Course selection: a brief how-to guide

Orientation: On the house: the College House affiliate experience

“So are there fraternities at Bowdoin?” Get ready—people are going to ask you this question over and over during the next four years, and probably long after. There is no Greek life at Bowdoin, and the student handbook explicitly prohibits fraternities and sororities. Bowdoin phased out its co-ed fraternities in the 1990s and the College Houses (or, as they’re more commonly called, social houses) were instituted to replace the Greek system.
There are eight social houses on campus—Ladd, Baxter, Reed, Macmillan (“Mac”), Quinby, Helmreich, Burnett and Howell—and they are primarily inhabited by sophomores.
After much discussion and deliberation, the Office of Residential Life has instituted some substantial changes for the College House system this year. In the new system, each floor of a first year brick is affiliated with a different College House; your friends on the floor below you will be affiliates of a different House and your fellow affiliates will all live in different dorms. (Refer to the inset for a full list of floor and House affiliations.)

Orientation

Course selection: a brief how-to guide

September 9, 2013

The Bowdoin experience extends well beyond academics, but a large part of college is unavoidably spent in the classroom—a Bowdoin student with four classes will spend on average 12 hours in class per week, and much more than that in Hawthorne-Longfellow or Hatch Library.

The days of evenly-spaced periods of history, math, science and English are over: you are no longer obligated to have a well-rounded schedule. And because of this newfound freedom, it is well worth your time and effort to put some thought into choosing courses first semester. This is the time to experiment with new disciplines and to see what you like and what you don’t; try not to confine yourself to the handful of departments you liked most in high school.

Though some of you first years may have mapped out your whole life in seventh grade and already know exactly what you’ll be taking all eight semesters of college, most will be going into first semester with only a hazy idea of where your academic interests lie.
Below a few thoughts on figuring it out.

PROFESSORS

The critical factor in course selection. Classes with fascinating descriptions can be mind-numbing and awful when entrusted to a boring professor. Conversely, the most eccentric, niche courses taught by a passionate and engaged professor often end up being the ones you will enjoy and remember the most.

If you’re having trouble narrowing your class list down to four, ask upperclassmen for advice, starting with the proctors in your dorm. Go through the course reviews on Bowdoin Student Government’s website. Keep in mind that it’s not a comprehensive database and some reviews are outdated, so it’s a good idea to double-check with someone in person. Online reviews tend to oscillate between extremes—those who post reviews probably took the time to do so because they had either a fantastic or terrible experience and wanted to encourage or dissuade others from making the same choice.

PRE-MAJOR ADVISOR

The first professor you will likely interact with is your pre-major adviser, and you’ll probably be able to tell what kind of resource he or she will be pretty quickly.

Some professors will tell you exactly what courses they think you should take; others will let you to chart your own course and only give advice if you ask for it. If your pre-major advisor is the latter sort, and you find it frustrating that (s)he doesn’t do much more than sign your forms: fear not! Use it as an excuse to get to know other professors who can fill an advisory role.

DISTRIBUTION REQUIREMENTS

Meeting Bowdoin’s requirements is pretty painless. It’s really just three, maybe four classes that you will have to budget out time for—the rest can be taken care of in the course of completing your major, and the first year seminar is mandatory.

People will tell you that you have to finish the distribution requirements by sophomore year; this is a suggestion, not a rule. As a junior, I had yet to fulfill my natural sciences requirement. If you aim to get one out of the way each semester, you’ll be in the clear by senior year.

COURSE TIMES

If timing is everything for you, you can probably make it work so that you never have class before 11:30 a.m. If you’re really strategic, and do not plan on taking science classes, you may never have to set foot in a classroom on a Friday.

Figure out what you want the structure of your day to be, and that will automatically help you narrow down classes. However, let that be a guideline, not a hard and fast rule; a great professor (or a class you’re excited about) is worth an early alarm.

ADD/DROP

Lastly, but most importantly, nothing is written in stone until the end of add/drop period. If you go to a class on the first day and get a bad vibe, or see the syllabus and realize it’s not quite what you thought it would be, switch into another class. Fifteen weeks is a long time to be studying for tests and writing papers on a topic that doesn’t interest you. The semesters when I was too lazy to follow that advice have been my least favorite at Bowdoin.

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