Core in Review: Frontiers of Science
De jure: A one-semester class that consists of a 2.5-hour lecture once a week and a two-hour discussion section once a week (of approximately 20 people). Goes through four 3-week “units:” brain and behavior (psych), physics (physics), biodiversity (bio), and earth sciences (enviro). Paper homework every week, about 5 pages, 3 sheets.
De facto: Fro Sci is better known as Faux Sci because that’s basically what it teaches. A very light skimming of basic sciences that might as well be fake. Honestly maybe the worst class I ever took. No that’s a lie. But it’s close. If you took APs in any of the above units, you’ll already know all of the material. If you didn’t, you’ll mostly be fine, except for physics. I never took any physics in high school and that subject ended me. Although some of my friends in the same boat said they did fine in frosci. So it depends. The homework is busywork, and getting the motivation to stay awake during a two-hour discussion section is hard.
Getting the motivation to even go to lecture is harder, because attendance isn’t mandatory for lecture. I maybe went to six lectures the whole semester. Which is a lot. The lecturers aren’t terribly great. We do have Brian Greene for physics, and he’s great. But the others? Not so much. It’s very hard to stay awake during lectures, as they start at 10:30 AM. Also all of the lectures are recorded as podcasts and can be found online, so if you don’t mind taking time out of your own life to review it later, you don’t have to go to lecture at all.
Frosci requires you to buy something called an iClicker, which is basically a small remote that is used for interactive powerpoints. If you’ve ever used Kahoot, it’s basically that but with an actual thing you have to buy in order to select an answer, you can’t do it on your phone (and it’s a lot less lit in general). Which is the biggest waste of money I’ve ever heard. Luckily I got one for free from my discussion instructor, and I think you can do the same. Theoretically it’s used to take attendance, but you can just give your iclicker to someone else and they’ll do your answers for you. So much bullshit.
Tips for acing the class:
Go to lecture if only because it fucking sucks taking another two hours to listen to the podcast or review the slides. Which you’ll have to do eventually.
Take other homework to lecture. I don’t usually recommend multitasking because it doesn’t actually work but in this case it works well enough. You learn enough just by being there, and 2.5 hours is a lot for homework time.
Try to avoid buying an iClicker at full price, or at all.
Keep track of everything that’s due. Not only do you have paper homework in this class, you also have to submit discussion questions online (Piazza) and complete problems on something called Smart Sparrow, and depending on your instructor, they could all be due at different times during the week. Be careful not to miss any because they make up a majority of your participation grade.
If you need help understanding something, which is fair because this class is the most convoluted class ever even though it could be extremely simple, there’s something called Fro Sci Ambassadors which are basically kids who willingly volunteer to take their own time to tutor other students. So if you’re uncomfortable with talking to a grad TA the Ambassadors are going to be your go-to.
