<p>Hey, it's about class registration time, and I'm wondering if anyone has any advice. I know I'd have a lot to say to 8th graders right now about what classes to take and not to take, so maybe you have regrets/mistakes that you'd like to help us college frosh avoid? </p>
<p>-Are there any electives that come up often as pre-requisites?
-Are we required to take one of the "recommended electives"?
-Are there any classes/professors to avoid?
-Which classes have the heaviest and lightest workloads?</p>
<p>Oh, I have a question too! Are you required to take at least one humanities class for all three terms of freshman year?</p>
<p>Also, is it easy to change classes once term starts? Would you get behind if you switch into a class? I want to try to place out of Physics, and I heard that you don’t take the tests until after you get on campus and classes start. Do people who place out of math/physics have some trouble at first with the more advanced classes?</p>
<p>I am wondering just the same…the course descriptions online are soo short! Besides, they don’t come to details. For instance, will it be a heavy load if I choose 2 frontier courses, say, Current researches in Biology and Frontiers in Physics? What kind of reading we may be required to read for the Biology frontier course? and the description says that new researches in physics will be presented to students on an introductory level-but how “introductory” is this “introductory” level? I doubt if a person like me with a usual high school education can ever comprehend such new research results, gee.</p>
<p>Much obliged, if anyone could help me out. :)</p>
<p>First, let me begin by saying that it is very easy to add and drop classes here (all you do is get something signed) so you don’t need to worry too much. CanaryK, I’m not going to go through all the possible classes you could take, but if you have questions about a specific class or two feel free to ask. You are not required to take one of the recommended electives. Prereqs are very dependent upon what you’re majoring in. EE/Aph majors should take APh 9, CS majors should take CS 4 (I think? I’m not a CS major so I’m not sure), Geo majors should consider taking Ge 11a.<br>
You are not required to take a humanities/SS class every term, but you do have to take 12 of them while you are here, so generally the recommended thing is to take one every term (I didn’t take one third term Frosh year, because there were awesome things I wanted to take). jianne, I wouldn’t recommend switching into say, a physics class after the second or third set, but it is possible if you want to do it badly enough. That said, I would recommend starting out in a class and then dropping it. If you place out of a class because you already understand everything that is done in that class, then you shouldn’t have any problem with the next class. If you just barely place out of a class because you got an easy test and you don’t actually understand the material or how to derive it, you will probably have some trouble in the next class.
I didn’t take a frontiers class, but I wish I had. Most of them involve listening to an interesting presentation and getting free pizza. They aren’t hard and taking more than one is not a problem if you are interested and they aren’t at the same time.</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice, JNT! Hahah whoops, I didn’t mean to imply that I wanted a list of all the good classes, I for sure didn’t expect anyone to type them all out
I’m glad to hear that it’s easy to add/drop classes, that definitely makes me feel better. Any pre-req advice for a chem major/biochem concentration? Or a bio one? Or bioengineering? (Yes, I am pathetically indecisive)</p>
<p>One more question, what are the least work intensive/most interesting humanities courses, in your opinion? None of the freshman humanities classes are really jumping out at me… I hope Knowledge and Reality will be surprisingly good. And that I get a spot. And that we watch The Matrix. I wonder if this is first come first serve.</p>
<p>Oh, sorry, when I said “one more question” that was sort of a lie, haha. Do Social Science, Anthropology, CNS, introductory languages, Music, or Psychology classes count towards the humanities requirement?
Is intro to computer programming worthwhile, even if I’m not interested in CS? ie, does programming knowledge come up a lot in other classes?</p>
<p>many thanks to you JNT! @CanaryK: I think you don’t need to worry much about humanities classes. I’ve heard rumors saying that you’ll survive these classes if you can speak English. Don’t know if this is really truth or just an exaggeration, but I dare say this does say something:at least, not all humanities classes equal S/M classes in difficulty. About CS1 I would suggest you take a look at the placement test questions. I read them and thought them not quite difficult, then took the bold step of giving up CS1. :p</p>
<p>I am a chem major (biochem concentration) so I can offer some advice specific for Chem. Not all of this applies specifically to first term.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Take Ch10abc (Frontiers in Chemistry). If you take all three terms as a frosh or sophomore, Ch10c counts towards one of the five chem labs required of chem majors (and is supposedly easier than the other options, but I wouldn’t know, since I didn’t take it frosh year). If you take Ch10 after sophomore year, Ch10c no longer counts. It’s also a great way to get to know profs for SURF. So sign up for Ch10a. It’s a pizza course where you show up and listen to lectures and eat pizza once a week. I don’t know what Ch10b is, and Ch10c you do lab work with a professor.</p></li>
<li><p>If you have chem lab experience, you may want to try and negotiate your way out of Ch3a (I didn’t do this either). Chem majors don’t technically have to take Ch3a since Ch4 can fullfill this requirement (and almost all chem majors take Ch4). However, you have to get the Ch4a instructor to approve you taking the class without Ch3a, so I don’t know how easy it is to do this.</p></li>
<li><p>Take Bi10 freshman or sophomore year. This also counts as a chemistry lab even though it’s all bio lab techniques. It’s open by lottery only (spring term) but they give priority to freshman and sophomores so don’t leave it until you’re an upperclassman. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>Now for the humanities advice:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Social sciences count towards the “humanities requirement” in the sense that the requirement is 2 frosh hums, 2 advanced hums, 2 intro social sciences, 2 advanced social sciences, and 4 other random humanties/socsci courses of your choice (other than frosh hums). Your two advanced social sciences must be taken in the same fields as your intros. The catalog explains this more thoroughly. </p></li>
<li><p>Anthropology fulfills the social science requirement. I highly recommend An22, the lecturer (Professor Ensminger) is very good. It is a lot of reading, however, and you have to go to class or you will fail the exams. I really enjoyed it. </p></li>
<li><p>Languages fulfill some requirements. The fourth term of a language and above count towards “advanced humanities” (you need two), and the first four terms count towards “general humanities/socsci” (you need four). Your native language will not count as an advanced humanity (so if you speak Chinese at home you cannot use Chinese as an advanced humanity, etc.)</p></li>
</ol>
<p>For reference, my first term frosh year I took</p>
<p>Ch1a
Ph1a
Ma1a
Ch10a (Chemistry pizza course, see above)
PE44a (Karate)
Hum9 (Knowledge and Reality with Hitchcock)
L103a (Intermediate French)</p>
<p>Ahh I love how specific that advice is, IMSAgeek, thank you! Yeah I don’t think I’m going to try placing out of chem; after looking through the test with the intention of taking it, I realized that I forgot a lot of the questions, and probably learned less physical chem than I needed.
I’m having issues deciding between frontiers in chem, bio, and engineering. I don’t even know whether I like engineering yet (I just like the idea of it… haha), so I thought taking frontiers in engineering would help me decide? Do the frontier classes work like that?</p>
<p>Dawncoming: thanks! Haha I wasn’t even considering placing out of CS1, I’ve never taken any computer science in my life. I was just wondering whether the knowledge is important to know for other classes? Or just in general?</p>
<p>The frontiers classes are mostly classes where you listen to a different prof talk about their research each week (and eat pizza). I don’t know specifically how the engineering one works, but if you’d like to hear more about engineering research, it couldn’t hurt to take it. </p>
<p>As far as CS1 goes, I personally have next to no CS knowledge, and I’ve done <em>alright.</em> A working knowledge of Matlab and Mathematica would be immensely useful to get through core math/physics. The course for that is ACM11. Otherwise I think you’re fine without taking any CS courses if they’re not your thing.</p>
<p>I highly recommend having some familiarity with programming, at least enough to be able to write Matlab and Mathematica code. They revamped CS1 for this year and I heard good things about the class. Also, lots of SURFs also involve programming, although I suppose that varies by department.</p>
<p>Okay, I think I will go ahead and take CS then. It seems as though I’d have to learn it on my own if I chose not to take the class, and I don’t know if I have the motivation for that haha.
Uh, does that mean I can take 3 frontier classes? Because that would be awesome. It seems a little excessive, but still awesome. :D</p>
<p>Are PE classes year-long? And is it 3 units per term or 3 units total?</p>
<p>I really appreciate your help guys, sorry for the question bombardment haha.</p>
<p>It looks like Ch10a is on Thursday 12-1 PM, E2 is Wednesday 12-1 PM and Bi2 is Tuesday 2:30-4:30. Bi2 doesn’t look like it’s a pizza class, but the other two do. You could theoretically take all three. </p>
<p>Again, I’d recommend ACM11 over CS1 if you’re looking for a programming class that’ll be useful for other courses here. If you’re interested in CS itself, CS1 is fine. </p>
<p>Some PE classes are year-long, some aren’t. You get three units per term. You need 9 units of PE (so three terms) for graduation. You can take them any three terms you want, though I took all three of mine freshman year. NCAA sports also count for PE credit. You can certainly take a different PE course every term, but you don’t have to. (I took three terms of Karate). </p>
<p>Ch10 is year long because it has a lab component, Ch10c. E2 and Bi2 are only first term. However, even for Ch10, you don’t have to take all three terms. I only took Ch10a.</p>
<p>It looks like you can only take ACM 11 as a sophomore+, and CS 1 is a recommended prereq, so it’d probably be easier to take CS 1 freshman year and then ACM 11. But I did see that comment, and it makes sense that ACM 11 would be the more useful class (especially because my friends in multi/linalg are already gloating about how useful their mathematica knowledge is for Physics).</p>
<p>Ack, it doesn’t look like I’m going to have schedule room first term. This humanities core is killing me, it takes up so much space, and I really don’t want to deal with that waiver. Thanks for checking up on all the times for me, that was really thoughtful.</p>
<p>I’m abnormally excited for the PE classes, hahah. Is it tough to get into your first choice?</p>
<p>Fair enough, as someone else mentioned, CS1 was recently changed. I didn’t realize it was a prereq for ACM11 because it’s previous iteration wasn’t regarded as particularly useful. </p>
<p>What waiver are you talking about? If you don’t want to take a frosh hum first term you don’t have to. You should take them both frosh year though. However, I’ve doubled hums most terms (I take a lot of language classes) and it hasn’t been a problem, so you shouldn’t have too much trouble catching up if you want to skip a term. There’s also always senior year to finish your hums. They make for an easy senior schedule. :p</p>
<p>You shouldn’t have a problem getting into whatever PE you want. I’ve never heard of someone not getting into a PE.</p>
