poor grades?

gwm3 · February 13, 2003, 12:01:40 AM

Wow, I guess now I can safely admit to having been an Econ major. Wonder why government (my other major) is not listed. It's the biggest major in the Arts College, IIRC.

Greg Berge · February 13, 2003, 02:25:17 AM

My department of 1 wasn't statistically significant, either...

Give My Regards · February 13, 2003, 09:55:36 AM

[Q]So to you all I bit a hardy...[/Q]

Er... don't you mean "bid a hearty"? :-D :-D

(And this from someone who actually got an F at Cornell. In his major.)

jd212 · February 13, 2003, 10:19:23 AM

IIRC, you don't have to do a thesis in every college in order to graduate with honors. I know the honors requirements are different for each school. My roommate graduated magna cum laude without doing a thesis in the AG school. The Arts school, OTOH, I think requires that you do a thesis.,at least the English major does. Don't know about the others.

jd212 · February 13, 2003, 10:23:12 AM

Yup, definitely B-/C+. Not including my lab grades, I hit the mean exactly on my three prelims for chem 207 and ended up with a B- for that part of the class. Trust me, I know many people who failed. But a lot of people drop the class after the F on the first prelim as well. Those tend to be the pre-med dropouts. It's a rough class.

Greg Berge · February 13, 2003, 10:24:47 AM

I wish I'd known about liberal arts scholarships when I was at Cornell... ::laugh::

B.A., Independent Major, Playwriting, 1985.

jtwcornell91 · February 13, 2003, 10:57:51 AM

Jason wrote:

QuoteYup, definitely B-/C+. Not including my lab grades, I hit the mean exactly on my three prelims for chem 207 and ended up with a B- for that part of the class. Trust me, I know many people who failed. But a lot of people drop the class after the F on the first prelim as well. Those tend to be the pre-med dropouts. It's a rough class.

Yes. That's why I took 215. B-] (No, seriously, I would have been miserable in Chem 207, but I took 215 as an elective, and had a good time. Of course I was a sophomore Physics major, so a freshman Chemistry class was pretty easy in comparison.)

jtwcornell91 · February 13, 2003, 10:58:51 AM

Jason wrote:

QuoteThe Arts school, OTOH, I think requires that you do a thesis.,at least the English major does. Don't know about the others.

As of 1991, Astronomy definitely did not.

jnachod · February 13, 2003, 11:43:49 AM

Having McMurry as your chem professor isn't exactly going to make for a fun experience. When I took the chem 207 class in the fall of 2000 he droned so badly and just read his textbook word for word.

Some of his prelim questions were truly absurd.

"Imagine that we invent a new universe where instead of just two, there are three electrons in each orbital. What would happen ...."

melissa · February 13, 2003, 12:05:37 PM

Even the upper level classes ... and despite studying your butt off you can still get 'em.

pchem, inorganic chem, a bunch of the CS classes ... to name a few.

jd212 · February 13, 2003, 12:45:08 PM

That reminds me of an anecdote from a friend of mine once when I was visiting Dartmouth. I noticed he had the McMurray organic chemistry textbook in his room and I exclaimed profusely with many words that would be inadmissable in said textbook about my feelings toward the Prof. He replied how I was so lucky that McMurray was actually my teacher and how all the orgo students there worship him because his book is so great. I was kind of surprised. I told him, yeah, his textbooks may be fantastic, but when he teaches straight out of them, not only does it provide no incentive to go to the 10:10 class, but in addition, it adds nothing to the class. I guess I just thought it was weird how much the Dartmouth chem students love the guy, and the Cornell chem students wish he would stay in his office and just write books.

jeh25 · February 13, 2003, 01:19:22 PM

Jason wrote:

QuoteIIRC, you don't have to do a thesis in every college in order to graduate with honors. I know the honors requirements are different for each school. My roommate graduated magna cum laude without doing a thesis in the AG school.

My understanding is that this is technically graduating "with distinction" *not* graduating "with honors". I could be wrong however...

Lowell '99 · February 13, 2003, 02:09:11 PM

I think that in the Ag school, you can graduate with both latin honors and "honors in research." The "with distinction" label is in Arts & Sciences (and maybe others- I'm not sure). Also, the latin honors (in Ag) are based only on your GPA from your final two years, so you don't have to worry about any freshman mistakes.

Greg Berge · February 13, 2003, 03:19:30 PM

The book/lecture split is very common. Often it's exascerbated by the penchant for publishing houses to sign Known Names, and hence close-to-emeritus ancients, to slap their name on a book that is mostly a compendium of "will write for food" post-doc types. Whenever the scarlet "Ed." appears after a significant name's attribution, you can be pretty sure that's what is going on.

John, I love your sig quote. Every time I see the "drugs cause terrorism" scare ad I think an "S.U.V.s cause terrorism" ad would be far more accurate.

Al DeFlorio · February 13, 2003, 04:23:23 PM

Greg wrote:

QuoteEvery time I see the "drugs cause terrorism" scare ad I think an "S.U.V.s cause terrorism" ad would be far more accurate.

According to an op-ed piece in yesterday's Cape Cod Times, Arianna Huffington has already funded a series of TV ads with the latter message.