Posts Tagged ‘class registration’
The science requirement for humanities majors, Part II
Welcome to Science Requirement II: Electric Boogaloo. I realize it’s a little late as this is the fourth of registration and all the good ones are gone, but hopefully this will be a good guide for future science requirement classes. This, as I mentioned before, is part two of my guide to “easy” science classes. To see what I mean by easy, general rules for picking courses, and science classes from A to E, read part one.
Let’s get to the good stuff.
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The science requirement for humanities majors, Part I
It’s a hard knock life for humanities majors, or so I’ve heard. A lot of these science classes say, “No prerequisites. Only high school algebra required,” and then you show up for the first class and the professor turns to you and asks, “Do you know anything about general relativity? No? Well, sucks to suck. Enjoy this semester!”
It’s hard to know what to expect for science classes, especially ones built for non-science majors. Professors are in a tough place; they want to make the material accessible to students, but they also want to teach you something new and stay true to the subject without simplifying to a point of falsifying. Some professors do it well and others… expect you to know the Theory of General Relativity on your first day.
I took a look at the approved list of science classes that fulfill the requirements, and even though I’m an astrophysics major, I cringed a little.
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Don’t panic! The CC Guide to Science Requirements is here! So grab your trusty laptop (or towel if you have one handy) and let’s explore the universe of science classes!
Global Cores for non-humanities majors
Let’s be honest here. We’re the awkward SEAS engineers and science majors cluttering up your major classes. We’re the people when asked, “Why did you take this class on the economic development of Japan post-WWII?” answered, “Um… I like Japanese culture… yeah… and um… IneededaGlobalCore formyCorerequirements. Pleasedon’thateme!” We’re the people who, despite having the opportunity to take all of these wonderful and enriching classes, choose to take an “easier” class because otherwise we might drown under all of our other, more problem-set-heavy, less 1000-pages-to-read-a-day classes.
So you need a Global Core and now you’re staring at the list and thinking, “Oh my god. Why am I here again?”
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This will be not exactly a guide, but a list of more non-humanities friendly Global Cores to take.
Class recommendations from someone other than CULPA
The truth is, picking classes can be really stressful. CULPA gives you so many choices: Do you sign up for the section being taught by the professor everyone calls “legendary” or do you take the class offered by the professor who gives A+s and doesn’t care if you did the reading? Does your schedule force you to take the class that’s taught by “the incompetent imbecile”? Maybe you’re the kind of person who willfully avoids CULPA. If you’d like a more personal (and optimistic!) take on picking classes, read on.
Let’s face it, you’re never going to have it all (Dspar agrees! Kind of). However, I’ve always found that every semester, one class stands out as the highlight of my week.
This week, I asked fellow students via Facebook and a Google Doc to briefly answer what their favorite class was last semester and why. Hopefully reading what they say will inspire you to choose a class that could end up the highlight of your week. Here are some of their answers:
“Intro to Linguistics. I always thought linguistics would be boring, but not with McWhorter. Every class was an absolute pleasure to sit in on. Between laughing at his awkward jokes, I learned a ton about language and how to communicate and how it all works and why it matters.”
“The Social World. It was a great survey course that got me interested in Sociology and familiar with the methodology of the social sciences.”
“The History of Modern China I with Professor Zelin. I knew almost nothing about Chinese history [before] but after taking this course I have a much better understanding of China and it’s relationship to the history of the rest of the world.”
Course registration starts tomorrow!
Are you tired of that same old class schedule that you’ve been following for the past semester? Well not to worry, because starting tomorrow (April 15th), students (that means YOU!) will get to start picking into their classes for the upcoming fall semester.
To help you pick your classes, Columbia has generously updated the course directory to reflect the schedules classes will go by next year. This is a very important time in all of our school lives, as decisions made this week can affect how we live our lives for the next semester.
Important questions come up, like:
- Should I take the easier teacher and get an easy grade, or push myself with the more difficult teacher?
- Is there a chance Emlyn Hughes will strip in his physics class? Because DAT ASS.
- Is Gulati worth waking up at 8 in the morning for?
All equally important questions that should be considered in picking classes. Happy hunting!
Ready, set, panic!
There are the classes you have to take, the classes you should take, and the classes you want to take. Somehow you’re expected to mediate all these different levels of concerns and come up with an appropriate number of credits…
I’ve noticed when it comes to picking classes, I, at least, tend to either dwell on the negative too much (hello Culpa reviews) or stress out about getting the most out of my college experience in a “bucket list” class with a professor who won a Nobel Prize or something.
However, thinking critically about my past semesters here, I also have to realize that there was always one class that sneaks up on me and becomes the highlight of my academic week. If I think about picking my classes so I have one course that I enjoy consistently from day to day, suddenly a lot of the stress about making my schedule dies down.
So which class was the highlight of your week in the fall? Why did you like it and why do you recommend it? Share your experiences with the rest of the Columbia community via this Google form by Sat., April 14, at 10 p.m. We will share your experiences on Sunday!
Azealia Banks Did What?
Well, Columbia, the craziness of spring semester continues. First, you need to decide what classes to take next fall. Thankfully, there are some gems.
Also, you’re probably trying to land your dream internship for this summer. If the shuttering of Fung Wah is keeping you from traveling to a different city to interview for it and it’s looking increasingly likely that you’re going to be stuck in the service sector, never fear—Even Azealia Banks once worked behind a counter at our very own Oren’s.
Don’t let the insanity of these last few weeks distract you too much from enjoying what’s around us, though. New York City and Columbia are brimming with opportunities, but these are often transient. For example, this week The Eye explores the loss of iconic Jewish delis around the city. At Columbia, we can often be too focused on our own hectic lives to take the time to appreciate the incredible stories of those around us, as Stephen Snowder did in this week’s lead about Columbia’s military veterans.
Let me tell you a sad, sad story about a dude who couldn’t get into a history seminar
Here is a sad story:
11/11, 4 p.m.: “I should sign up for classes.”
11/11 7 p.m.: “Huh, I need to take a Nontech to graduate.” (later I found out thanks to my wonderful adviser Dawn Strickland that I was mistaken)
11/11 8 p.m.: “Problems in International History sounds FASCINATING. How do I sign up?”
11/11 8:09 p.m.: “Oh no, the deadline to apply to history seminars was November 1st!”
11/11 8:10 p.m.: “trollface.”
CULPAbility
Registration appointments for spring semester are approaching quickly, which means CULPA is now bookmarked in all of our browsers. But how much should you rely on it to pick your professors?
You often hear the argument that the majority of people who feel compelled to review their professors on CULPA were either extremely dissatisfied or excessively enthusiastic about the instructor. Indeed, according to CULPA, Professor Gulati is either “the most pretentious Columbia professor in modern existence” and “completely overrated” or “the best professor I have ever had,” depending on who you listen to.
Of course, it’s not the outliers that you want to listen to, but the average students (who form the majority of the class), and these students are less likely to comment.
Another reason for this lack of a middle ground is that in order to get attention and make our voice heard, we often express views more extreme than we should. More »
A tale of SS-LOL and the bulletin
For today’s Quick and Dirty, we asked our columnists and bloggers for their thoughts on course registration:
Derek Turner, Blogger: As a senior, I didn’t have to live through registration, but I must say I’m happy to see some of my junior friends signing up for Nobility and Civility, by far the best course at Columbia.
Samuel Roth, Columnist: College is the only time in your life that you can study whatever you want, just because you want to. Choose unwisely.
Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, Canon Contributor: Class registration is a funny thing. It’s really about squeezing all the knowledge you could possibly want to gain into a series of temporally and spatially constrained decisions. Things get left out. Roads are left untaken. On second thought, class registration is a really depressing thing. More »