I have classes by Jessie L. '07

It is term, and now I have classes! Five of them, right now. I hope to be able to keep all five, but if it is too much work then I will drop back to four. I’ve provided my first impressions of each class, which aren’t very insightful as I’ve only been to each class once.

My classes are as follows…

5.12 (Organic Chemistry): This seems to be a polarizing class – people either love it or hate it, and they either do pretty well or struggle. The last time I was in a really polarizing class (18.03 Differential Equations) I fell into the “hate” and “struggle” categories, so I’m hoping for this one to be better. I’m happy that I seem to remember more of 5.112, the intro chemistry for masochists class that I took as a first-term frosh and barely passed, than I thought.

7.03 (Genetics): It’s a 5th East cabal! My hallmates Luke ’07, Caitlin ’07, Sarah ’08 and Irene ’08 are all in it with me, which is nice since it means I’ll always have someone to study with. I’ve had some interest in genetics since I was a kid. The one lecture we’ve had so far was pretty unremarkable, but I wouldn’t expect much else from a first lecture.

9.22 (A Clinical Approach to the Human Brain): The material looks like it will be fun. The class is pretty small, 26 or 27 people. There are a lot of girls in this class, though I guess not a greater percentage than Course 9 in general. But surprisingly few pre-meds.

9.29/8.261 (Intro to Computational Neuroscience): Some twisted soul thought it would be funny to put 8.02 (E&M) and Course 9 in a blender and see what came out, and this class is the result. It seems like it will be interesting, though math-heavy. I like the grade breakdown – the final only counts for 20%! Today, we discussed how a neuron is like a leaky capacitor and how Na and K ion pumps are like batteries orienting the circuit in opposite directions, and derived equations about it, and drew schematics of it. This is easily the most male-heavy Course 9 class I’ve been in. Probably a third of it is grad students, and while 9 is the most common major, there were individuals from 6 and 18C, and a nice chunk from 8.

6.004 (Computation Structures): Another class where I know lots of people, both among the students and among the staff. I don’t actually need this class, so it will be the one that gets dropped if I get too hosed. We talked about how information is represented digitally. I thought the lecture notes were very good, and the hour flew by very quickly.