<p>yankee, it’s only Fall 2013 that you’ll register for at orientation. If you haven’t already discovered it, “Lou’s List” is your best friend. Much more user friendly than SIS. </p>
<p>[UVa</a> Class Schedule for Fall 2013 (Unofficial. Lou’s List)](<a href=“http://rabi.phys.virginia.edu/mySIS/CS2/index.php]UVa”>http://rabi.phys.virginia.edu/mySIS/CS2/index.php)</p>
<p>Thanks a lot! I don’t really mind the SIS all that much. In fact I think I’ve gotten used to it!</p>
<p>I strongly agree with hazel regarding her advise. </p>
<p>You don’t go though college taking only math and science courses because you are not at a trade school. FWIW, these are words spoken to my own son who griped about taking STS and HHS electives prior to first year. The Echols/Rodman freedom of distribution requirements is just that, freedom. They assume you are bright and intellectually curious and want to explore different areas of study for your own enlightenment. It is not intended as a means to hunker down in your comfort zone. In my opinion it would be waste of a UVa education.</p>
<p>I’ve posted this before, The Jeffersonian Engineer, however it might give you an understanding of why it’s advantageous to take advantage of the broad opportunities available to you at UVa that will indeed set you apart from other engineers. </p>
<p>My favorite quote from the paper:
</p>
<p><a href=“http://seas.virginia.edu/admissions/pdf/jeff_engr.pdf[/url]”>http://seas.virginia.edu/admissions/pdf/jeff_engr.pdf</a></p>
<p>The original can be found on the UVa SEAS website.</p>
<p>In rereading I realize that vnatch is an echols not a rodman scholar. This explains my obvious detour in the above post. (note to self…quit trying to check this forum on your iPhone :o ).</p>
<p>Even with the understanding that a student is an echols scholar I still have the same feeling shared in the first half of my post above. Freedom from distribution requirements is not intended to avoid diversity of study. Hazel’s post #17 is spot on.</p>
<p>I hear UVA students have a hard time graduating in 4 years because of full classes for 3rd and 4th yr. Just like at U of Cal system. True?</p>
<p>No one has trouble graduating in 4 years, definitely untrue. 3rd and 4th years are given preference over underclassmen so the big complaint is not being able to pick an ideal schedule the first two years. Many people take advantage of summer courses and January term courses.</p>
<p>(This is not to say that 3rd and 4th year classes are not typically full. In that case, 4th years are given preference and 3rd years are told to try again the next year. Professors always allow 4th years into whatever classes they need to graduate).</p>
<p>UVa has an extremely high 4 year graduation rate. In fact, many students purposely take a double major to avoid graduating early. Some UVa students (with large amts. of AP credit) are actually earning a masters in 4 years. I haven’t heard of any stories of students not getting the courses they need to graduate - they just might not get the courses they want, in the year they first want them.</p>
<h2>“You can’t always get want you want. You can’t always get what you want… But you get what you need.”</h2>
<p>There was a recent official UVa news story that the College of Arts and Sciences wants to move more towards hybrid courses to reduce the number of large lecture classes. Students would watch the lectures online, and then spend more of their class time discussing the subject matter and asking questions. That approach may free up some classrooms and professors to offer more sections of popular classes.</p>
<p>Son is a sophomore at UVA (physics/french) this year and has never had a problem getting classes he wanted. Compared with WM, where younger son who is a frosh got closed out of intermediate french and biology, class registration at UVA is a dream. Plus Lou’s List makes it so easy to figure out what you need to take for requriements etc.</p>
<p>Thanks all. Good first hand experience. That will calm D down.</p>
<p>Another few words of comfort: very rarely do people end up with the exact schedule they initially sign up for. So if at the end of the fall semester (or even first year registration in the summer) if a schedule is lacking in certain classes, fear not. Lots of spots open up between semesters and in the first week or so as everyone shifts around and professors open up WLs.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, there are some depts. that became understaffed through attrition during the Great Recession. Hopefully, that situation is now being corrected. One is the Spanish Dept., which is why they won’t let people do a Spanish minor, and why it is hard to start Spanish as a first year if you never studied it before. </p>
<p>However, keep in mind that most colleges cut back on new hiring during the Recession. UVa was one of the fortunate ones that did not have to lay off staff or eliminate majors. </p>
<p>(History Lesson - Economic depressions used to be called “Panics”. President Herbert Hoover came up with the term Depression because he felt it sounded better than Panic).</p>
<p>Panic vs Depression vs Recession. I’ll take Depression over any of them. Panic is well, panic, and that just wouldn’t bode well for society even though some need to get slapped upside the head. Recession hasn’t done enough of the slapping of the head it seems like. Depression is survivable/treatable/curable.</p>
<p>UVa has done a pretty good job about aligning budgets to keep money flowing to academics/infrastructure. While not every project/budgetary item seems like a great idea to every student/faculty/alumnus, overall it doesn’t seem like money is ever thrown away. </p>
<p>Also worthwhile to chime in that I don’t know a single UVa alumnus that was laid off during the Recession. Job placement/retention has come up on these boards a lot recently so it’s worthwhile to mention job security seems to be pretty good for UVa grads. Take it with a small grain of salt though since I can only account for a small sample of grads and job retention is based a lot on individual folks as well as industry</p>