<p>I'm a sophomore right now and going on to be a junior next year. This is so far my planned schedule. I can take 6 classes a year but there's some holes but i don't know which classes i should choose and what order works best.</p>
<p>Freshman
Biology
Health/Honors Global Studies
Honors Algebra 2
PE
Spanish 2
Honors English</p>
<p>(took Pre-Calc over the summer) by the way, am i supposed to get credits for taking this?
Sophomore
Honors English
AP World History
Spanish 3
Physics
Ap Calc BC
Honors Chemistry</p>
<p>(might take computer science over summer)
Junior
Honors English
AP US History
AP Spanish 4
Ap Statistics</p>
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<p>Senior
AP Spanish 5 (maybe)
expository reading/writing (basically english)
AP Gov/Macro Economy </p>
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<p>I still want to take AP Bio, AP Chemistry, AP Physics, AP Computer Science, AP Psychology and Zoology. What should I take and when should i take them if i want to be an engineer? I don't know if I should take AP Psychology or not for the higher GPA Junior year since i heard that it's looked on badly. Any recommendation is helpful and thanks in advance.</p>
<p>You went straight from pre-calc to calc bc? That’s unusual, especially since I’m pretty sure you have to take the calc ab test before taking the calc bc test, and you can’t do them in the same year.</p>
<p>Either way, unless your school has classes mine didn’t, you’re going to run out of classes to take there. Look into dual enrollment. You can take classes like calc 3, matrix theory, and linear algebra. While you’re at it, try taking some of your more liberal arts oriented classes (English) at the college. Since most classes are only one semester, but count for a year of HS credit, and you only spend ~3hr/week in each class, you should get a lot more free time, which is always welcome when you’re taking advanced math/science courses.</p>
<p>I would recommend against taking computer science as a course. Resources like codecademy will give you much more practical knowledge and teach you a lot more. Many coders are self taught.</p>
<p>There won’t be a consistent answer on what to take to be an engineer. </p>
<p>1st point on the Precalc -> Calc BC.
I went from an easy ass Alg 2/trig -> Calc BC. It’s not hard. Different places have different requirements for taking Calc BC. </p>
<p>To answer the question, most colleges would prefer you to have taken a core science background of Physics, Chem and Bio. What engineering specifically are you planning on going into?</p>
<p>Well, AP Physics and AP Chemistry could help with some early-on major requirements (pretty much all engineering majors require a chemistry and two physics [mech and E&M]). And depending on what kind of engineering, AP CompSci and AP Bio could be relevant as well.
So it comes down to what kind of engineer you want to be.</p>
<p>If you’re up for the challenge, you should take AP Physics and AP Chem junior year. I did this, and found that my AP scores and SAT2 scores on both test complemented my application nicely (also applying as an engineer/math major depending on the school). This will also make senior year MUCH easier, AP Gov, AP Macro, AP Bio, and AP Psych are all “easier” APs. By the way, is this AP Physics B or C? If your school only offers B, you may be best off dual enrolling and taking a “C” class (physics with calc.) instead.</p>
<p>If your schedule is open enough for the high gpa, take all of them and enjoy the workload while you can (Maybe you can get some GE’s off of college)
But your first priorities are Physics and Chemistry, computer science (well I don’t know the AP curriculum, go for the college course as the AP might not count) if you’re going into electrical engineering.</p>
<p>Enjoy it if you have it–the day where you don’t have to do extensive writing amounts and non-math/science! :)</p>
<p>If you want to b an engineer I’m assuming its because of some attraction to math and physics
There fore the logical choice is to study what you like and are good at</p>
<p>Definitely go for Physics C. You’ll know the calculus necessary to do well in the class anyway, since you’re taking Calc BC sophomore year. Besides, up until rotational motion, it’s basically the same conceptually as an Honors Physics/AP Physics B. Just with calculus, unit vectors, dot products, and a couple new concepts.</p>
<p>Physics C is much more focused, and is calc based. Much more interesting in my opinion, because it finally takes you to the point where you can actually represent physical phenomena; there’s no red tape that bars off a certain part. It’s also more narrow, only doing Mechanics and Electricity and Magnetism. And there are two separate AP Exams, one for Mechanics and one for E&M. I’m taking it this year, and as a prospective engineering major, I love it.</p>
<p>AP Physics B is like SAT II level. Easy, broad, and boring. I took the exam last year without taking the class, and got a 5, so it’s not bad at all.</p>
<p>I can’t tell you about AP Chem, because I never took it. I strongly dislike Chemistry. AP Bio is easy: all memorization, no actual thinking. </p>
<p>All the history courses are like bio: all memorization. That includes psych. And AP Comp Sci is pretty simple; the amount of java you need to know is minimal and the questions are simple once you get the gist of basic java. You can learn it from a review book (which is what I’m doing).</p>
<p>I want to address this comment in case this discourages you from taking Physics B. If your school only offers physics B, you should definitely take it and not worry about C. Colleges will value AP Physics B just as much as they would AP Physics C, as long as there is no C class offered. The only difference is that once you enter an engineering program, B almost certainly won’t count for credit whereas C may.</p>
<p>Having taken both, I agree with @logicx24 in that Physics C is much more interesting. I did feel somewhat restricted in B, and the proofs we do in C solidify any memorization into intuition.</p>
<p>Then should i take AP psychology and a science class Junior year for the higher GPA since i’ll most likely get an A in psychology or take two sciences? I’ve heard that colleges look down on taking AP Psychology because they know people are doing it just because it’s easy to get a higher GPA so will it be better if I take the two science classes and get a B in one or both?</p>
<p>If your school offers C, take it if possible. If not and they offer B, take it, because the start of learning physical concepts and building that intuition is helpful. You’ll pick it up again in college in your Engineering Physics courses.</p>
(Maybe you can get some GE’s off of college)