Just for kicks.....what is your next semester schedule?

Waterwerx said:

I used that site when I was trying to find a good math professor for trig and still got stuck with a professor I was trying to avoid. Sometimes they swap professors around and you usually don't find out about it until you're sitting there on the first day of the course.
Same thing happened when I enrolled for O-Chem. I. I was looking forward to having a good professor for that course the second time around and ended up with an adjunct who had very little teaching experience and little familiarity with the labs. I had to help her with the labs and she ended up staining part of my lab textbook purple with iodine. I said afterwards, this is why we write up pre-labs, so we're not getting reagents all over our textbooks. When we were doing a lab that involved methane, acetylene, and metal acetylide synthesis, I had to make sure the other professor took time to go through the lab with her, because of how bad things could go with that particular lab.

Instead of getting rid of the professors that have numerous complaints in conjunction with low enrollment for their course, they let them continue teaching. Not to mention they'll let pretty much anyone adjunct that has a masters degree in the related field.

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That sucks, I'm sorry you went through that.

keith99 said:

Any bets someone will read this and think there are foo foo classes? I won't make that mistake I still remember some of your 10th grade classes.

Out of curiosity and perhaps to make things clear for some others here what are the prerequisites for the Data Science class?

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What classes did you think were foo foo? To clarify, I was planning on taking the choreography and carillon classes on a pass / fail basis to seize special opportunities, and not for easy A's or to count towards my major. After I graduate I doubt I'll have many chances to learn to play the carillon at Hoover Tower. When I applied to my college I submitted the optional arts supplement with a dance reel and a portfolio of my paintings to help my application stand out. Though we're not expected to choose a major related to our arts if we're admitted (and few people do), we are asked to contribute our talents to the community through taking relevant classes, participating in festivals and events, and the like. Since I'm not in the dance company due to the time commitment it mandates, I wanted to take the choreography class. The Registrar's office tends to be fairly lenient with allowing us to exceed the maximum unit limit for taking such non-academic classes.

This year's Presidential election is the only one that will take place during my undergraduate years, so I was loading up on classes relating to it. For my major we're required to have a primary and a secondary track, and my secondary track is in Elections, Representations, and Governance; the classes would fulfill those requirements all in one quarter. I also am incredibly excited about the one-unit seminars because they will feature prominent guest speakers. My internship is with a political campaign, so I also wanted my studies to compliment it.

The Data Science class is the one I was the least enthused about, but it's required for my major. This is the course description, if you're still curious:

In this course we will develop fundamental techniques of data science and apply them to large political datasets on elections, campaign finance, lobbying, and more. The objective is to give students the skills to carry out cutting edge quantitative political studies in both academia and the private sector. Students with technical backgrounds looking to study politics quantitatively are encouraged to enroll.

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My part-time internship has become full-time, so I've had to scale back on classes due to a time conflict and unit overload. I'm taking the evening seminars, carillon, an independent art class, and one other class about the election. Last year I took several intense classes that entailed studying bioterrorism, the Charlie Hebdo and other terrorist attacks, the civil war in Syria, and the ethics of using torture on terrorists, so I think I need some foo foo, haha.

Stanfordella said:

What classes did you think were foo foo? To clarify, I was planning on taking the choreography and carillon classes on a pass / fail basis to seize special opportunities, and not for easy A's or to count towards my major. After I graduate I doubt I'll have many chances to learn to play the carillon at Hoover Tower. When I applied to my college I submitted the optional arts supplement with a dance reel and a portfolio of my paintings to help my application stand out. Though we're not expected to choose a major related to our arts if we're admitted (and few people do), we are asked to contribute our talents to the community through taking relevant classes, participating in festivals and events, and the like. Since I'm not in the dance company due to the time commitment it mandates, I wanted to take the choreography class. The Registrar's office tends to be fairly lenient with allowing us to exceed the maximum unit limit for taking such non-academic classes.

This year's Presidential election is the only one that will take place during my undergraduate years, so I was loading up on classes relating to it. For my major we're required to have a primary and a secondary track, and my secondary track is in Elections, Representations, and Governance; the classes would fulfill those requirements all in one quarter. I also am incredibly excited about the one-unit seminars because they will feature prominent guest speakers. My internship is with a political campaign, so I also wanted my studies to compliment it.

The Data Science class is the one I was the least enthused about, but it's required for my major. This is the course description, if you're still curious:

My part-time internship has become full-time, so I've had to scale back on classes due to a time conflict and unit overload. I'm taking the evening seminars, carillon, an independent art class, and one other class about the election. Last year I took several intense classes that entailed studying bioterrorism, the Charlie Hebdo and other terrorist attacks, the civil war in Syria, and the ethics of using torture on terrorists, so I think I need some foo foo, haha.

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I didn't think any of them were foo foo. But I did think some reading just the titles who were not aware of your background and that you were at Stanford might think some were. I was thinking the data class was the one most likely to have prereqs that would make it obvious it was not foo foo and possibly even some that were harder than the impression some might have of the class. I don't think it unlikely that some may have thought it was a soft substitute for statistics. It would have been sweet if someone did have that impression and stat or even better advanced statistics was a prereq.

I did think it likely that the physical activity classes would not be challenging for you, but I see absolutely nothing wrong with taking classes to keep sharp or give back a little.

I am in my third semester back in college and only taking two serious classes Algebra and Physiology, working on my prereqs for the Nursing program. I'm doing a smaller course load due to how difficult these classes are and also am working full time. I think next semester will be pretty enjoyable, but I am doing my best right now.

Please, excuse my endless curiosity, but as I understood, Americans can always choose different semesters? So how can your universities prepare you to a particular job if you never study the same areas?

My own next semester will be exactly the same as this one, excepted with even more work to do. Our professors already warned us, many students of our kind of studies end up depressive after the month of November, often with a burn-out... What a lovely prospect. Gladly I will be on holidays next wednesday -holidays with a LOT of work of course, but still! I will sleep until 8. A.M and go to bed at 10 P.M.! Can't wait for that

thehehe said:

Please, excuse my endless curiosity, but as I understood, Americans can always choose different semesters? So how can your universities prepare you to a particular job if you never study the same areas?

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I can't speak for everyone but this is how my program has gone:
Freshman and sophomore years are spent taking core classes that serve as prerequisites.
Junior year is spent taking required classes within the major.
During senior year you can pick classes that "specialize" in more specific fields related to the major.

Not sure if that's typical or not, but it's worked out pretty well for me

no idea yet but i graduate next semester