<p>My daughter was telling me about some classes that interested her, and some of them were higher level courses (200s and 300s). I told her that as a freshman, she had to stick with lower level courses. Is that right? She couldn't take a 300 history course if she wanted to, could she?</p>
<p>As long as she meets the prerequisites and the class is open to all....then your daughter can enroll in a 300 level course. Actually...I found many of my 300 and 400 level courses to be easier than the 100 level courses I took. The 300 level history class will probably be reading and writing intensive and have a weekly discussion...but if she likes that...there's no reason not to try and enroll.</p>
<p>Thanks dewdrop. She said she didn't see any prerequisites for the class (300 level history). Is that possible? And if there are no prerequisites, should she just try to enroll, or does she have to discuss it with her advisor? Thanks for all of your help!</p>
<p>Oh yeah, definitely possible for an upper-level course to not have prerequisites. I took a 400 level class that had none. </p>
<p>When your daughter meets with her advisor they'll go over the schedule...I don't think he'll make a make a big fuss. If her advisor is like mine, he might ask why she wants to take it...but other than that I doubt it'll be a big deal.</p>
<p>Many of the upper div liberal arts courses won't have prereq's. You can just enroll.</p>
<p>I've been told that 300+ level courses, especially in liberal arts, aren't necessarily harder than 100-level courses.</p>
<p>I would not be worried about going into a higher level course as a freshman. I would advise against taking too many credits, though. This semester and last semester have been ugly for me because I'm taking too many credits to focus on my classes/actually learn material. (My thought was that I would get a good portion of my required classes over with.) I think that, for your daughter, taking a challenging course but without being too distracted with other courses would be a great idea.</p>
<p>I don't think the course numbers really mean anything, and if it does, then it varies from department to department. Don't worry about the numbers. Rather, ask students who have taken the course before to determine if the difficulty is right for you.</p>
<p>usually the higher level classes will be something in a specialized topic rather than intro to ____. sometimes you even get more work in the 100 levels</p>
<p>Thanks, everyone, for the insightful replies!</p>