Ohio State study guides, course by course
Ohio State is one of the largest universities in the country, and its intro courses run at scale: lectures of 100-700 students paired with smaller recitations led by TAs, with grades driven by common midterms and finals written at the department level. That format rewards consistent weekly work — by the time a midterm exposes a gap, the lecture has already moved two chapters past it.
Ohio State uses department prefixes with four-digit numbers (MATH 1151, CSE 2221). The thousands digit roughly tracks level — 1xxx courses are first-year, 2xxx second-year — and some courses carry decimal suffixes like ECON 2001.01 for different formats.
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MATH 1151 — Calculus I
MATH 1151 is Ohio State's standard first-semester calculus course, covering limits, derivatives, and an introduction to integration. It is required for most STEM, pre-med, and business-adjacent majors, which makes it one of the highest-enrollment courses on campus, taught in large lectures with recitation sections.
MATH 1148 — College Algebra
MATH 1148 is Ohio State's college algebra course — functions, polynomials, rationals, exponentials, and logarithms — and the on-ramp to precalculus and the calculus sequence. Thousands of students take it every year, many placed there by the math placement test rather than by choice.
MATH 1172 — Engineering Mathematics A
MATH 1172 is the accelerated second calculus course for engineering majors, combining integration techniques, sequences and series, and an introduction to multivariable ideas into one five-credit semester. It follows MATH 1151 and is a prerequisite gate for most of the College of Engineering's sophomore curriculum.
MATH 1149 — Trigonometry
MATH 1149 covers trigonometric functions, identities, equations, and applications — the trig half of the precalculus preparation for MATH 1151. It's the standard route for students whose placement score clears algebra but not trig, and it runs every term at high enrollment.
MATH 1150 — Precalculus
MATH 1150 is Ohio State's combined precalculus course, covering college algebra and trigonometry in a single five-credit semester as the direct on-ramp to MATH 1151. It's the compressed alternative to taking MATH 1148 and 1149 separately, which makes the pace its defining feature.
MATH 1152 — Calculus II
MATH 1152 is the standard second-semester calculus course, covering integration techniques, applications of integrals, sequences and series, and parametric and polar topics. It follows MATH 1151 for science and math majors and shares the departmental common-exam format and evening midterm slots.
MATH 2153 — Calculus III
MATH 2153 is multivariable calculus: partial derivatives, multiple integrals, and vector calculus through Green's, Stokes', and the Divergence theorems. It follows MATH 1152 and serves math, physics, and science majors heading into upper-division coursework.
Computer Science and Engineering
CSE 1223 — Introduction to Computer Programming in Java
CSE 1223 is Ohio State's introductory programming course in Java, aimed at students with little or no prior coding experience. It covers programming fundamentals — variables, control flow, methods, arrays, and basic file I/O — and is a common entry point before the CSE major sequence or for non-majors who need programming credit.
CSE 2221 — Software I: Software Components
CSE 2221 is the first course in Ohio State's famous Software I/II sequence and the real gateway into the CS major. It teaches Java through OSU's own component-based software libraries, emphasizing design-by-contract, interfaces, and reasoning about code correctness rather than just making programs run.
CSE 2231 — Software II: Software Development and Design
CSE 2231 continues directly from Software I, moving into data structures and component implementation: you stop just using OSU's components and start building them. It covers trees, hashing, sorting machines, and a culminating compiler project, and it's the prerequisite wall in front of the rest of the CSE major.
CSE 2321 — Foundations I: Discrete Structures
CSE 2321 is the discrete math course of the CSE core, covering logic, proof techniques, graphs, trees, asymptotic analysis, and recurrence relations. It's taken alongside or after the Software sequence and is the prerequisite for Foundations II, where formal algorithm analysis gets serious.
CSE 2421 — Systems I: Introduction to Low-Level Programming and Computer Organization
CSE 2421 drops CSE majors below the abstractions: C programming with pointers, x86-64 assembly, memory layout, and how programs actually execute on hardware. It follows the Software sequence and pairs with Foundations to form the sophomore core.
Statistics
STAT 1450 — Introduction to the Practice of Statistics
STAT 1450 is Ohio State's general-audience intro statistics course, covering descriptive statistics, probability basics, confidence intervals, and hypothesis testing. It satisfies the data analysis GE requirement and serves majors across health sciences, social sciences, and business, making it one of the largest statistics courses on campus.
STAT 1430 — Statistics for the Business Sciences
STAT 1430 is the statistics course for Fisher business-track students, covering probability, random variables, sampling distributions, confidence intervals, hypothesis testing, and regression with business applications. It's a pre-major requirement, which keeps enrollment large and stakes high for competitive Fisher admission.
Chemistry and Biochemistry
CHEM 1210 — General Chemistry I
CHEM 1210 is the first general chemistry course for science and engineering majors and a core pre-med requirement, covering atomic structure, stoichiometry, bonding, thermochemistry, and gases. It runs as large lectures with a required lab component and departmental exams shared across sections.
CHEM 1220 — General Chemistry II
CHEM 1220 completes the general chemistry sequence for science, engineering, and pre-health students, covering kinetics, equilibrium, acid-base chemistry, thermodynamics, and electrochemistry. It runs in the same large-lecture, common-exam format as CHEM 1210, with the lab component continuing alongside.
Physics
PHYSICS 1250 — Mechanics, Work and Energy, Thermal Physics
PHYSICS 1250 is the calculus-based mechanics course for engineering, physics, and math majors, covering Newton's laws, energy, momentum, rotation, fluids, and thermodynamics. It's a five-credit course with lecture, recitation, and lab, and it sits squarely in the first-year engineering core.
PHYSICS 1251 — Electricity and Magnetism, Optics, Modern Physics
PHYSICS 1251 is the second calculus-based physics course for engineering and science majors, covering electric and magnetic fields, circuits, electromagnetic induction, optics, and an introduction to modern physics. Like 1250, it's five credits with lecture, recitation, and lab.
Biology
BIOLOGY 1113 — Biological Sciences: Energy Transfer and Development
BIOLOGY 1113 is the first majors-level biology course at Ohio State, focused on cellular and molecular biology: cell structure, bioenergetics, molecular genetics, and biochemistry foundations. It's a cornerstone for biology majors and the pre-health crowd, taught in large lectures with a required lab.
BIOLOGY 1114 — Biological Sciences: Form, Function, Diversity, and Ecology
BIOLOGY 1114 is the second majors-level biology course, covering evolution, biodiversity, animal and plant physiology, and ecology. It completes the intro sequence with BIOLOGY 1113 for biology majors and pre-health students, in the same large-lecture-plus-lab format.
Economics
ECON 2001 — Principles of Microeconomics
ECON 2001 introduces microeconomics — supply and demand, elasticity, consumer and producer behavior, and market structures — and serves business majors, econ majors, and GE-seekers alike. It's taught in large lectures with exams that lean heavily on graph interpretation and applied reasoning.
ECON 2002 — Principles of Macroeconomics
ECON 2002 (listed as ECON 2002.01) introduces macroeconomics — GDP, inflation, unemployment, monetary and fiscal policy, and economic growth. It's the macro counterpart to ECON 2001, serving business majors, econ majors, and GE-seekers in the same large-lecture format.
Psychology
Accounting and MIS
Sociology
History
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