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PrincetonUniversity |
Selecting CoursesAs you make course selections this year, you will quickly realize that there is not an unlimited amount of time to try all the courses you would like. You will have to choose courses wisely, with an eye to testing new areas and further exploring interests that you may have already identified. Your academic adviser, dean, and director of studies can assist you in reviewing your academic options and giving shape to your overall academic program; individual faculty members and departmental representatives can offer advice about specific courses and departmental requirements. For engineers, an additional resource is the associate dean for undergraduate affairs in the School of Engineering and Applied Science. While determining your course schedule during the first two weeks of the fall term and thinking ahead to the spring, you should keep in mind the following criteria. Unless you have strong personal feelings about different course options, you should think of the criteria in roughly the order given below. 1. Preparing for a department or program You should select courses that qualify you to enter any department or program in which you are interested. Some departments and programs have rather strict prerequisites, some suggest prerequisites but are flexible about the precise choice of courses, and some simply require you to be acquainted with courses in their discipline. If you would like to have prerequisites waived or to substitute other courses for prerequisites, you need the approval of the appropriate departmental representative. Even when departments have no formal prerequisites, you should plan to take one upper-level course in every department in which you are considering concentrating. Shortly after the Thanksgiving break, the Undergraduate Student Government and the Office of the Dean of the College jointly sponsor "Majors Night." Juniors and seniors currently majoring in virtually every department, as well as a number of faculty members, are available to answer your questions at this annual event. In the spring, about the time course cards are due, many departments have open houses. At these meetings faculty members will discuss the undergraduate curriculum with interested students. Often departmental concentrators attend these sessions and describe their experiences in the department. If you miss an open house, you should ask the department for the information that is distributed to concentrators. If you have questions, make an appointment with the departmental representative. The earlier in the year you do this, the more time will be left for you to make adjustments in your course schedule. Don't assume that a department will waive prerequisites or make other adjustments just because it has done so in the past. Departmental requirements change, and hearsay does not provide adequate guidelines for course selection. 2. Completing University and distribution requirements If at all possible, you should fulfill all University and distribution requirements by the end of the sophomore year. This is particularly true of foreign language and introductory-level laboratory science and technology courses, both of which are difficult to fit into upperclass schedules. The more you are tempted to procrastinate in fulfilling a requirement, probably the more important it is for you to complete it before you begin your independent work. 3. Exploring the curriculum You should explore departments and courses that might interest you (aside from potential areas of concentration) or that could be helpful in developing independent work topics. Sophomore year is a good time to do this because you know the opportunities available at the University but do not yet have the pressures of departmental courses and independent work. One thing we have not mentioned is getting a head start on your departmental courses. Many sophomores believe that if they have made a reasonably firm decision on a departmental major, they should begin taking departmental courses. There is certainly nothing wrong with this strategy, but it may not be the best one for entrance into all departments. Some departments do encourage early concentration in order to take advantage of special summer research or field study opportunities. Students who plan to study abroad for the term or the year may choose to begin departmental work early. In such cases it can be very useful to take one or two departmental courses during the sophomore year. Generally, however, students find that they get more out of upper-level departmental courses when they take them in conjunction with their junior and senior independent work, since the courses and research complement each other. Some departments expect their majors to take at least two departmental courses each term of junior and senior years, regardless of how many courses they might have had in the department as sophomores, so that taking departmental courses early does not necessarily result in increased flexibility in the upperclass years.
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