<p>I have registered for CalSO already, but I am starting to wonder whether CalSO really is that important.</p>
<p>I live in Vancouver, so flying down to Berkeley is not a HUGE deal, but the whole trip would still take three days.</p>
<p>1) do you register for your classes during CalSO?</p>
<p>2) if I don't attend, will some required courses be full by the time I register in mid July?</p>
<p>3) I have heard that my timetable might be messed up if I register late. Is that true? Is it THAT bad to have a messed up timetable? how messed up can it be?</p>
<p>4) I am admitted into the CoE. They said something about mailing me information in mid May. Will that package contain necessary course information? If not, where do I find those information?</p>
<p>5) I haven't been to berkeley, but exactly how far is Clark Kerr from my classes? walking time? biking time (is a bike useful in berkeley?)</p>
<p>1) Yes.
2) If those required courses include physics, then most likely. Math might be full, but you will probably get in off the waitlist.
3) In America, people usually say “schedule” - just giving you a heads up in case you get some funny stares. Your schedule may be difficult to work around if the only open discussion sections you can sign up for have time conflicts with the rest of your classes. This may or may not be a big deal depending on whether your section takes attendance (not likely for engineering classes) and how often you have to turn in homework.
4) Singular plural nouns are usually treated as singular in America, ex. information would be singular. Again, just a heads up, not trying to pick on your grammar or anything. Just in case, you should look on your major/department’s website, which usually has an outline of required/recommended classes to take in the first two years. If you have more questions, you can e-mail an advisor.
5) Clark Kerr is about a ten to fifteen minute walk from campus. A bike is useful and saves you time, but the campus and surrounding areas are quite hilly. There should also be an AC Transit bus that runs from Clark Kerr to campus (not sure what with the new changes to the AC Transit lines).</p>
<ol>
<li>Yes</li>
<li>Yes</li>
<li>Yes and yes. Since you will be living at Clark Kerr it will take you about 40 minutes to go to your room and back, so you do not want to have a bunch of gaps in your schedule.</li>
<li>You can find it on the Berkeley CoE website.</li>
<li>15 minutes at least. Since you are an engineering major, a lot of your classes will be on the North side. Clark Kerr is on the south side. A more realistic estimate is 20 minutes if you are a fast walker.</li>
</ol>
<p>Clark Kerr is on a big hill. If you bring crappy 2-speed bike, it won’t help you much at all.</p>
<p>I’m EECS, and strongly considering not going to CalSO, as previous threads on this topic gravitated towards it not being important, and classes still being very doable to find. Is this no longer the case? Will the answer be different if I can skip out of Math 1A/B, and some others? Is it worth $2000 for the plane tickets?</p>
<p>It is the first day you get to meet with your advisors, which makes it worth it to me. I wouldn’t be able to monetize how much it is worth for you though.</p>
<p>I’m also going in to EECS, but I don’t have a very typical schedule, so the advising is very important to me. I also don’t think you can access TeleBears when the people at CalSO can, so that is a big incentive to come.</p>
<p>If your first semester is going to be similar to the one in the Blue COE booklet, then you probably can bypass it and just adjust your schedule for math (Math 53/54 instead of 1a/1b, etc…). I think you’ll be able to get into the classes as well, if they’re generally Freshman courses.</p>