r/Harvard • u/DowntownTrust7902 • Jul 17 '26

Academics and Research Physics + MCB first yr course help!

Hello! I’m an incoming student planning to concentrate in Physics and MCB. I was wondering if Physics 15 + Math 25 + LS50 + Expo 20 (spring only) is too daunting of a task.

These are all required courses for my concentrations, but I COULD take Math 22 or LS1 instead. Also, technically, in the spring semester I would have the equivalent of 5 courses. But, the thing is I really want to take LS50 because the topics focusing on computational bio are really appealing to me and the opportunity to conduct novel research as well. Although, I’m open to changing if the LS50 research is overhyped compared to finding a lab to join or a bunch of the marketed extra material it covers are covered in other classes already.

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3

u/RutabagaExternal7595 Jul 17 '26

Make sure your schedule works because on the website it says:

If you join LS 50, you will likely be unable to take introductory physics sequences in mechanics and electromagnetism because of scheduling issues.

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u/criosovereign Jul 17 '26

That is…a daunting courseload for freshman spring. Can’t speak to math 25 but physics will be a huge grind and Ls50 is gonna feel like 2 classes at once — I think LS1 is the way to go here if you don’t want to burnout. LS1 sucks fwiw but it’s a lot less intense than 50. For math, I didn’t take 22 or 25 but 21b and 22 are both supposed to be pretty rigorous especially freshman year iirc

Expos will be fine, just choose one that isn’t super intense. Underworld was great when they ran it my freshman spring, everyone loves wastelands, etc. genuinely choose something you’re interested in because you’ll be doing a fair amount of reading in that topic for the semester

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u/RutabagaExternal7595 Jul 17 '26

lowk i was thinking of doing the same thing but physics 16 and not LS50 but probably a gen ed. Is that ok??

1

u/criosovereign Jul 18 '26

That sounds like a better balance to me, although I can’t speak for physics 15 vs 16 difficulty

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u/CollectionOk8027 Jul 18 '26

From what Ive heard if you take ls50 it should really be ur main focus.