<p>Daughter's away message yesterday said "studying for Frontiers of Suicide." Younger sister tells me there is a huge Facebook group called "I Hate Frontiers", or something similar. What is the deal with this course? Is it extremely hard, extremely boring, or is my daughter just having a bad attitude?</p>
<p>The class is, by most accounts, poorly designed. I was fortunate to not have to take it, as it was still in experimental mode when I was a freshman. From what I've heard, it's an attempt to teach "scientific habits of mind" rather than actual science, which leads to a lot of superficial analysis rather than the kind of learning one would expect in a typical science class in a specific discipline. Moreover, students do not seem to pay much attention during its dark, massive weekly (?) coursewide lectures, and to really only be engaged if/when their individual section leaders are effective, which they rarely seem to be.</p>
<p>lol. My son hated this class because for him, a quantitative/science type, it was excrutiating to sit through discussions about points he just "got". The homework was time consuming but seemed like busy work. He did like some of the lectures. That pretty much depends on the semester.</p>
<p>In my opinion, Columbia has launched a noble experiment with little chance of succeeding: to design a class interesting and advanced enough for those already into science, while not making it feel impossible for those who are not.</p>
<p>But also, you are being introduced to an aspect of the Columbia undergrad culture. They love to complain and critique. But that's also part of the bonding experience of the Core: they can all complain together about the same thing!</p>
<p>Oh, Frontiers! Many find the subject matter boring, and some of the lecturers exacerbate the problem with dozens of slides on dirt samples (no joke). Maybe dirt is interesting to science majors, which I am not, but that was one of my problems. Instead of staying with interesting overall concepts of evolution, climate change, brain functioning, some lecturers want to go into the boring nitty-gritty. My section leader always said the problem comes in trying to keep science people interested and not trying to bore non-science people to death. I don't think many find it overly difficult, just overly boring.</p>
<p>The midterm for Frontiers was today, so that could be what the issue was. Some of the lectures were quite interesting, although others were incredibly dull and contradictory.</p>
<p>frontiers
my friend in college is currently taking. he's a physics major. frontiers is asking him to do boring home work on sig figs and corrlations.
as for the presentations, he says they are interesting but they are not meant for anyone who actually want to know something about them. its like having an expert trying really hard to simplify things for the group he's speaking to.</p>
<p>basicly frontiers fails at doing what it's supposed to do, it gives you very vague idea of current scientific research assuming you have no science backgroud whats so ever. the class is targetted at EVERYONE in college, the science majors are not exempt from it therefore there is no balance between what can be assumed as prior knowledge.</p>
<p>it's a retarded addition to the core. i would've preferred old-school Logic & Rhetoric, too. mine (class of 06) was the last year they had that, and i got the experimental one that got transformed into UW.</p>
<p>My understanding is that frontiers contains information that every educated person should know, but they present it in a retarded format and manner.</p>
<p>There are a lot of stars in the sky, the sky is big, people are doing bad things to the Earth, and it's getting hotter.</p>
<p>from what i heard, L&R was a nightmare but it taught you alot....my class was the first to have UW and compared to what i heard about L&R, UW is alot more laid back and doesnt feel like that much busy work.</p>
<p>Yes, UW is far more reading-oriented than writing, although apparently it's been modified to include more taught essay formats. It was mainly useful for introducing me to several broad theoretical academic debates I would soon encounter again; the writing workshop component wasn't really helpful considering my class was filled with SEAS majors who were impressed that I could diagram a sentence.</p>