Course Load

[shred4life]

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Hey guys. I am new to this forum and just wanted some of your opinions.

I am currently in the fall semester of my second year at a local community college. My ultimate goal is to transfer out after receiving my associates in liberal arts math & sciences in May of this year. My dream transfer school would be the University of Cornell's College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. (I live in New York State) They have an excellent Animal Science program with a concentration in Pre-Vet. In order to full fill all my pre-req's for this program in time to transfer for fall of next year, I will have to take Chemistry 1 with a lab, Physics 1 with a lab, Bio 2 with a lab, and Calculus all in the spring semester of this year and pass each course with a grade of B or better. The fun does not stop there! I will also have to take Chem 2 w/ lab over Summer session 1 and Physics 2 w/lab over summer session 3, and pass each with a grade of B or better. Is this just simply too ambitious? Am I better off spacing out this course load and transferring next Spring, or is this an attainable goal if I buckle down and make the library my second home? I just wanted to hear from people who have taken these classes before. KEEP IN MIND, this is a community college folks. These courses will be easier than taking them at any other four year school.

Just to give you all an idea of where I'm headed with all this:

The Dream: Transfer to Cornell Agricultural and Life Sciences school in Animal Sciences program w/ concentration pre-vet. (Cornell College of Vet Medicine accepts only 86 students a year, 50 from in state, 30 of those 50 in state students are undergrad students from Cornell and it's undergraduate colleges!!) Apply and get into University Cornell College of Veterinary Medicine and graduate with DVM. Open up my own small animal practice.

 

[Minnerbelle]

Hey guys. I am new to this forum and just wanted some of your opinions.

I am currently in the fall semester of my second year at a local community college. My ultimate goal is to transfer out after receiving my associates in liberal arts math & sciences in May of this year. My dream transfer school would be the University of Cornell's College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. (I live in New York State) They have an excellent Animal Science program with a concentration in Pre-Vet. In order to full fill all my pre-req's for this program in time to transfer for fall of next year, I will have to take Chemistry 1 with a lab, Physics 1 with a lab, Bio 2 with a lab, and Calculus all in the spring semester of this year and pass each course with a grade of B or better. The fun does not stop there! I will also have to take Chem 2 w/ lab over Summer session 1 and Physics 2 w/lab over summer session 3, and pass each with a grade of B or better. Is this just simply too ambitious? Am I better off spacing out this course load and transferring next Spring, or is this an attainable goal if I buckle down and make the library my second home? I just wanted to hear from people who have taken these classes before. KEEP IN MIND, this is a community college folks. These courses will be easier than taking them at any other four year school.

I don't think anyone here will be able to give you a good answer on this without knowing what kind of student you are. I think it's totally doable as long as you are capable of it. I wouldn't say that it would be impossible to do.

However, you say to keep in mind that you're taking it at a community college. Do you mean that the courses will be considerably easier/cover less material? Because I understand that your focus is to get a B or above in the courses, but will it prepare you for a more rigorous upper level courseload for when you do transfer?

 

[deleted266066]

Taking into consideration that it's a community college... I think B's and higher in all of those would definitely be attainable if you're willing to put the effort in. However, it still will consume a TON of your time, just in terms of class hours even, regardless of difficulty of the coursework.

In my experience at a private institution that is really tough on grading, chemistry was very difficult for me (I'm bad at the subject though!), biology was incredibly easy (I'm a natural at this subject! Go away chemistry!), and calculus was in the middle (I'm not a math whiz or a dunce. It took a reasonable amount of effort but nothing crazy). I took physics I at a different institution over the summer simply because I couldn't fit it into my regular year's schedule, at an easier in state school... however, I'm told that physics I is generally pretty easy everywhere and the labs are a bit of a joke.

That being said, I did take chemistry II, biology II, and calculus I all in the same semester, and got a B, A, and A- in those three, at a tough school in terms of grading and work load. My fourth class was abnormal psych, which also had a large workload with a bunch of class papers and exams and got an A in that. I did about 5 hours of volunteering on the side at a hospital as well. If I had had to take physics that semester, I'm confident my grades would've been about the same, and at the very least would've been B's and higher. And with the terrible schedule issue, that 5 hours of volunteering could have been replaced with for example physics; as far as I've seen, physics labs rarely assign long lab write ups unlike chemistry, and if they *are* assigned at all, they're quite short and simple.

I was also neither the best nor smartest student in any of my classes that semester, and my time management skills used to be terrible, but still managed to do decently.

So all in all, I do think you might be able to manage it assuming you're ready to put forth the effort 🙂

(Oh, and just as an aside since I want to re-emphasize that I'm not the best student in the world but still did alright, my chem I and orgo II grades were badddd -both C+s- and I'm not nearly a straight A student lol)

 

[Adrift108]

Considering it is community college, I think Its' quite possible. I'm just concerned about you taking phys, bio, chem, and calc all in one. That seems a bit much, but it all depends on you, but be wise and never bite more than you can chew I know firsthand that will just bring down the grades on all classes you are taking. That said I have taken bio2, chem 2, both with labs and calc at the same time with other non-science classes and I made a B+ in Calc and Chem with an A in the rest. Throwing Phys in the mix will be tough for sure. Just ask yourself, will you be willing to put in an enormous amount of time to make it happen (having not much time for friends/fam/animal hours/etc.)?

 

[david594]

Is this just simply too ambitious? Am I better off spacing out this course load and transferring next Spring, or is this an attainable goal if I buckle down and make the library my second home? I just wanted to hear from people who have taken these classes before. KEEP IN MIND, this is a community college folks. These courses will be easier than taking them at any other four year school.

Keep in mind the goal is not to get B's in all those courses so you can transfer into cornell. The better goal would be to get A's in all those courses since you want to eventually get into vet school.

 

[DVMDream]

It is not impossible to take all of those courses and do well. Keep in mind you are going to want to be able to not just pass those courses with a B, but to be able to understand the concepts taught so that you can apply them to higher level courses once at Cornell. You will want to also aim for A’s. With that being said, my spring semester of my sophomore year at a university I took OChem I lab, OChem II lecture, Biochem, Physics II w/lab and a couple other non-science courses and passed all of them with a B or higher. I had to work hard and I was studying all the time, but it was worth it in the end. With hard work it is possible to take all of those classes and still pass them with good grades, but be sure you will actually be able to understand the material for courses later on. Good Luck!!

 

[shred4life]

Thank you everyone for your input! To be honest, I have been a little lax up until now in my studies (still managed to get all A's and B's, mostly non-science courses over the last two semesters) because I never really had a dream to chase. I would put forth minimal effort and study a bit just to get by. But, now that I know what I want to do and have attainable goals, I am going to put forth all my effort for these classes next semester. I have never really worked up to my potential and am very excited to begin. It is so motivating to hear that some of you have taken similar course loads and have still done well with a great amount of effort. Thank you all and I will let you know how it goes!

 

[snapcall]

I sure hope that something like this can be done since I'm planning on a similarly strenuous spring semester as well! I think/hope if we work our butts off, we can do it! 😀

 

[Adrift108]

On that note of taking pre-reqs (sorry I didn't want to start a whole new thread just to ask this question ), do you think schools would look down on a lower div stats class (200 level) as opposed to a 300 level upper div one? I am never able to register for the upper div one because it gets so full fast.

 

[DVMDream]

On that note of taking pre-reqs (sorry I didn't want to start a whole new thread just to ask this question ), do you think schools would look down on a lower div stats class (200 level) as opposed to a 300 level upper div one? I am never able to register for the upper div one because it gets so full fast.

I took a 200 level stats course and none of the schools have mentioned anything. I believe that it would be fine, just make sure it covers the info. that the vet schools you are going to apply to want you to know.

 

[Adrift108]

I took a 200 level stats course and none of the schools have mentioned anything. I believe that it would be fine, just make sure it covers the info. that the vet schools you are going to apply to want you to know.

Thanks 👍 All I've seen so far from the pre-req pages of a lot of the schools is just to have taken "a" statistics course, so I wasn't too sure. Well, it looks like I'm all set then!

 

[lalzi22]

just so you know, as a New York Stater myself, Cornell does not accept 30 students into its vet program from Cornell. They WILL if they want to, but that never ever happens. They want more diversity than that. While it is true that they take lots of cornell students, it is usually more like 7-10. Just to let you know.