<p>SLE also knocks out your humanities GER, which would make it an even 28.</p>
<p>true, i didn't think about that (but i'm sort of on the fuzzy side of things, so i know i'll take a humanities course at some point in college, and am not really concerned about fulfilling my humanities ger). oh and the humanities ger doesn't have to be a 5 unit class, i think maybe half of them are 4 units, and there might be some 3 unit ones, so i would say maybe 26-28 non-sle and 28 sle if you include the humanities requirement...which should be taken into account if you are not planning on taking any humanities classes (i.e. if you are a hard-core techie).</p>
<p>also, i guess i'm biased because i really have LOVED all my ihum and pwr courses, which i guess is unusual. my ihum prof hooked me up with a cool volunteer opportunity 1st quarter related to the class, and the subject matter was really interesting (visions of mortality, sounds really morbid, but it really focused on what life means in what i thought was an insightful way). my pwr was technically on absurdist art and politics, but we basically talked about the intersection of the art world with social action and read some cool stuff and saw a few films, there is a research paper in every pwr course that introduces you to the library, which i found particularly helpful. ihum classes can get some of the best lecturers who might even be head of their department (the approaching religion ihum i am in right now is led by the religious studies chair, who happens to have a huge rep for being a good lecturer).</p>
<p>i also have made a lot of my friends in my ihum/pwr courses, since they are there because they have the same specific interests as you (i.e. interested in political art, religion in the modern world, etc.). i see sle as maybe a more close knit environment where you make some really tight friends, but i didn't choose it for 3 reasons:</p>
<p>1) i thought the ihum and pwr courses looked more interesting than the sle course plan</p>
<p>2) i'm a bit wary of self-selected things like sle or frosoco. i wanted the most diversity i could get freshman year, which meant that i wanted to live with people who have a wide variety of interests and backgrounds, not just people who are attracted to sle. because they are separate from most frosh dorms (esp frosoco), they are fairly insular (esp. in sle where you are taking classes with the people you live with). you might make the best friends of your life in sle, but i suspect it could be rough if you don't- you are with the same people most of the time. i don't know anyone who doesn't like sle, but i do know someone who really regrets choosing frosoco and feels a bit stuck there, way on the far end of campus, with the same people. on the other hand, as far as diversity goes, i hear that sle has the largest percentage of openly queer freshmen living there, although i have no idea if this is true. although i think all of the campus is a safe, welcoming place for queer students, this could be of particular interest to some. </p>
<p>3) when i visited campus, my host had one major piece of advice-"DONT DO SLE OR FROSOCO"...sle (and frosoco) have reputations for being a bit nerdy, closed off, and antisocial (+ no parties or drinking). i have friends in both sle and frosoco and can say that this is NOT by any means true of the majority of the people, although i could point out a few people that might give them that reputation. however, through most of high school i (and pretty much everyone at stanford) was labeled the "smart kid" (i'm not saying nerd, just "smart," i'm pretty sure most people at stanford were not considered nerds in high school)...and i was sort of sick of that label. i wanted to go to a school like stanford so i could just be a regular fish in a big pond, knowing that i would no longer instantly be the smart kid unless i wanted to be. i didn't want to be judged that way anymore; i just didn't want to deal with people looking at me differently if i say i'm from sle or frosoco. of course, it isn't a huge deal, it's not like people will point and laugh at you if you're in sle, but just understand that that reputation is out there.</p>