<p>What exactly is “Block Scheduling” for freshman?</p>
<p>I read that term on Cal Poly’s website, but am not sure what they mean. It may have been in the Computer Science Dept. stuff. They make it sound like your first year all your classes are scheduled for you in August, without any choice or elective selection.</p>
<p>I’d also like to know this. I’m a mathematics major.</p>
<p>Block scheduling means that the school (more specifically your department) makes a schedule for you for your first quarter at Cal Poly, so you don’t have to register for all your classes. This is to help get new students on track for their first quarter and make sure they can get some necessary classes and not fall behind before they even really begin. The schedule they generate for you will be available some time in August probably - maybe a bit earlier, I don’t remember. </p>
<p>During open registration (at the end of August) you will have the opportunity to make changes to this schedule if you wish - meaning swapping classes for different teachers or times, and adding or dropping classes. Winter quarter of your freshman year will be the first quarter where you’ll actually go through the registration process yourself. Block scheduling is only done for fall.</p>
<p>Do they do block scheduling for all freshman/majors? For engineering? I would think it is really needed in this major to get students on track and like you said, not behind in the first quarter already!</p>
<p>@CADREAMIN, yes, they block schedule all freshmen.</p>
<p>Thanks for the information. How do they know which electives you are interested in that first freshman quarter? Or do they avoid that by just scheduling a lot of prerequisites?</p>
<p>Yeah, they don’t usually put you in electives. They generally place you in intro classes for you major or GE’s.</p>
<p>On the GE’s, I guess that makes sense on English and Math that you have to take certain classes. But I am wondering how this works as to other areas of GE where you have different choices to make.</p>
<p>Well I ended up getting blocked into my area D1 GE class. They just chose one for me and I kept it because I didn’t really understand the process of changing my schedule at the time. Looking back, I kind of wish I had changed that class for a different one, but whatever. So any lower division GE is fair game for them to place you into a class. However, if the class really does not interest you and you’d rather take a different one for the GE area, you can drop it or change it. If you have any questions about how to do this later on, feel free to ask.</p>
<p>When you get block scheduled, it is easy to switch out of the classes. You pretty much get priority or any class you want since a lot of classes reserves a certain number of seats for incoming freshman students. It doesn’t even matter what rotation you are too.</p>
<p>I was wondering if they do block scheduling for new transfer students?</p>
<p>@Jeventur: I think so, not sure though.</p>
<p>When my daughter was a freshman in 2010 they gave admitted students their schedules during SOAR, the freshman orientation. She noticed a couple of classes she already had taken in h.s. and didn’t need to repeat in college. She was able to meet with an advisor in her dept. that day who changed her schedule for her. Then, during open enrollment she also added more classes to total 18 units. They only give students 12 units to start with. Last year I don’t believe they gave out the schedules during SOAR.</p>