What's a student's daily workload/schedule like for maintaining 3.5+? How about 3.9+?

Colleges and Universities A-Z California Institute of Technology
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<p>I'm just wondering what tech is like. I know for my school's MV calc class, the teacher assigns us 10 or so problems from each section out of a possible of 30 or 40 problems. At tech, would you have to do all the problems in your science textbooks?</p>

<p>Additionally, it seems that each subject is studied intensively with a lot of depth. I've heard that it's very important at Tech to understand, say, concepts and proofs in math. Students get homework almost everyday (weekends included) to solidify these concepts. Is that right?</p>

<p>What's a freshman's courseload and schedule like? Can you give me your own day-to-day freshman schedule for the first year as an example if you've attended tech? </p>

<p>Finally, what is the most important advice would you give to incoming freshmen? What did you wish you knew before coming to Tech?</p>

<p>Thanks in advance.</p>

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<p>It's absolutely beyond impossible to answer your title question, because we have no idea how smart you are, or what major you will be. The only answer I can give you is that you will probably have to work very hard to get a 3.5, let alone higher.</p>

<p>For a typical class, there are weekly problem sets. Core physics (ph 1 and ph 2) sets usually have 4-6 problems. I've seen math sets range from 3-6 problems in ma 1, and ch 1 sets will usually also have 4-7 problems (however, classes do change, and it's been a year since I was a frosh). In my experience, problem sets freshman year could take anywhere between 3 and 9 hours, depending on how smart you are, how hard you work, and how much of it you've seen before high school (note: this absolutely does not imply if that you are smart and hard working that every set will take 3 hours). Sometimes the problems are from textbooks, sometimes they're not.</p>

<p>Freshman courseload is pretty standard; ma 1abc, ph 1abc, ch 1ab, bi 1, 2 frosh hums, ch 3a, a MENU course. Bio oriented people take Bi 8,9 instead of Bi 1, EE's are recommended to take EE 51, 52 to get it over with on pass fail, some math/ACM majors do the same with ma 5. CS oriented people take CS 1. There's course a catalog and undergraduate handbook online that should say what all the courses are and have some more info on graduation requirements if you're that interested.</p>

<p>Some advice? Enjoy your summer before Tech, don't do something silly like try to prepare for classes. Spend a lot of time getting to know houses during rotation, it's far more important than that Ch 1a set due Friday. Use pass/fail, meaning, use the fact that you don't have to do/finish every single problem to pass. Spending 4 hours on that hard proof you still don't understand even after office hours and your friend explained it to you is not worth it. To further clarify, for a 30 point problem on a 100 point ma 1a set, if you can get 15 points for 15 minutes work on that problem, and to get the other 15 is going to take 3 hours and 45 minutes more work, take a hint and let it go. Don't be a troll; keep your door open. Pick a major you actually like. Don't take hard classes or pick a hard major to try to impress people; you're probably just going to get wrecked if you do.</p>

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<p>Dauntless9, i have seen many helpful posts on CC, but that one is definitely one of the most helpful. thanks.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
I'm just wondering what tech is like. I know for my school's MV calc class, the teacher assigns us 10 or so problems from each section out of a possible of 30 or 40 problems. At tech, would you have to do all the problems in your science textbooks?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>You'll only be assigned the problem at the end with the ** next to it.</p>

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<p>^wingless seconded. Very informing in which case I will ask more questions if you don't mind. </p>

<p>So, what are the hard classes I can expect Freshmen year? What's currently hard for you (doesn't have to be class-related)?</p>

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<p>One point of advice that crosses my mind, as I'm currently visiting Cornell for grad school, is that your GPA is not going to be the most important part of your undergraduate education. You will want to keep it up, but things like research/work experience and relevance/depth of coursework, I think, will be more important for both graduate school application and looking for jobs.</p>

<p>Note: I don't know how the whole pre-med thing works with GPA, so...</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Can you give me your own day-to-day freshman schedule for the first year as an example if you've attended tech?

[/quote]

Well, it boils down to this:</p>

<p>Day 0: Problem set posted.
Day 1: I print the problem set, ask myself if the font settings are messed up. Nope, that's what the set is supposed to look like. Wonder what it means o_O
Day 2-5: I attempt to do the problem set on my own. Read the book. P--s and moan. No progress is being made but the majority of my time is wasted here.
Day 5: First recitation section (and lecture) relevant to the problem set. Now instead of being stuck on part a of every problem, I'm stuck on part b of every problem.
Day 6: Friends have started to do the set so now we can collaborate. Instantly the set is halfway done.
Day 6.5: Midnight office hours. Groups of collaborators meet to meta-collaborate. Things coming together.
Day 7: Homework turned in.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Finally, what is the most important advice would you give to incoming freshmen? What did you wish you knew before coming to Tech?

[/quote]

Attend office hours. Don't worry that collaborating will make it harder for you to work independently later. This might sound like a recipe for dependence/failure, but you might need this assistance and feedback to progress.</p>

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<p>It's worth noting that different styles of collaboration and different work habits work for different people. There is no one way to do it. Just try not to waste your time.</p>

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<p>thanks. this is very useful advice. anyone else?</p>

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<p>Here's a thread I found about premed @ Caltech <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/california-institute-technology/497482-looking-more-info-pre-med-please.html?highlight=premed%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/california-institute-technology/497482-looking-more-info-pre-med-please.html?highlight=premed&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Can any of you recommend any beginner resources/guides to writing math proofs? I can link one idea to another, but I have no clue as to what to state in the beginning and what to write between ideas.</p>

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<p>


</p>

<p>office hours are cheating</p>

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<p>What are office hours? How do they constitute cheating?</p>

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<p>Office hours are the time when a professor or TA arranges to be in a certain place (his office or a classroom) for the purpose of answering students' questions. They're not actually cheating, but you don't end up learning a lot if all you do is go to a prof's office hours and ask for 90% of every problem to be explained to you.</p>

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<p>


</p>

<p>Except the TAs are clueless and only have the solution set, so they just write the solution set on the board to get you to go away. They typically can't understand their own solution set if questioned on any part of it. </p>

<p>People sometimes show up to office hours with a blank sheet of paper and walk out with the homework virtually complete; sure, it's not 'technically' cheating, but it's still just copying from the solution set.</p>

<p>Furthermore, the good TAs that try to explain concepts during office hours instead of simply writing solutions are badgered by the relentless hordes of people trying to get their homework done in the minimum time possible. It seems like reviews of TAs strictly depend on how willing they are to give out solutions; it's a terrible system, and the good TAs get punished.</p>

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<p>I think that's an unfair generalization. The situation you describe definitely occurs, but it hasn't for me in the majority of my classes. Most of the good TAs I've had have been able to not only understand/help with the set but also understand when students are just trying to tool them for the solutions and deal with it.</p>

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<p>It's also pretty easy to tell when the TA has written up their own solutions or just taken ones from previous years (as far as I know, TAs are never given solutions directly from professors). I've had a lot of classes where the solution sets will be made up of different handwritings, have the wrong number in front of the problem, or the TAs will just respond with "Oh, that problem's not so difficult, you just do X, Y, and Z to solve it," and when you ask why you'd do those you get that blank stare for a few seconds while they try to figure out a way to shoo you off.</p>

<p>I feel bad for the TAs that actually do all the work themselves, struggling through the really difficult problems, but then when they're asked for help it's just on how to do the problem as quickly as possible, not on how to really understand what's going on. One or two of my friends gave up on being "good" TAs since they felt it just wasn't worth the work with how they were being treated.</p>

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<p><octalc0de> office hours are cheating</octalc0de></p>

<p>Heh, yup. Don't mean to toot my own horn here, but when all of my friends and I combined aren't smart enough to solve the problem, it's time to play dirty ;)</p>

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<p>
[quote]
</p>

<p>Furthermore, the good TAs that try to explain concepts during office hours instead of simply writing solutions are badgered by the relentless hordes of people trying to get their homework done in the minimum time possible. It seems like reviews of TAs strictly depend on how willing they are to give out solutions; it's a terrible system, and the good TAs get punished.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Do reviews of TA's actually matter? Most grad students teach one-two classes during their time there. I don't know how you would punish a poor TA since they're not gonna be teaching anymore. And it's not like their future employments prospects depend on teaching skills.</p>

<p>I had a much more positive experience with the grad students. I think they usually wanted to help us learn the material. I felt most of my classmates always worked hard and the times we really badgered for a solution was because even the TA might've agreed that the HW was way too difficult/obscure, etc.</p>

<p>It's possible office hours from core classes are more like how octal described. I didn't go to those too often.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Do reviews of TA's actually matter?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>To the TAs they do. :(</p>

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<p>At least in the math department almost all grad students have to teach/TA almost every term, and almost all of them go on to teaching positions, more often than not at non-Ph.D granting schools, after graduating, so their future employment prospects certainly do depend on teaching skills, so they tend to take teaching reviews seriously.</p>

<p>On another note, I've taken several classes where the professor did not provide the grader with solutions to problem sets, and the grader did not know the solutions- at office hours the grader said that (s)he would see if any of the students turn in solutions that seem correct- if so they would grade the problem accordingly, if not give full credit for anything "reasonable". Classmates are often a better source of help than graders/TA's who know only a little more than you (they often took a less hardcore version of the corresponding course years earlier as undergrads at NOTCALTECH, so its not unreasonable to expect someone in the class to understand the subject matter better than them) and have better things to do with their time than solving YOUR problem sets. Nevertheless the TA's are generally nice people and want to help you to the best of their (somewhat limited) ability...</p>