Hello again Saybrook Freshmen!
This post is principally for all the pre-meds, prospective science majors, and prospective engineering majors out there, though people looking to satisfy their science distributional requirements may also find it useful.
I list the most common science courses that Freshmen take, and give my opinions on them. I have not taken all these courses myself, and my opinion for courses other than the ones I have taken is based on what my friends in these courses have told me. So that you can get more accurate information about these courses, I list the Saybrugians I know who have taken these courses. Note that my opinions may not necessarily be based on conversations with these Saybrugians only. As usual, feel free to take what you want.
When contacting the Saybrugians mentioned, please remember to remain respectful and cordial. I have not taken permission from the people listed here, and having their inbox inundated with frantic emails during move-in time would be the last thing they want. I am sure, however, that if contacted properly, all of them would be willing to speak with you. And to all of the people I mention here: please understand my sentiment is only to give advice to the newbies. I am not judging anyone here (I am too small for such a thing), and I truly love you all.
Lastly, I would like to mention that a lot more Saybrugians have taken these courses; however, I am only mentioning the ones that I can pull off of my memory bank at this moment.
Chemistry—Most introductory courses are heavy pre-med courses:
- Freshman Organic Chemistry (125)– The course is taught through power-point presentations. The first part of this yearlong course (which is what you will be studying in the fall) will be extremely heavy on physical chemistry. The course is theoretical. You either hate this course or you love it. Technically, it has one more exam than sophomore organic chemistry (below), and is known for tough exams.
Saybrugians to the rescue: Elaine Zhou, Chris Ell, Andrew Maleki, Alison Altman, John Greenwalt (better known as Greeno), Martin Keil, Sophie Liu
- Sophomore Organic Chemistry (220)—The course is taught through a textbook, and chalkboards if you will. It is definitely more application based than freshman orgo. You get to meet a lot of sophomores and that provides a new, different class environment.
Saybrugians to the rescue: Meena Shivaram, Nimit Jain
- Chem 118—Similar to AP Chemistry though with a few additional details.
Saybrugians to the rescue: Cleo Handler, Allison Bauer (better known as Alli Bauer), Sam Beckenstein, Marc Beck
- Chem 112—The course to take if you have little background in chemistry, or are not interested and just want to satisfy the pre-med requirement
Saybrugians to the rescue: Jamar Bromley, Brandon Rapp (better known as B Rapp)
You can get information about the corresponding labs from these Saybrugians as well.
Physics:
- Physics 150—Pre-med heavy and extremely competitive class; basic physics though. Take it only if you hate physics and want to be done with the requirement.
- Physics 180—AP Physics C with some other concepts (such as waves etc.)
- Physics 200—AP Physics C on steroids (special relativity is taught in this course).
Saybrugian to the rescue: Lucila Dunnington
- Physics 260—High level physics. You need a strong math and physics background for this course. General relativity and quantum mechanics are taught in this one.
Saybrugian to the rescue: Nabeem Hashem
Math and ENAS
- Math 120—One thing I can say about this course is that it is unnecessarily hard. I have heard that the professors are not that great, and that the exams are tough. It is much more theoretical than ENAS 151 (see below).
Saybrugians to the rescue: Uyen Phan, Anusha Raja, Shana Berwick, Lucila Dunnington, Greeno, James Luo
- ENAS 151—A more practical way to go about Math 120. It teaches the applications of the concepts of multivariable calculus to engineering. The professor is awesome (google Robert Grober). The exams are pretty straightforward but you cover the same material as Math 120 (you learn the same stuff…I taught some students in Math 120!). I highly recommend this course. If you are, however, doing this as a pre-requisite for pre-med or a major which only says Math 120, double check on whether this course would be applicable.
Saybrugian to the rescue: Nimit Jain
- Math 112—Calculus for you! Saybrugian to the rescue: J-L Mosley
- Math 115—Calculus and infinite series for you!
Saybrugians to the rescue: J-L Mosley, Chidi Akusobi
- ENAS 194—Good light course on differential equations. I do not know much about the math counterpart for this course. ENAS 194 is a mechanical course and teaches you how to solve different differential equations.
Saybrugians to the rescue: Nimit Jain, Sebastian Serra
- Math 222—Nice, smooth, mechanical math course.
Saybrugian to the rescue: Andrew Maleki
- Math 230—Requires a strong background in math. Heavy proof-based math. The exams and problem sets are hard. I am not sure about who you could talk to for this but you could try Nabeem Hashem or Ray Xi.
Biology—MCDB 120
One of the three professors is awesome (John Carlson). Everybody loves him. If you have taken AP Bio, you may want to skip this though some concepts of developmental biology are covered in 120 (absent in AP). The exams are straightforward. This is a pre-med course. If you want to learn more than what you are required to, you can definitely help yourself to the fantastic textbook. The course also lays a good foundation if you took AP Bio long ago.
Saybrugians to the rescue: Nimit Jain, Ben Robbins, Regina de Luna, Peter Tian
The lab for this course is simple but very time consuming. Do not take it if you are open to more advanced labs.
Saybrugians to the rescue: Kate Penziner, Nimit Jain
Perspectives on Science and Engineering
Perspectives is a great way to meet science kids from other residential colleges. You have a lot of fun doing the summer research in the Have. Some lectures will be interesting, others not so much. The lectures are dominated by the life sciences.
Saybrugians to the rescue: Nimit Jain, Sophie Liu
Computer Science
- 112—Introduction to Programming. Akanksha Bajaj and Bryan Kam took this course. I think both found it rigorous.
- 201—Introduction to Computer Science. This requires some previous knowledge of programming and is usually taken by prospective majors. Saybrugian to the rescue: David Chen
Psychology-110
Extremely interesting course. Just make sure you don’t have claustrophobia: hundreds of people take this course 
Saybrugian to the rescue: Kirill Miniaev
Cognitive Sciences-110
Do not know much about this. I will leave it to Cleo Handler to do the talking.
Looking forward to meeting you all now
Nimit
Continue on to the next post in the series, Getting Mail at Yale
Back to How to Navigate Freshman Year at Yale
Charlie
Ted
Ray
Jeff Gordon
Calah
cleo
Nimit
Jon Wu
Mike Jones
Chris Riederer
DJ Jawzy Slamz
Joanna Cornell
Austin Baik
R.J. Rico
Tara Tyrrell
Rick Caraballo
Hi,
I was wondering which text books I’ll be needing for the following classes. It’ll be great if anyone who took the class/knows which text book will be used this fall, leaves a comment!
MCDB 120
CHEM 118
English 114
Perspectives
Thanks!
Thanks for the post!
Can I opt out of taking 120a with AP Bio 5 credit if I have other courses I want to explore / is this advisable / would there be another bio course to take first semester then?
Thanks so much for this info! I’m not even a Saybrugian (gasp) but it was very helpful – also I didn’t know about OCI, most definitely a fantastic tip.
@Piyumindri
The best way to figure out what textbooks you’ll need for classes is to email the professors for the class, check if the syllabus is posted on the OCI listing or check the Yale Bookstore’s website (though not all classes are in their system yet). We couldn’t tell you what books are required, since they differ by professor and change every year. I hope this helps!
Yale Bookstores Website:
http://yale.bncollege.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/BNCBHomePage?storeId=16556&catalogId=10001&langId=-1
@Piyumindri
Charlie’s right about the sources to get the most accurate information. If you are an international student though, and science/ math books are dirty cheap in your country, then you should buy them there.
Let me explain this a bit. Note here that this is only valid for science, math, and engineering courses. So, you go to OCI and select Fall 2008. Navigate to the course you want to buy the book for. If it is an intro course, it will probably be listed. The syllabus for this would definitely be there. Go to it and see the textbook. Most international editions run one edition behind the editions that are used for your courses here. But it doesn’t matter as long as it is science and math. The material remains the same. All you have to do is photocopy the exercises (and you end up saving like a 100-200 dollars per book still!).
However, the book might completely change too which is why you should only buy them if they are available at 5-10% of the list price here.
If you really want to know our books from last year:
I took MCDB 120 last year–the book is called Life the Science of Biology (Sadava I think is the author). You basically need volumes 1 and 3.
Talk to the chem 118 people I have listed for their book. I think it was titled “Principles of Modern Chemistry”. It had a white cover with a purple design on it.
Engl 114 and Perspectives books–All I can say is do not bother right now. There are no books for perspectives and your 114 professor would be the ideal person to tell you how to organize your reading material.
@ Cho
There is nothing such as ‘opting out’ at Yale. You pace yourself!
And you should definitely not take 120 if you are confident about AP Bio, and confident about some other courses you want to explore. Look at my post above.
As for another bio course, I would suggest that you talk to Anusha Raja or Chidi Akusobi (both Saybrugians). I have heard that genetics and mol. bio are not that great, so I am really not sure. A lot of people wait and take cell bio in the Spring (the two lovely people I mention here did that; cell bio is a fantastic course).
Thanks for the post! It was really helpful.
Would I be able to skip MCDB 120a and take MCDB 200b in the spring if I got a 5 on the AP test even though YCPS says that MCDB is a prereq?
I’m a little confused by the prerequisites for classes and majors. If my test scores place me into a class higher than the prereq listed, can I take it? and do I have to take lower math classes for major prereqs if I placed out of them?
Hope my questions made some sense…
Thanks!
@Jessica
You definitely can take higher classes! In fact, that is the way AP scores help at Yale: you get higher placements. You will, however, have to take that higher level course to satisfy the major requirement. e.g. if only MCDB 120 is the prereq, and you have placed out of it, you still will have to take a higher level course to complete the major prereq.
They have no bearing on processing. ,