<p>Thanks so much for posting this!
Now to narrow the courses I want to take down from all of them to four... ;)</p>
<p>Well, here are my recommendations, based on what my favorite classes have been and what's being offered this year:</p>
<p>English 124g: Shakespearean Genres (fall) (counts as a core for Lit and Arts A!)</p>
<p>Computer Science 50 (fall): Introduction to Computer Science I (also counts as a core for QR!) Caveat: lots of work</p>
<p>Expos 20 (both terms): Censorship and Freedom of Expression (expos is required anyway)</p>
<p>Historical Study A-12 (spring): (okay, I haven't taken it, but I've taken a class with one of the professors that was AWESOME and the other professor is supposed to be equally good. Plus, counts as a core, of course!) Caveat: probably lots of work</p>
<p>Ahh why is it in PDF format this year? Sorry...venting....</p>
<p>I'm pretty sure they'll put it on the website sometimes this month, replacing the 2004-2005 courses website. We'll also get a hard copy when we show up. </p>
<p>Phoenixy, or anyone else who knows: Since specific Expos sections and Freshman semifnars aren't reviewed in the CUE guide, is there any good way incoming freshmen to get reviews of those classes? Also, will short descriptions of the freshman seminars ever be released? Thanks.</p>
<p>how does freshman course selection work at harvard? i know there's the shopping period at the beginning of the semester, but when do we actually get some guidance as to what courses we should pick to fulfill requirements, etc? it seems like we should have an idea of what classes we want to check out before we arrive in the fall.</p>
<p>As far as requirements, you can figure that out on your own. However, I know they do provide freshmen guidance for things like that during Freshman Week.</p>
<p>Yeah when you rank your selections for Expos, you read little summaries of the courses. You can just ask other upperclassmen which ones are good. I took "Writing the West" which is no longer offered, so I'm not help. </p>
<p>You get a freshman advisor who'll take you out to lunch or meet with you otherwise at the start of the year to help with class selection.</p>
<p>so we don't actually get any advice or do anything regarding course selection until we arrive on campus the week before classes start? that's kind of scary.</p>
<p>Specific expos sections aren't reviewed in the CUE guide, but all expos preceptors who get a CUE rating of 4.5 or higher have their names mentioned in the CUE writeup of expos, so I'd recommend taking a class with one of them. (I chose my class by making a list of classes taught by the highly-ranked preceptors and then ranking them based on how much I liked the reading list and topic of the course.) Likewise, freshman seminars aren't reviewed, but a lot of the profs teaching them are reviewed for their work in other courses, so check that out.</p>
<p>Freshman advising is usually not very good; a lot of the time you're sharing an adviser, who's frequently a grad student who did his or her undergrad elsewhere and doesn't know jack about Harvard college classes, with twenty other people or so. (Freshman advising is one of the things they're trying to revamp with the curricular reform.) But I didn't really find the lack of advising much of a problem; just familiarize yourself with the CUE guide and the requirements for graduation, then, if possible, talk to upperclassmen who have taken the course (this is a little more difficult for freshmen, who don't have access to house lists, but you'll find a way, especially if you join concentration-themed extracurriculars, like the computing society or the geosociety or the society of physics students or whatever, or attend concentration-themed events). And if you wander into a department office and say you want advice about their courses, the response will probably be thrilled (although not always very helpful, since professors aren't necessarily going to say anything bad about their own department's courses). Another good source of advice is talking to the TFs of courses that you're shopping. Just go up to them after class and saying something like, "hey, I'm a freshman and I shopped this course because I'm interested in X topic or department, do you know any other good classes in X topic or department that I could take?" TFs are usually pretty knowledgeable about the professors and classes in their own departments, and they probably won't be afraid to let you know which ones are good and which ones are bad. </p>
<p>But seriously, advising's kind of overrated. If you want an angel to descend from heaven and tell you, "these are the four classes you should take," that would be awesome but it ain't gonna happen. No individual person knows anything at all about the quality of the vast majority of courses offered at Harvard, and even if they do know about a class you're likely to disagree with their opinions on it, so good course selection just comes down to a lot of tenacity in research and a dose of luck.</p>
<p>While I know some people complain about and have poor freshman advising experiences, I have to give props to my freshman advisor. She was an off-campus advisor, which I thought would suck at first. She works in the admissions and financial aid and turned out to be an EXCELLENT help with classes and financial aid advice. Four years later I still keep in contact with her. She called me before exams and would ask not only how I was doing, but also how my roommate was, which I really appreciated. She took me out to lunch and was all around very supportive. I know it really varies, but just wanted to add my 2 cents :)</p>
<p>Can anyone get the Course Shopping tool to work in my.Harvard?</p>
<p>Everytime I try searching, I get 'no results found'.</p>
<p>^ Me too! I think I limited mine (I want to pursue an MD/MBA, so I really don't have any real "choice" in courses):</p>
<p>Life Sciences 1a, Ec10 and Math 1a (no brainer)</p>
<p>If I don't get expos in the first term, then I'll do a freshman seminar related to something with health care. So exciting!</p>