How to Be a First-Year Science Major

Hey peoples!

Life has finally calmed down over here :). Most of my stuff is replaced, my data’s back on my computer (yessss, successful backup. BACK-UP YOUR COMPUTERS, PEOPLE!), I went to not one but two concerts this week, my book is finally over the 300-some pages boring “introduction” section, my GRE test is Friday so then I won’t have to study for it anymore, my food is cooked for the week, and really, all’s well. All of this is completely irrelevant to your lives, of course. I thought that for this week I might chart my path in terms of coursework, so that you can see how one Wellesley student navigated the 1000-some classes Wellesley offers?

Let’s dive right on in! This will be most useful if you’re a science major, or if you’re pre-med. In fact, I pretty much completed the entire pre-med recommended coursework except for biochem. This was because I was being crazy and decided that taking all of the pre-med courses would be good for me… which it sort of was, though I wish I’d switched out organic chemistry for some computer science classes :).

Okay. Step 1: basic intro science classes. Most science classes at Wellesley have labs, which are 3.5-hour-long hands-on experiments you do in addition to normal class (lecture). However, because labs are an extra 3.5 hours, plus all the time you need to prepare for them and do the assignments for them afterwards (which are usually longer than the lab itself), you shouldn’t do more than one, or at most two, labs your first semester.

(I will reiterate—one or two lab classes only your first semester. The vast majority of students only take one. Taking two lab classes simultaneously is called “doubling up,” and most pre-med students plan to start doubling up their sophomore year. The reason is that labs take up a lot of time, and that first semester a lot of things are taking up a lot of time, including trying out clubs and getting jobs and making friends. You know, all that non-school stuff that makes college awesome ;P.)

So, then your question is: what intro science class should I take? You can look up the details for specific majors you’re interested in at this point on the department websites, but the fact is that almost all of the science majors require the same basic intro courses. And if you’re pre-med, you need to hit all of these anyway. The order in which you take these courses doesn’t matter, but there is a “usual” progression of courses that you take first-year and sophomore year (it gets more major-specific after that.)

First-year intro classes:

Bio 110/112 (molecular biology)

Bio 111/113 (organismal biology)

Chem 105 and 205 / 120 (inorganic chemistry)

Math 115 and 116 / (205?) (calculus)

Phys 104/107 (physics: mechanics)

Phys 106/108 (physics: electricity and magnetism)

Psych 101 (psychology)

CS 111 or Neur 100 (computer science, neuroscience) (these are only if you’re interested in these majors)

They’re sort of in order of importance, in that especially if you’re pre-med, you should start taking bio and chem immediately, since there’s a bunch of 200-level courses that need those classes as pre-reqs.

(Wow, that was a lot of jargon. Backing up:

Pre-med : students planning to go to medical school. Many science majors at Wellesley are pre-med. We also have pre-grad (people planning to go to science graduate school, like me), people who are planning to go into industry (computer science people, for example), some pre-vet and pre-dental, and some other science students.

200-level courses: There are three levels of courses at Wellesley, embedded in the title of each course. 100-level courses are introductory courses and are mainly taken by first-years and sophomores. 200-level courses are normally taken by sophomores and juniors. 300-level courses are normally taken by juniors and seniors. This isn’t a hard-and-fast rule—I’ve taken 100-levels as a junior and 300-levels as a sophomore—but the 100/200/300-level mark is a general mark of course specificity.

Pre-reqs: short for “pre-requisite.” As unfortunate as it may seem, you can’t just jump into 300-levels as a first year, no matter how interesting the title sounds. You have to get through a series of 100- and 200-level courses first before you can be admitted. It’s kind of depressing when you first realize, but as soon as you accept that you’re going to have to go through the intro classes before you get into the fascinating stuff, you can better appreciate why it’s done this way. For example, I wouldn’t have wished Neuro 320 (Vision and Art) on any student who hadn’t taken Neuro 100 and Neuro 200—you had to have the basic neuroscience background before anything would make sense in that class.)

(Just to give you a bit of a teaser into the future, so you know why I’m pushing the bio and chem… if you’re pre-med, a bio major, a chemistry major, a biochem major, or (usually) a neuro major, your sophomore year schedule will look something like this:

200-level bio class (Genetics, Cell Physiology, etc.)

Chem 211 and Chem 212 (those would be organic chemistry I and II).

But that’s in the future. Back to first year.)

So my recommendation is that you start taking either a biology or a chemistry class first year. Which one, you ask? Why are there all of those slash marks?

My answer: those slash marks are in fact the source of much consternation for first-year Wellesley students :).  They represent equivalent classes in terms of credit, but differences in level of difficulty.

Let’s approach Bio 110/112 and Bio 111/113. Usually students take either the {Bio 110 and Bio 111} track OR the {Bio 112 and Bio 113} track. I don’t think you can take the latter track unless you have at least a 4 on the AP Biology test (I don’t know what the equivalent IB credit). For anyone who does have a 4 or higher on the AP Biology test, I’d recommend the latter. Bio 112 and 113 are discussion-based classes where you learn how to read and analyze scientific papers. For anyone who does not have a strong introductory biology background, I’d strongly recommend the former. Bio 110 and 111 are lecture-based courses where you actually learn introductory biology. If you’re pre-med, I might recommend Bio 110 and Bio 111 regardless—because you’re going to need intro bio for the MCAT (which is your required test for graduate school), and Bio 110 and Bio 111 are where you learn intro bio.

{Chem 105 and 205} versus {Chem 120} is quite a bit easier. If you have a 5 on the AP chemistry exam or a score of 5 or above on the Chemistry IB upper-level exam, take Chem 120. Chem 105 and 205 are the first two semesters of introductory inorganic chemistry, and Chem 120 is just the compilation of the two: two semesters of class crammed into a single semester in the fall. Chem 120 is labeled “intensive,” and it is especially intense in terms of time, with four days of lecture and one day of lab per week. But there’s only about thirty students who take Chem 120 every year, so my general recommendation to almost everyone is to take Chem 105 first semester, and then Chem 205 the next semester.

Cool! Now that we’ve got bio and chem covered, what’s next on the list?

Math 115 and 116 / (205?) (calculus)

Phys 104/107 (physics: mechanics)

Phys 106/108 (physics: electricity and magnetism)

Psych 101 (psychology)

CS 111 or Neur 100 (computer science, neuroscience)

Ah, math :). Calculus is a pre-req for a surprisingly large number of classes. You can take Math 115 (which is “calc 1”, or AP Calc AB as far as I can tell.) You can take Math 116 (which is “calc 2”, or AP Calc BC. Note that M.I.T. calls Math 116 “calc 1” :)). You can take Math 205 (which is “multivariable” to us, “vector calc” to M.I.T., and again a surprisingly useful class.) Very few first-year students start out on Math 205, but you’re placed into the appropriate class after a placement test regardless, so it’s not something you need to worry about. Pre-med students have to do a year of calculus, by the way, and if you’re a science major you definitely should go through at least Math 116. Note that the math classes are different from the rest of the classes listed in that they do not contain labs.

If you’re a physics, astrophysics, or math major, you should immediately get started on the intro physics courses: the {104 and 106} track is easier, the {107 and 108} track is harder. I apologize for placing physics after bio and chem for you guys— most of my friends are pre-med, chem, or biochem majors, so my recommendations are biased toward those tracks :). For the rest of you, most people take intro physics their first or sophomore year. I didn’t take it until junior year, which worked out fine for me—but then again, I’m not pre-med, so I didn’t need to have it under my belt before studying for the MCAT :).

Psych 101 is a fun class, and also has no lab… it’s a nice social science class to balance out the “hard science” classes. It’s mostly taken by first years and sophomores.

And then there are CS 111 (the introductory computer science class) and Neur 100 (introductory neuroscience), either of which you should get started on immediately if you’re a CS or Neuro major! (Also, if you’re going to graduate school in neuroscience: take CS 112 (Matlab) in the spring. I’m happy to rave about its importance in person.) The rest of you probably won’t end up taking either of these classes, especially as they’re both competitive to get into. Don’t let that stop you though—I personally think that everyone should take at least one computer science course, and neuroscience is a fascinating field and a great course to try out if you’re interested.

Have I hit all of the science majors yet? Let’s see: pre-med (it’s not actually a major. But it’s pretty much like one with all of the requirements), bio, chem, biochem, neuro, cs, math, physics, astrophys, math. Some of these are much smaller than others, and each of them have quite different population of students and career paths. Regardless though, if you’re interested in any of these fields, definitely look at the classes I recommended.

“But Monica—how am I supposed to take all of these classes my first-year?”

That is a fantastic question, especially since you only get four classes a semester (that rule is strictly enforced first-year first semester). And I just told you you shouldn’t take more than one lab class your first semester. So this is what I’d do:

First semester, take a math class and a bio or chem course. (You’ve got plenty of other requirements to fulfill—check out the Writing requirement and myriad distribution requirements. Humanities and social science classes are good!)

Second semester, take a bio and a chem course. Or start phys. It’s hard for the pre-meds who want to go straight into med school after Wellesley without taking time off—because they need to have a whole bunch of classes that they’ve already taken when they start studying for the MCAT. But for the rest of us, it doesn’t really matter when exactly we take these courses, so it’s perfectly fine to take them sophomore year. Or junior year, in my case :).

I’m next going to walk you through what I ended up doing for three years at Wellesley (which is… unconventional in places. Ah well. It shows the flexibility of what you can do at Wellesley!). But before I do, let me mention: there are some people who come into Wellesley wanting to take three lab classes or five classes or whatever right off the bat, even though they’ve been advised it’s not a good idea. And in almost all cases, it really is a bad idea. But sometimes, for some people, that is really what would work well for them. If you feel that way, make sure to tell your dean—and if you’d like, I’d be happy to meet with you, and give you yet another opinion on what you might want to do.

But schedule time! Warning that, again, my schedule is not conventional and I’m going to have to poke holes in it. But it really does go to show that you can do almost anything you like at Wellesley, as long as you’re in good communication with your dean and advisors :).

4-Year Plan (iteration gazillion and one. Seriously, this thing has been edited so many times…)

Freshman (1st sem)	Freshman (2nd sem)
Chem 120 + Lab	Bio 113 + Lab
Math 116	Bio 112 + Lab
Writ 125 (Music and the Ineffable)	Neuro 100 + Practicum
Hist 272  (Political Economy of Southeast Asia)	CAMS 105 (Intro to Film)
(audit) Educ 212 (History of American Education)
no research	Chem research: 4 hrs/week

Summer: Wellesley Summer Research Program

Sophomore (1st sem)	Sophomore (2nd sem)
Math 215 (Math for the Sciences)	CS 112 (Matlab) + Practicum
Neuro 200 + Lab	Extd 120 (Making a Difference Through Engineering)
Chem 211 + Lab (Organic Chemistry I)	Chem 212 + Lab (Organic Chemistry II)
Psych 101	Neuro 320 + Lab (Vision and Art)
Neur 250 (research): 10 hrs/week	Neur 250 (research): 10 hrs/week

Summer: Wellesley Summer Research Program

Junior

Math 205 (Multivariable)	MIT 18.05 (Intro to Probability and Statistics)
CS 332 (Computational Vision)	MIT 9.40 (Intro to Neural Computation)
Physics 107	MIT 8.02 (Physics II)
Eng 203 (Short Narrative)	Eng 301 (Advanced Fiction)
Psych 217 (Cognition)
Neuro 250 (research): 10 hrs/week	Neuro 250 (research): 10 hrs/week

Summer: M.I.T. CBMM / Wellesley Summer Research Program

Heh, the 4^th year is still undecided. I’ll keep you updated though!

And my comments about this:

1. DO NOT TAKE FIVE CLASSES FIRST SEMESTER. Bad idea, people :). It wasn’t even allowed—I audited the last one and didn’t get a grade for it (thank goodness—it wouldn’t have been a good one.) I was crazy stressed first semester because I was trying to figure out the swim team and the campus and Chem 120 and friends and stuff… if I had to go back I wouldn’t do it that way. That said, I’m glad I was able to take that education class, because there’s no way I would have been able to take it otherwise. Benefits and detriments to everything :).
2. Taking basically three labs (practicum is only two hours long, but Neur 100 is a beast of a class) first-year spring isn’t recommended. And I have never met anyone else who took both intro bio classes in the same semester. I was being crazy as usual… but that semester it worked out well for me. Still, I haven’t encountered anyone who attempted three first year.
3. Sophomore year: taking five classes is also non-recommended. However, almost all of the science majors end up adding research as a fifth class. So that’s not unusual.
4. Sophomore year: … ah, you’re not supposed to take as many science classes as I did. You’re supposed to be balanced and include humanities classes. Meep.
5. Junior fall: Taking an intro physics class at this point in time was quite unusual. Again, it worked for me, but I was the only junior. Also, taking six classes is EXTREMELY not recommended. (Also, hard to schedule.) …but that semester still wasn’t as bad as taking organic chemistry II and neuro 320 at the same time?
6. Junior spring: Um. Taking three MIT classes is highly unusual and only allowed in special circumstances that you must duke out with your dean (I love Dean Stephan. So much.) Also, that schedule in itself is crazy odd, because it includes a freshman science class at another school, two sophomore science classes again at another school, and a 300-level English class for a junior science major… only at Wellesley :).

So while my schedule is not typical, interestingly enough I have seen stranger. There are people who are double-majoring at M.I.T and Wellesley, taking classes at Babson and Olin, are double-majoring at Wellesley, keep on switching their majors at Wellesley and so have taken a lot of classes in everything, and weirder. Mine’s pretty weird though.

And that’s all I have, everyone :). Thanks for sorting through this if you made it this far—I forget about all of the intricacies that you learn over the years. I’m always available for questions (please please send me questions! They make me happy), and hope you all have a great week!

Monica