@anxious_stdnt Thank-you for all the info! My son will be a fall freshman in general engineering. Was curious about the core curriculum classes…do some have a reputation of being easy and some known for being hard and time-consuming? Thank-you!
@cannonmom
I live in Hullabaloo and it’s sort of half and half. Most engineers live in Mosher or somewhere on southside, but from what I can tell there isn’t any huge advantage/disadvantage to living in Hullabaloo vs Mosher. Half of my classes are on southside and half are on northside. Zachry is going to be far no matter where you live since it is off in its own corner. The northside classes will be closer to northside dorms, and the southside classes to southside dorms. Hullabaloo is pretty far off on its own too and isn’t going to be close to any classes, but the quality of it more than makes up for that, and the northside residence lot (lot 30) is directly beside it.
A more central dorm would be best if location is a huge concern, Hart is pretty central, Haas/McFadden/Lechner and the Commons dorms aren’t bad locations either.
One thing to note is that my southside friends who aren’t engineers all wanted to get northside. For some reason, these are the dorms everyone wants. Maybe its being near northgate, maybe its the proximity to Sbisa or that the only Chick-Fil-A on campus is a 20-minute walk from southside but only 5 minutes from northside.
The engineers, for the most part, wanted to be surrounded by other engineers in Mosher.
If you want to take a look at a map and see where you personally think the best dorm based off location will be, I can go ahead and list off buildings your son will likely have classes in:
-Chem and chemlab will be in HELD
-Engineering will be in ZACH
-My math class is in BSBE, my math lab is in BLOC, and my math recitation is in HEB
As far as friends go, I don’t talk to anyone from high school. I know a group of girls I went to school with are here, and I know they are all still friends, but I wasn’t really friends with them then and I’m not friends with them now. I know another guy from my high school is here, but he has made friends with others one way or another.
All of my friends come from Fish Camp, classes, and clubs. Fish Camp I feel is a good starting point, your son will have his DG or anyone else he just bonded with at camp to hang out with. My closest friend here I didn’t talk to at all at Fish Camp but we went to a continuity event after move-in, got a ride from the same counselor, and now we’re great friends.
Teamwork is encouraged in the engineering class, and maybe its luck that I sat at this random table with people I really click with or maybe all engineers just get along well together, but my teammates get along great, and most other tables I see around us are always having fun or talking and chatting about things other than the work at hand (when time allows). His lab partners in math and chemistry he’ll also chat with and spend time with, allowing for more friendships there. Clubs may be the easiest place to make friends since they’ll probably have something in common and if he’s comfortable striking up conversations with people then that makes it even easier.
A LOT of people are friends with their roommate and do a lot of activities with them, which is another avenue for making a friend.
@Eggscapgoats The difficulty of classes depends on the prof and your son’s background in the class.
-For example, if he makes a 5 on the AP calc test, he’ll probably think calculus is really easy. It really isn’t bad, and as long as he spaces out homework and doesn’t try to do all three assignments for the week the night they’re due it shouldn’t be bad.
-Chemlab is probably the worst of the classes. Even if you are confident in a chemistry lab, some labs just take all 3 hours to complete. Pre- and Post-labs are also time-consuming sometimes since they require flipping around in the lab manual or fighting with excel or just trying to figure out when you went over the material the question is asking. There are also two 40-question assignments we were given on top of the regular work the first four weeks of lab, and those were the actual worst and took forever to complete.
-Chemistry can be rough. I have the easier of the two teachers and the average for the last test was a 74. At least she curved it, but that is just an indication of how challenging it is. The homework isn’t bad though, I would just suggest not trying to do it all the night before it’s due.
-Math lab is sort of frustrating. Sometimes its easy and you finish in the class, sometimes matlab crashes every minute and you get nothing done even after working on it for an hour. It isnt really hard, just occasionally time-consuming.
-Engineering just depends. At the start, I was getting a lot of assignments that I had to work on outside of class because we couldn’t finish them in class. I had heard from a sophomore that he ended up getting out of engineering because the class was too time consuming and demanded more than other classes but is only worth 2 credit hours. That is how I felt at the start of the semester, and it would be even more frustrating that I would get assigned homework in class and it would be due later that day or the next, requiring me to prioritize it over homework I had already planned on doing that day. Now, however, my group and I are finishing assignments in class or before the class is even over, which is great. I’m starting to enjoy it more. So really, with this class, I think it can just depend. I also hear that different professors have the students do different things or focus more on certain points than others, so it’s possible the workload and difficult depend a lot on who the professor is.
If either of y’all need me to elaborate on anything, please let me know!
@anxious_stdnt WOW!! You are so sweet to take the time to go so in depth!! I really, really appreciate your insight!
It’s good to know Engineering classes are spread out so Northside vs. Southside will just be personal preference.
And thank you so much for letting me know what buildings he will most likely be in his first semester!!
He is coming to the SEAL event Nov. 9 through 11, and I’ll be sure he asks about groups and clubs.
Thanks a million…and I’ll probably be back with more questions over the next few months! 
Thank-you @anxious_stdnt ! Really helpful, especially when you say not to wait till the day before something is due to get it done!
@cannonmom A friend who was a freshman last year, told us he was very thankful for picking a modular style room (2 people and one bathroom) instead of a Suite? style ( 2 - 2 person rooms sharing one bathroom). I guess its a preference but something to consider
These questions and answers are all so helpful! Thank you @anxious_stdnt for taking the time to answer with such detail! Okay, I thought of a few more when you have the time… How many hours are you taking? Is this manageable, and do you plan to take about the same number in the spring? How was registration at your NSC? Did you get all the classes you needed? Any tips or advice for NSC registration? What meal plan would you recommend for students who will be living on campus? Thanks again!!
@agtrio23
Currently, I’m taking 13 hours. It’s really manageable, I have a lot of time to do homework during the week and then I can spend Friday and Saturday relaxing and not have to worry about being behind.
However, I plan on taking 15 hours in the spring to make sure I graduate on time (and also, since I already have 18 credits coming into college, I’m hoping to get my ring a semester early by taking 15 hours a semester). Unless I take classes during the summer, I’m going to be trying to take 15 a semester.
A word of advice, my advisor strongly suggested not going over 15 credit hours ever and taking summer courses if I must to avoid that.
Registration was… stressful. Truthfully, I didn’t actually start trying to figure out what professors I should be shooting for until the night before. It turned out to not matter, however, since the professors weren’t listed yet and were just marked as TBD.
When I arrived, I was put into a room with around 20-30 people and 4 or 5 “advisors.” I think only one was an actual advisor, and the rest were just there to help. I had about an hour to look at classes and try to figure out what I wanted, which was enough time for me at least. A lot of people used Aggie Scheduler to come up with a schedule and I would recommend using it.
So the best to go about it is to know what classes you are taking ahead of time and to write them down (such as MATH 151, POLS 207, etc.). There’s a course list somewhere on Howdy, its exact title I forget but you’ll know it when it comes time to figure out classes. Anyways, you go on there and get the codes for each class, there’s an acronym for the codes that I forget but again, it’ll be obvious by the time you get to this point.
Look at the different class times and when they meet, etc. and use the codes for the classes you’re considering in Aggie Scheduler to make sure there is no overlap and you’ll be able to get to all your classes.
Once you’ve got a schedule that works, where all your classes are accounted for and don’t overlap, record all the codes on a piece of paper. The fastest way to get into a class is to enter all the codes in at once and then click request or whatever button is there. There is a chance that a class might fill up or not be open at your NSC, so you’ll need backup codes. Have multiple ready. The more planned out and prepared you are, the more smoothly it will go (for the most part).
Understand that even with all the planning in the world, you may not get into the classes you first wanted. I was lucky and showed up with nothing planned and got every class I wanted. Another girl there had pages and pages of codes, plans, different schedules all written out. Not one worked. She was there for at least an hour trying to get her schedule together, I left once I decided there wasn’t anything I needed to change anymore.
Prepare, but don’t freak out if you don’t get the perfect schedule. You’ll get into the classes you need, and that’s all that’s really important.
Also, I’m sorry I don’t remember more specifics about registering, that was a really busy week for me so it honestly went by quickly.
Oof okay meal plans. It just depends on how often you plan on eating and where. Sbisa is more home-style food I guess? It’s pizza and pasta and stir-fry and a couple other things that change out every day. It gets old pretty quickly, the food isn’t amazing but it’s not bad. Sbisa and the other dining halls are being meals are used.
Dining dollars are used just about everywhere else, so essentially fast-food type places. It gives you more options, but they’re still limited. I try to use meal trades when possible even though a lot of people advise against it. Essentially, you just use a meal that you’d use at a dining hall instead of at like Chick FIl A for example.
So, as I said earlier, it depends on how often you eat and where you want to eat. A friend of mine picked the smallest number of meals with the most dining dollars because she planned on eating at the dining halls very rarely. I went with the plan that is automatically assigned and so far it is working for me, I’m trying to get through all my meals first and sometimes I mix it up by using a meal trade, though Sbisa is still getting old. I do use dining dollars from time to time to get a coffee or the like though, and when I run out of meals I’ll just use my dining dollars, which I can refill at any time and will carry over to next year.
Since I don’t how often anyone else eats or where they like to eat I can’t really give any recommendations on meal plans, but I hope my experience helps others decide.
Just let me know if I need to re-explain something or go into more depth, I tryped most of this up right before a class started so I was kinda in a rush.
@anxious_stdnt Thank you!! This is great info. and SO helpful! BTW, I am asking for my sons, so I will be sure to save this and refer back to it before their late May NSC. I remember reading that registration was tricky in an older post but couldn’t recall details. I do remember that parents cannot go into the registration room, but can parents sit in on advisor sessions?
Thanks again for all the tips on registration and meal plans!
To me, the registration wasn’t bad at all. The student needs to be familiar with looking up courses and adding it to the schedule, but advisors for most colleges have what they want you to take written down. They give this to you in the college advisor meeting on the 2nd day of NSC. Parents go to this session. Its by major. Then over lunch you look up times, profs, etc. and kinda map out what you want. Then at 2:00, you meet back up (students only) and they log in and register. My son was done in 2 minutes. He was well versed in what he wanted and had the course number, section etc. written down with back up courses. ALSO… in August, it’s open registration. You can reselect your entire schedule if you want. Don’t let this part be too stressful!
@Thelma2 thank you so much for the detailed response. I will look through the link soon.
@anxious_student a quick question on housing. I like the north side (hullabaloo) but when I went to register for housing it says to say “yes” to live and learn community which for engineering is “mosher”(correct me if I am wrong). Can I choose “no” to the live and learn while filling out and it won’t affect me in any way?
@Embeechristmas Correct, you do not have to do an LLC and it will not affect anything. However, please know that getting Hullabaloo is hard! Fills up within minutes of first selection time. It’s crazy. But… if you are a single, then you have a better shot!
@Embeechristmas Know that the three choices you make now have no bearing on where you will self select your room during your assigned window. The choices you are putting on your application are for A&M to have an idea of your preference of budget for them to assign you a room, should you neglect to do so yourself during room selection time.
Also, look at your budget. Hullabaloo is the most expensive dorm and single rooms will cost a lot. It also fills up very fast as soon as the first selection assignment are sent out. You really need to look at all of the style dorms before May and list them in order of preference so that when your window of time is assigned you have a plan. That way, if your first choice if full or doesn’t have the type of room you need/want, then move on to your next dorm, moving down the line until you find your fit.
Trying to figure out your next choice during your window will be frustrating because other people are selecting and rooms are rooms are snapped up while you’re trying to figure out your next step.
Thank you again @Thelma2 !! Thats really helpful???
@Embeechristmas Like the others have said, if you want to live on north side you don’t have to join your LLC; however, even if you choose to not live in it now, if you change your mind in the future a lot of non honors and non LLc engineerings students still live in Mosher, so its something to consider.
I had to apply for housing before my AIS even updated to say that I was accepted to get into Hullabaloo, and even then I didn’t get the earliest slot (some honors kids and stuff got a slot before me I think, but my slot was the first for more general freshman students).
By then it was mostly full of upperclassmen or people in doubles with no roommate. Some single rooms were still open when I was done picking my room but that is due to the price. With this information in mind, not having a specific roommate you want to live with would increase your chances of getting a room in Hullabaloo. On the flip side of that, if you get a late time slot to pick your room and you find someone with an early enough one, it is possible for yall to say yall want to be roommates and manage to get into Hullabaloo that way.
Also picking a room on a higher floor would also help. I got lucky and got one of the lower floors, but since Hullabaloo has elevators getting a higher room isn’t a big deal except on move in/out and even that is only like twice a year so its not the end of the world.
And like Thelma2 said, its good to have a list in order of preference for rooms before your time slot opens. Thats what I did, and even though I didn’t need it, it made things easier on me. Also, make friends with other aggies and maybe find a groupchat for when that happens so they can keep you updated on what dorms have vacancies and what don’t. I was in a group chat where people would take pictures of what rooms were open in each dorm so others knew what to expect and could change their game plan based on that. That way, if you know say your top two choices are full you can skip down to your third and claim a room there and then just wait and see if any rooms have/will open up in the dorms ranked higher on the list so you can switch in.