<p>is there such a thing as 'weeder courses' at U of C? Or is this just a phenomenon at large state universities? yes i know that the coursework is rigorous, difficult... however are there courses that exist solely to get people to change their majors?</p>
<p>I've thought about this. My sister (at an Ivy) has complained about pre-med "weeder" courses, but I've never heard anything like this about the U of C. I also don't hear people flipping out about o-chem, whereas at my sister's school many pre-meds end up taking it as a summer course at another school so that they can focus on just that class. The best reasoning I can come up with is the fact that since all courses here are so difficult, the classes that are known to be especially hard at other schools don't stand out as much here. I'm assuming the classes at Chicago are equally difficult as the same classes at other top schools (if not moreso), but students are accustomed to taking very hard classes, so gen chem is just another tough class. I haven't seen evidence that the University consciously tries to cut down the number of pre-meds by making pre-med classes extraordinarily difficult, but maybe it happens. You didn't specify pre-med, but that's normally where you hear talk about weeder courses. I don't think there are really weeder classes for other majors. Some majors have a requirement for some intro sequence, but they don't all. For majors without an intro sequence, it would be difficult to weed kids out with any particular class. I think students generally sort themselves into majors that they like and in which they can succeed.</p>
<p>Yeah, there are. This is the real world, folks. Not everybody who signs up for a med class can be a doctor, and it's well-known which classes are weeder classes. Think of it as guaranteeing that the docs we put into the world are the best of the bunch. Weeder classes are common at top schools in fields like pre-med and engineering. Don't worry though, they'll tell you if you're signing up for one (or somebody will clue you in).</p>
<p>I don't know that they are taught solely to cause changes in major, but yes, there are definitely certain classes that tend to be the end of some students' pre-med careers. Most of them involve Chemistry. Typically the first rigorous class in a major/track is the one that "weeds" people out. Some of it may be extra difficulty, though I think a lot of it is people who come in with a certain plan but realize after a quarter or two of intense study that they don't actually want to pursue that field.</p>
<p>Yeah, I've seen more of what Maroon is talking about. I've seen kids who decide not to do pre-med once they realize what the study of chemistry actually involves, but I've never seen someone who wants to be a doctor drop pre-med because of some course.</p>
<p>honors physics and analysis tend to do it for physics and math, too.</p>
<p>I hear about this all the time in my family, with five people going/having gone through med school. Undergraduate chemistry is a "tough course" for doctors to be in undergrad ( I hear Quantitative and Organic Chemistry). Then in med school, the killer for every one is Biochemistry. I do not think that you would have "weeder courses" in med school. After all, the key there becomes retention. It may just be that a lot of doctors to be, because of the way they think, study, train or who knows...find these science courses more challenging. It would be too coincidental otherwise that the organic/biochem subjects continue to be difficult throughout their training.</p>
<p>The way that a doctor friend of mine puts it is that o-chem provides insight as to whether you can handle med school academics. O-chem requires the ability to visualize concepts as well as a great deal of memorization; you have to be able to handle both.</p>