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E-PrinceFall 2012-13 courses are up, and everyone is starting to fill in tentative schedules for the next semester. Some of us have four or five classes decided, more or less set in stone. For others, like me, there aren’t ...
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News flash, Kinnari - you do not need your advisor's approval for things as petty as these....and to think that you are a sophomore.
good article!
Stop whining. Most 300-level POL/SOC/PSY courses are jokes anyway.
I disagree. Sure I don't always manage to do the reading, and my humanities and social science courses have all been 200-level so far, but one of the things that appealed to me about Princeton in the first place was the opportunity to take legitimate humanities and social science courses in a wide array of subjects with scholars at the top of their field. I know many of my classmates feel the same way; this was why we chose Princeton over places like MIT, where humanities and social sciences (outside of econ) are decidedly secondary priorities for most students. I have learned a ton from my "distribution requirement" classes, and it is intellectually invigorating to sit in a precept with people who have a different disciplinary lens than I do and hear how they approach Plato or Realist art. I would not want to compromise this experience for better grades, doing a higher percentage of reading, or even for a full night's sleep. The chance to take "real" humanities and social science classes along with humanities and social science majors was why I chose to come to this school over an engineering school. This is Princeton.
Clapping for Credit (MUS 103) counts for your LA requirement
The 200 level courses in my humanities department are all big lecture courses explicitly designed to cater to a broad field of students - professors expect that most of the students will be taking them for distribution requirements, and will often warn more able students off taking those sorts of course. I'd say that they are the exact equivalent of those 'lasers for losers' courses (and yes, some even have equally unflattering nicknames).
If you can't tell what these courses are from the catalog, don't all students have academic advisers who should be able to point you towards courses appropriate for your level of ability and interest? Could it be that you have even taken some of these courses, but not known it, because they were are the right level for your ability, and the professor has done a good job of not seeming patronising?
Man up, and stop looking for the easy way out. It's not about the grades - you are at the best undergraduate university in the world, and you are afraid to take advantage of that because you might get a B? Courage, my dear...
The advisers here are the opposite of helpful, as this story suggests. My experience as an upperclassman was that my adviser (whom I hadn't picked, obviously) would take offense to the fact that I wasn't taking any classes in her department, then ignore me entirely.
Also:
"The lower level and introductory courses offer some escape. A slightly broader range of students tend to take these classes. The material does not require any familiarity with the subject or the department, and the course load tends to be lighter. But I have personally been chastised by one advisor for even putting an introductory humanities course on my course enrollment worksheet. He crossed my choice out and replaced it with another that concerned the same subject but was a full level of difficulty higher. If I want to enroll in a reputably easier humanities course, it will most likely have to be without my advisor’s approval."
In other words, the kinds of classes you are looking for already exist, but your adviser doesn't want you to take them. This sort of refutes the whole article.
Am I hearing an engineering student complain that humanities classes are too hard for him? Is such a thing even possible?
you are given 4 PDF classes. I've used one each in the architecture and english departments (both classes involved long papers and I would probably have gotten a C in both classes). But I actually enjoyed the lectures, readings, and precepts.