The “weed-out” class — a rigorous course designed to filter out students who may lack the know-how to continue in a degree program — is no stranger to Northwestern students. However, students and professors said this system is more nuanced at NU.
While “weed-out” courses are notoriously tough, many students find the real challenge lies in the combination of heavy workloads, a lack of high school preparation and the fast pace of the quarter system. These factors often leave students struggling more with time management and external pressures than with the material itself.
Weinberg sophomore Nicholas Bruha took Chemistry 151: General Chemistry last year. He said the class is infamous for its difficulty and heavy workload.
Despite the class’s reputation, Bruha said he doesn’t believe the material is inherently challenging.
Bruha said the difficulty of that class –– and of other “weed-outs” he has taken –– stems from the added workload of a lab in addition to lecture and the pace of the class, which is compounded by the accelerated timeline of the quarter system.
Bruha also explained that many pre-med students are involved in extracurricular activities to build a well-rounded medical school application. As students move on to harder classes, such as Chemistry 215-2: Organic Chemistry II, and Biology 203: Genetics and Evolution, which both require a four-hour lab each week, Bruha said students can easily become overwhelmed.
“It’s not that people can’t do it, it’s just that there’s so much information that people get overwhelmed and they forget things, and all of a sudden you have midterms,” Bruha said.
Chemistry Prof. Ryan Bethel, who teaches General Chemistry, acknowledged the difficulty of the course in both the content and workload. However, he stressed that the intention is never to force students to drop the class or change majors.
“My goal has always been that I want my students to learn what they need in order to do what they want to at the end of their university time,” Bethel said.
Similarly, McCormick Prof. Ilya Mikhelson, who teaches General Engineering 205-1: Engineering Analysis 1, said the faculty doesn’t intend to discourage students from pursuing engineering. Few students fail or drop his class, he said.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen (the number of students who drop) be more than around five people out of 500 plus people,” Mikhelson said.
Prof. Bethel tracks how many hours students spend on homework and uses their feedback to adapt the course to better suit students’ needs. Now in his 11th year of teaching General Chemistry and third year at NU, he says he has yet to teach the same course twice.
Students like McCormick freshman Ethan Weingust, who is enrolled in advanced levels of chemistry, have a different perspective on the nature of their coursework.
Weingust placed into Chemistry 171: Advanced General Inorganic Chemistry Fall Quarter and said he struggled to understand the concepts.
“It’s just a very dramatic tone shift for a lot of people from high school going into this class,” Weingust said.
Despite taking AP Chemistry, Weingust said the material he learned in high school was of little use to him in Advanced General Inorganic Chemistry.
On the other hand, McCormick freshman Suditi Challa said she is currently enrolled in Engineering Analysis 1 and has found that there is plenty of time and resources for the homework.
“It is sort of demanding because it is supposed to be a hard major,” Challa said. “But the content is geared toward what you’ll likely do in the future. Programming is a very core skill in engineering.”
Challa said she transferred into McCormick after realizing she wanted to study something more math-heavy. In her experience, students drop Engineering Analysis 1 or other “weed-outs” like Math 228-1: Multivariable Differential Calculus for Engineering, not because the material is too difficult, but because they realize they’re not interested in it.
For Bruha, finding support from friends who are going through the same experience is important. Bruha noted that seeing others succeed can offer encouragement.
Mikhelson said the term “weed-out” acts as a means of building stronger relationships between students, calling it a “shared experience.”
Weinberg senior Leila Stoll said that for math-heavy courses like Macroeconomics and Microeconomics, it’s important to be able to check your work with people and have a support system in difficult classes.
A University spokesperson said in a statement to The Daily that its undergraduate curriculum has not been designed with the idea of ‘weeding out’ students from certain subject areas or courses.
“The reality is quite the opposite. Instructors and departments work extensively to design courses throughout their programs’ sequences that are rigorous and inclusive,” a University spokesperson said.
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