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 icon smile What to Expect from Introductory Science Classes at Yale

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

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