Schedules are up! by Mollie B. '06

Yesterday was the day that is usually my favorite day of the semester, because individual class schedules for the fall term came out. (My very favorite day of the semester is actually the day they put up the full schedule for the next term, but this takes place several months before a term starts — they put up the fall 2005 schedule in late May — so I don’t think it counts as my favorite day of term.)

I know for sure that I’ll be taking 7.31 (Current Topics in Mammalian Biology), a seminar-style upper division biology elective which gets great reviews in the student subject evaluations. I’ll also be taking 5.60 (Thermodynamics and Kinetics), because it’s a requirement for biology majors to graduate, and I’m a senior this year, and we can all connect the dots on what that means. (I’m not looking forward to it. Multivariable calc is a prereq. Eep.)

I also have to take 21A.100 (Intro to Anthropology) — I’m concentrating in anthropology, and 21A.100 is required to concentrate (and let’s all connect the dots again about taking required classes in one’s senior year). Finally, I’m taking 9.15 (Biochemistry and Pharmacology of Synaptic Transmission), which I am super-psyched about.

My quandary currently is with my fifth class. I need to take another anthropology course to finish the concentration. Prior to today, I was planning to take 21A.245 (Power). It sounded interesting, and it fit in a really nice place in my schedule. (Don’t underestimate schedule as a major factor in my choice of HASSes. HASS classes, as far as I am concerned, are a necessary evil. I am well-rounded only under duress.) But since schedules came out, I could access the class website, and I did not like what I read. There seems to be a lot of writing, plus several required out-of-class exercises… in my experience, when professors are that demanding on the syllabus, it doesn’t bode well for the workload.

So I’m thinking of taking 21A.260 (Culture, Embodiment, and the Senses). I took a class with the professor last term, and I really liked her. The only negatives are that she’s a fairly tough grader (and she knows how I write, so I won’t get the obligatory first paper boost for being able to string a few sentences together)… and that my schedule is positively ugly if I take her class.

The two schedules side-by-side
Isn’t that ugly?

The part where I answer questions:
1. Katharine asked if freshmen were limited to working a certain number of hours per week. Actually, only international students are limited — internationals can only work 20 hours per week during fall, spring, and IAP. (I was also under the impression that everyone was limited to 40 hours per week, but I can’t seem to find that on the UROP site at the moment. Not that you’d be working 40 hours in a week during term anyway, though.)
Edit: Ah! Here we are.
2. [Your question here]