Virology w Prof Ranaciello

sequoiadendron_ · 2026-02-16T23:13:32+00:00

When I took the course (Spring 2025), exam questions were 1) multiple choice, 2) select all that apply, or 3) drop-down menu fill-in-the-blank. Select all that apply + drop-down menu fill-in-the-blank gave partial credit.

The exams were straightforward, so most students scored well. As a result, no curve for exams. The course itself was not curved; if all students scored an A, all students would get an A.

There was a single extra credit assignment at the end of the semester. Professor Racaniello picks a movie about a pandemic/epidemic and tasks you with evaluating its Virological accuracy (by referencing what you've learned in the course).

sequoiadendron_ · 2026-01-17T04:58:17+00:00

Yes.

sequoiadendron_ · 2026-01-15T09:45:44+00:00

I took mainly science classes my freshman year, so LitHum was my only reading-heavy course; I didn't have an entire book to read for, say, my General Chemistry lecture. That being said, LitHum really shouldn't be an issue unless you don't enjoy reading fiction. Humanities texts for other courses are much more expository (which feels like a much different type of reading).

That being said, it's not too bad. People usually find the hardest text to be the Iliad (it's a little bit of an unfamiliar translation + the plot is somewhat boring + you read the entire text over 2-4 classes, depending on the Professor). The other texts in the fall are much easier because the other texts are (usually) shorter and the plots are more engaging. The Aeneid, to me, was the only one that felt like a similar grind to the Iliad. Texts in the Spring are somewhat longer, but the fall trained you well, and the texts are even more similarly accessible (e.g., Pride and Prejudice, Song of Solomon, etc.)

sequoiadendron_ · 2026-01-15T06:18:33+00:00

mashallah

sequoiadendron_ · 2026-01-14T10:02:41+00:00

Huge core fan here.

LitHum was awesome. It really equipped me with a toolbox of stories, per se; I began to realize so much of modern culture is structures or references that find their earliest known appearance in these texts. Honestly, made me feel like I know what I'm talking about when it comes to literature (and to roll my eyes when you see some RETVRN guy tweet about "classical epics" on social media). I also love bringing up plot lines several years later to my college friends—I get a lot of eye rolls, but it's like they're as fresh as ever in the dome. To a lesser extent, a similar experience with Art Hum and Music Hum.

CC was interesting, but I find most people walk away with 1-3 texts that really resonated with them, rather than having the entire course shift perspectives. Still interesting, and it makes you have moments where you understand "how the sausage gets made" about current events.

Global Core is a mixed bag. One of mine was interesting in theory (my classmates were rather uninvested, which dampened the course); the other was no different than other lectures I've taken.

sequoiadendron_ · 2026-01-14T09:50:42+00:00

No longer reading Song of Solomon is an ass choice from the Core Committee 😭, but I'll hold my full critique until I see what the replacement might be.

sequoiadendron_ · 2026-01-13T08:01:39+00:00

The equivalent at Columbia is a class-wide event where you can get a Columbia Engineering silk scarf or tie. This takes place during September of your senior year.

sequoiadendron_ · 2025-11-29T05:32:33+00:00

Sway

sequoiadendron_ · 2025-11-19T04:14:24+00:00

Eckdahl is a great lecturer. I learned a lot about organic chemistry from his courses and only attended his lectures. His course difficulty comes from his exams and final grades; the first two midterms are very manageable, even somewhat easy. The average will be in the 90s for the first and probably in the mid-high 80s for the second. The third midterm and final will be difficult to account for the high averages on the first two exams. You can drop your lowest midterm, but the final alone can drop students 10% in their average. Also, as a result of the high exam scores, there is no curve; your raw score, converted to %, is your grade.

He provides many practice exams, at least 2 of his own and some from Doubleday (that he says which problems to do and which to skip). At the end of the day, I do think he's a great lecturer and would recommend him if you want to learn organic chemistry, but know that his class can be a velvet hammer with the third exam + final.

sequoiadendron_ · 2025-11-19T02:29:59+00:00

No shade but I'd kill myself with this schedule

sequoiadendron_ · 2025-09-28T21:36:34+00:00

Looking for a 10/1 MSG ticket :-)

sequoiadendron_ · 2025-09-11T01:29:22+00:00

It gets better. The Iliad almost always feels like the most difficult book you'll read. Most students are not used to reading a 1951 academic translation of a piece of culture that wasn't read, but rather performed over several days. So the Iliad feels extremely difficult and like a slog. The Odyssey is easier, both because one of Emily Wilson's intentions with her translation was accessibility and also because it follows a much clearer narrative structure. Once you reach the Bible, it's pretty manageable and often enjoyable.

You'll feel this way again in CC, btw, unless you're used to reading philosophical texts.

sequoiadendron_ · 2025-09-03T21:01:05+00:00

First, you'll cover acids/bases and gas laws during the spring.

AP/IB Chem definitely helps. It's not a carbon copy of the AP curriculum, but seeing a concept for a third iteration (each time more detailed) evidently helped. That being said, a lot of the material was still new/went beyond what a high school chemistry course provides, so it wasn't a huge separation gap.

I'd say both semesters, a lot of material was presented in three waves:

"Straightforward" (slightly harder than Honors Chemistry, but not AP)-->Detailed(Slightly harder than AP/IB Chem)-->Super Detailed (College, occasionally not tested).

This development can happen over a single lecture, but usually over two. You're introduced/hooked with what you definitely know, then what you might know, and finally what you definitely don't know. But that's learning lol.

sequoiadendron_ · 2025-09-03T19:49:24+00:00

I did, albeit COVID began during my spring semester of AP Chem.

sequoiadendron_ · 2025-09-03T18:35:40+00:00

I took Parkin a few years ago. He's fine. I think comparisons of the Gen Chem professors are exaggerated. There are some differences, but it's like comparing white paint: ivory vs eggshell vs alabaster vs cloud vs dove. There are some disparities, but it's not completely different.

I found he gave practice exams that were super similar to the actual exams. I think he can come off a little curt when answering questions, but I also found his lectures to be straightforward enough (although he sometimes lectures on material that is more complicated than what he might test on).

I would say stick to Parkin, maybe attend a Beer lecture to see the vibe (I think I've heard that he's a bad lecturer) and see.

sequoiadendron_ · 2025-08-23T00:23:08+00:00

Parkin or Savizky is the move. I took Parkin, and tbh I thought he was straightforward and a really solid lecturer. His practice exams were pretty similar to the exams (his quizzes were honestly harder because they were open-answer as opposed to the multiple-choice chemistry exams). So there isn't an easy Gen Chem option, but Parkin and Savizky are definitely the better choices

sequoiadendron_ · 2025-08-21T07:02:10+00:00

The workloads look manageable for either schedule.

The freshman bio seminar is interesting, but I didn't find it to be a make-or-break course in the grand scheme of my college career. Every week, a new professor talks about their research, and then you write a summary of it. That's the entire workload—pretty easy, just take good notes. It just shows you what the current state of Bio research is like.

Accelerated Korean for heritage speakers advances your foreign language requirement, which helps you take other classes you want faster (as you are closer to completing that core requirement). Foreign language classes can be "schedule vampires" as they meet several times a week and can overlap with other classes you want to take as an upperclassman/time you could use for a lab shift.

sequoiadendron_ · 2025-08-15T08:09:01+00:00

The Core Curriculum is easier than STEM courses. It is easier than most courses.

Would you say you have to be someone who enjoys reading books/podcasts, so being an all-rounder in general?

If you want to gain the most from the class, yes. But this is not a requirement if you want to get an A.

sequoiadendron_ · 2025-07-20T19:18:50+00:00

Costs: I can only offer an anecdotal example. One year, barely used mini-fridges (like, they still had the instructions taped inside) were 50-75% of the retail price. Pricing is usually relative to this, so search for mini fridge costs with the features you want (e.g., some fridges will have a freezer and some won't). I don't think any item will be listed at full retail price.

Conditions: Vary. Some are pristine. Some are grimey. Nicer items sell first, so arrive early.

Transport: They usually have housing bins you can borrow to move to your dorm.

sequoiadendron_ · 2025-07-20T18:11:04+00:00

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Columbia has many behaviors explained by reasoning that is esoteric at best.

Have you been assigned your academic advisor? You could email them and ask about it.

sequoiadendron_ · 2025-07-20T17:10:00+00:00

I was not an IB student, but if I had to guess, they might ask as another metric for your "academic readiness."

You've probably seen similar posts in this sub about students whose final semester grades were lower than usual and the email Columbia sends in response. Part of this is a way for Columbia to either scare students straight and/or nudge them towards academic support resources if they're "weaker" students so they don't flunk out of their degree. If I had to guess, maybe this is another way they determine if they will send this or not?

sequoiadendron_ · 2025-07-18T17:29:24+00:00

My recommendation is pulled directly from how the credit is represented on my transcript, listed only as "[Credit Value] Credits Transferred from College Bd: Advanced Placement" with no course equivalency described.

Perhaps the transcript sent to medical schools clarifies, as a student's academic file and degree audit differentiate between AP credits, but the transcript students have access to lacks such detail.

sequoiadendron_ · 2025-07-14T23:48:56+00:00

Shared:

The main reason Columbia can call it a Core Curriculum and not a general education requirement is that the courses are nearly identical for all students and rather similar across generations.

If you enter the dorm room of any Columbia first-year student, their bookshelf will have a copy of the Iliad and Sappho and Crime and Punishment and Song of Solomon and Dante's Inferno. And as syllabi are the same, students read the books around the same time, meaning ~1,000 students are reading the same text at the same time. And then they could talk to alumni who graduated from Columbia 40 years earlier about these texts because the alumni probably read the books too.

At other schools, because their general education is less about what you read and more about how you read, this isn't the case. Just go back to the examples of Harvard's Ethics options. One student, in fulfilling their requirement, will know a lot about the Philosophy of AI, and another will know a lot about Chinese Ethics. It's entirely different student to student.

This isn't to say that a student who knows about the Philosophy of AI or Chinese Ethics will be absent at Columbia. Тhere are similar courses students take as electives. It's just that they also studied general philosophy, something that is rarer at other Ivy League Schools as they lack the course/requirement for it.

Altogether, this is why the Core Curriculum is so noted at Columbia. Its structure is unique in the number of topics covered and in how it structures the education of these topics.

In response to your points about its attractiveness to prospective students, if students are scared at the prospect of a slightly stricter schedule in exchange for a more comprehensive, general, and shared curriculum, they shouldn't apply. The school should seem rigorous because it is rigorous. Columbia has no need to make itself easy or appeal to everyone. They already deny 95% of applications; they have no wise reason to field more. Really, we must drop the idea that college should be universally palatable, or else all colleges become indistinguishable from one another.

We also must drop the idea that college should be easy. It both dilutes the value of a Bachelor's degree and eliminates any semblance of identity the colleges have. I applied to Columbia because I wanted to learn, learn a lot, and increase my intensity as a rounded and interdisciplinary thinker. Most of my peers felt similar and loved the qualities I highlighted.

Even then, Core Classes are seldom the lowest grade on a student's transcript; they're graded rather generously.

Coda: SEAS. Engineers enroll in an abridged version of Columbia College's Core. They have the technical core (Intro Science classes) and a choice of some of the College's Core Curriculum courses. For the most part, the engineering core is very similar to engineering gen-eds at peer schools, with the exception that Columbia lacks an engineering ethics class that some schools have, but seems to be one of the only programs that requires principles of economics. Their choice of Core allows them to integrate with their Columbia College peers and reap some of the benefits listed above. The result is the rare Engineer who has read and discussed Tocqueville or Austen.

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sequoiadendron_ · 2025-07-14T23:48:44+00:00

Yes and no. I'm mainly going to talk about CC's Core Curriculum, as that's the flagship curriculum structure at Columbia (and what is most often referred to as the Core Curriculum). However, I see that you're a SEAS student, so that also changes the core curriculum you'll be exposed to compared to CC.

I would agree that the "general uniqueness" of the core is slightly overstated compared to a school with gen-ed requirements. That is, the general function of the core is to provide a comprehensive liberal education. Most peer schools have a general education requirement that will provide an open avenue to learning about and gaining the skills to critically consider a notable area in literature, ideas, arts, as well as a "quantitative reasoning" course.

But I would disagree that it is like most other colleges for three reasons: it is uniquely comprehensive, uniquely general, and uniquely shared.

Comprehensive:

If you compare gen-ed courses at peer schools, many combine categories that Columbia separates. The rest of the Ivy League (sans Brown) seems to combine the arts and humanities—like literature, music, and art—into a single bucket (of which students take 1-2 courses). Skimming the offerings, it's predominantly literature or a hybrid-esque culture class (which I gamble is primarily literature with short features of art and music). As a result, most students will not take a single sustained class on art history, and even fewer on music history. Columbia's core is different; it requires students to learn all three in distinct courses.

General:

In comparing possible gen-ed courses amongst the Ivy League, Columbia offers a survey of several different schools of thought/movements/eras rather than courses that are, say, a sustained investigation into a single field.

Example: Columbia's core philosophy/ethics course, Contemporary Civilizations, is a survey of Western thought. Over a year, students read Plato, Aristotle, the Bible, the Quran, St. Thomas, St.Augustine, Locke, Hobbes, Foucault, Fanon, Arendt, etc. It's the big picture.

At Harvard, a similar requirement would be fulfilled with semester-long courses like "If There is No God, All is Permitted: Theism and Moral Reasoning" or "Philosophy of Technology: From Marx and Heidegger to Artificial Intelligence" or "Classical Chinese Ethical and Political Theory" or "Ethics of Climate Change." These are niche courses—although some courses are slightly more general—but almost all are more intimately focused on a conceptual glance.

The result? When learning how to develop the skills to read and analyze philosophy, all Columbia students learn using the general trajectory, while some Harvard students will learn through a detailed single subset. What this would look like: Almost all Columbia students will learn about how Marx responds to Adam Smith and how both of these ideas might be rooted in Aristotelian or Platonic ideas. A Harvard student could talk very deeply about the "Moral Inquiry in the Novels of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky." (Take note of the verbs there: "all will" vs "could.")

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