With nearly 16,674 undergraduate students, Boston University’s most demanded classes are not a completely accurate reflection of the student body’s interests.
BU’s digital communications associate Margaret Waterman said the highest-registered courses university-wide were for the College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Engineering, the Questrom School of Business and the College of Communication, but they’re not necessarily popular for their content.
“[These classes] are either introductory courses and/or required courses, and with no curriculum changes, the enrollment would be approximately the same each year,” Waterman wrote in an email.
In CAS, the single-section class with the most undergraduates currently enrolled is BI315, Systems Physiology, with more than 300 students in one lecture. The class then breaks into multiple lab sections.
University registrar Christine Paal said that one of the reasons for the class’s high enrollment may be that it is a requirement for many students.
“BI315 is required [for] the BS in Human Physiology in Sargent College, and is a choice in [for] BA in biology and the BA in biochemistry and molecular biology, among others,” Paal said.
Sargent College sophomore Hanchao Shi said he recalled his experience with signing up for the class in the fall before the first semester drew to a close.
“I remember when I enrolled back in November, I didn’t actually get in,” Shi said. “Initially it was maxed out, and I just waited until someone dropped and I scooped the opportunity.”
Shi is one of the many students taking BI315 as a required class for human physiology.
“This [class] focuses more on systems and organismal functions, so it’s essentially central to what we are studying,” Shi said. “If you ask me why it’s so populated, it’s because it runs across a lot of streams with a lot of different subjects.”
ENG sophomore Katherine Ward said that BI315 counts as the second biology requirement for pre-med students.
“It gives me the systems biology aspect that I need to take the MCAT later on, and potentially other classes as well,” Ward said.
In ENG, BE466, Biomedical Engineering Senior Project, has approximately 150 students registered across multiple sections. The course is a class for students with senior standing majoring in biomedical engineering.
In BE466, students work to complete a project in an area of biomedical engineering. According to the BU Bulletin, the course culminates with an oral presentation during an annual senior project conference.
ENG professor Wynter Duncanson teaches BE466. Duncanson wrote in an email that she would not consider her class popular, but instead accredits the high enrollment to the fact that it is a required course for biomedical engineering students.
Questrom’s most-enrolled class is FE101, Introduction to Finance, with approximately 800 undergraduate students registered over multiple sections. The course offers a rigorous overview of the principles of finance, such as the value of money, interest rates, basic valuation of cash flow streams and basic stock and bond valuation.
Questrom professor Cornelia Newell, like Duncanson, does not consider her class popular. She wrote in an email that the class is a requirement for all incoming Questrom freshmen, as well as students who wish to wish to transfer into Questrom.
COM’s most-enrolled undergraduate class is CO201, Introduction to Communication Writing. CO201 has approximately 400 students registered across multiple sections.
COM professor John Hall said that in addition to being the most-enrolled class in COM, CO201 is also extremely valuable for students going into the field of communications.
“We’ve always structured the class as a hands-on kind of experience with the fields that they’ll be going into,” Hall said. “I think that it should be valuable to most people, and they should be able to see the value because it’s not just some abstraction of what the field is about.”
Trina Guharoy, a COM freshman currently enrolled in CO201, said she believes the class is very relevant and helpful.
“I think it really sets you up for the world of communication writing, especially if you want to do journalism,” Guharoy said. “Covering grammar and learning how to write professionally is pretty key.”
CLARIFICATION: The headline and lede in a previous version of this article were written in a way that may have been misleading to some readers, as they implied that no students registered for the most popular classes because they liked the content. The article has been updated to reflect this change.
