the one with a chip on each shoulder. Anyway, what's so funny about what I post? I am not as well versed as you guys on college admissions and culturally I might bring a different perspective.</p>

<p>I agree with Denzera. I listened to his advice and took I-chem.. and I wanted to take 1600 but for some reason they scheduled the two at the same exact time last year. But yeah, I-chem is good because G-chem is just what you did last year anyway. As is 1400 physics... I used the same textbook in 1400 that I used in AP Physics. </p>

<p>Though I got a bit... destroyed in I-chem, but that is because I didn't keep up with my work. And even being destroyed, well, Bruce Berne curves really nicely because it's a hard class, and I got a B. I think he might have even curved to an A-. </p>

<p>Calculus III depends on your teacher, but I would take it. I had a good teacher, and found it easy to transition from BC Calc to it. Not bad at all.</p>

<p>A flame is a post on a message board designed to aggravate and elicit angry and emotional responses.</p>

<p>I have no idea why C02 thought your posts were flames. Seems perfectly reasonable to me. As does your plan re: your kid. Surely you can forgive my assumption, given how many "helicopter parents" there are around these parts.</p>

<p>Shazkar - Yeah, I-chem was my toughest class freshman year too, but when I got my A- out of it, I was freaking PROUD. I had to work hard for that and damn well earned it. And as a reward, I didn't have to take any more chem, while the rest of my friends were complaining about their spring semester.</p>

<p>denzera, I tend to be a helicopter parent in some ways. I have never ever stuck up for my S with any teacher at school but have nagged him about homework, about college apps, essays ,etc. But with so much at stake I felt this was OK. He had 5 Ivy acceptances and chose Columbia. Hopefully this summer he will turn his attention to his course selection. I will not suggest, etc but want to educate myself. Yes, of course I forgive you, you can only assume based on law of large numbers. So, he has done AP Physics C, AP chem, AP Cal AB , AP comp Sci. What are the pros and cons of what he might take? Can I please get a quick tutorial? One of your posts said I-g chem. Don;t know what that is. What calculus should he take? And physics? He is in SEAS.</p>

<p>When are you going to let him become an adult? Let him take control of his own life. If he's not ready to do so, he will learn from mistakes. They are, of course, the best teacher. He got this far, take a step back. </p>

<p>Will you also research the best honeymoon locations for him when he gets married? How about the best toilet paper?</p>

<p>Never, according to you!</p>

<p>little late but no one has mentioned this yet:</p>

<p>if you're going into chem.e. then you need a chem lab. and if you take intensive chem you HAVE to take the intensive chem lab.</p>

<p>all the people i know that took the lab this semester absolutely hated it because of the sheer amount of work it required (and compared to the g-chem lab it was just insane)</p>

<p>I dunno Skraylor, I took the regular chem lab after taking intensive chem. It was a year later, though, so maybe if you don't take it immediately after, they care less.</p>

<p>ramaswami, you've got the beginnings of a guide in the rest of this thread.</p>

<p>Columbia2k/Denzera/Shraf >>>>>>>>> moi. obviously. =)</p>

<p>I like mathematics and will definitely do Calc 3, Linear, DiffEq in college and to a lesser extent I'm also interested in Physics and Chem. But I think at this point in my life, I'm pretty set on becoming a lawyer (definitely not a doctor/researcher/academia). Given that I want to maximize my chances at Law School, is there really any further compelling reason to put myself through Intensive Chem/Physics besides satiating my curiosity? (which isn't a bad reason i guess).</p>

<p>intensive chem has a better curve and will hurt your GPA less than g-chem. it won't feel like it when you're working your ass off in your very first college semester, but compare your final grade to those of your friends from g-chem, at the end of the year. and realize that you only had to take one semester. it's a long-term payoff.</p>

<p>physics 1600 isn't much harder than 1400, i guess that's fungible.</p>

<p>a much bigger determinant of your GPA will be your choice of major - both in how good a fit it is for you (and thus how motivated you are to work), and in how tough a major it is - the competition and the grading in general. compared to that, physics 1400/1600 is a wash, as are most course decisions freshman year.</p>

<p>
[quote]
physics 1600 isn't much harder than 1400, i guess that's fungible.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>i completely disagree. even though it says calc2 is the corequisite, it is really hard unless you know at least a little calc4 (multiple integrals, line/surface integrals, etc)</p>

<p>for example, on the first midterm in that class (was the only one i stayed for, i dropped it after that) it was POSSIBLE to do everything with basic calc but it was extremely long winded and if you wanted to be able to finish every problem you had to at least know some shortcuts...</p>

<p>now, i'm not saying you shouldnt try it. if you feel you are really good at physics, the stuff you learn is really interesting and while you will probably never use it, you might enjoy it.</p>

<p>i am saying, however, you should judge the class based on your first 2 homeworks. i, for example, was able to get 10/10's on them both but they required about 8-10 hours of work for me and i decided that it was simply too much work to do...bottom line, take it but dont be afraid of dropping.</p>