<p>So I logged onto IStart to begin my college homework and the first thing it asks is for me to select my general education courses. So I click on the link thats supposed to show me the courses i can select, and theres an error. I tried it a few times, but the same error page keeps poppingout. Does anyone else hav this kind of problem? What should i do</p>
<p>i have the problem too :(</p>
<p>If you’re a freshman you need academic advising before you choose your courses.</p>
<p>my Istart just asks me what is the population of the city i live in ( which i thought was strange) and it asked if i was interested in research or study abroad, and what my career goals were and how sure I was about each career choice… nothing about any courses I would like to take. but i think it is different for each diffrerent college u r enrolled in and I am enrolled in the college of ACES.</p>
<p>how do you get academic advising done</p>
<p>You need to go to a summer orientation session which you should have applied for by now. It is at the summer oreintation session that you see an advisor and register for classes. What you must do before then is take any placement tests required.</p>
<p>ok so now the link works… i guess i can select my courses now…
but holy s*** they give us so many courses for each category theres like jewish sacred literature and a History of Korea and Japanese lit. and African American history
and i really know nothing about these courses, how am i supposed to pick the right one?</p>
<p>Start here and then start looking for descriptions of courses and other info:[Course</a> Information Suite, Course Catalog, Class Schedule, Programs of Study, General Education Requirements, GenEd](<a href=“Course Explorer”>Course Explorer)</p>
<p>Now for the key trick you must know. There are categories of Gen Ed requirements – composition, western cultural studies, non-western cultural stides, Humanities & Arts, etc as listed on that page. You need a minimum number of hours in each category to meet your Gen Ed requirement. However, the trick to know is that there are a lot of courses where any particular course will meet the requirement for two, and some three, of the categories required. If you take a course that can meet two (or three) of the categories, it counts towards both (or all three) of the requirments. </p>
<p>By example:
You need 3 hours of Advanced Composition, 3 hours of Western Cultural Studies, and 6 hours of Humanties. A 3 hour course called Masterpieces of Western Culture I (I am not actually suggesting you take that one way or the other) is approved to count toward the requirements of all three of those categories. Thus, that one three hour course meets your requirement for Advanced Comp, and for Western Culture, and for 1/2 your Humanties requirement. In other words, the total number of Gen Ed hours you are required to have can be met by taking a lot fewer courses as long as you choose courses that meet more than one of the requirements.</p>
<p>quick question im a little scared now… how many years of foreign language do u need? i only completed 3 years of spanish then dropped out of the 4th year in the first week of school</p>
<p>You only need two years to be admitted. However, the real issue becomes whether you have to take language at the college level to graduate from UIUC. Each high school year of a language is considered one semester at college level. The college of engineering requires three college semesters of foreign language and that is therefore waived if you have three years of a single language in high school, so for engineering you would not need to take any language in college. Arts & sciences and business colleges require 4 college semesters and thus, if you are applying to them, you are short one year of high school language and will have to complete the 4th semester level in college – you take the required placement test and it determines where you will actually begin in college; for example you may not place out of three college semesters and might have to start at the second or third semester level and then keep taking courses until you get through fourth semester level.</p>
<p>ok first year i am taking LAS but hopefully transferring to engineering second year so… i still will have to take my fourth year?? what if i test out on the test then do i still have to take it?</p>
<p>drusba, what about students who took the first year of a foreign language in jr high and then years 2-4 in high school? Would that count as 3 or 4 semesters of a foreign language?</p>
<p>Probably should have been a little clearer:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>You need the college language requirement to graduate from college. Thus, if you start LAS and then transfer and ultimately graduate from engineering, you only need to meet engineering’s three semester (or third year of high school) language requirement. Nevertheless, advisor in that situation may strongly suggest you take language freshman year. Problem you face is what happens if you can’t successfully transfer into engineering and you stay in LAS; it gets a lot harder to meet language requirements when you delay one or two years taking any course in a language (i.e., you will have forgotten everything). You can by score on placement test escape taking any further language by getting score high enough that shows your placement would be beyond college minimum requirement.</p></li>
<li><p>By “high school” year I really meant level. If you complete third year spanish before college you get waiver in engineering; if you complete fourth year spanish before college you get waiver from other colleges. Thus, for example, if you take first and second year level in junior high and third and fourth year level in high school, you have the four years necessary to get waiver from taking any additional language in business or LAS college.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>^ Thanks! :D</p>
<p>just one more question i already forgot most of it. now say i dont take it first year and i dont successfully transfer then can i just take it at summer school at a community college?</p>
<p>Yes, you can often meet some of your gen ed requirements by equivalent courses at a CC for which you have grades transfered to UIUC. You just need to make sure (a) the course is not one UIUC requires to be taken at UIUC (I don’t believe language falls within that restriction but I believe advanced composition does); and (b) it is equivalent to UIUC course – there is a list of such on a site I cannot remember the name of that provides University of Illinois course equivalencies for the CCs in the state.</p>
<p>Use this link. Log in as a guest and create a course equivalency guide by selecting UIUC and possible CC’s to transfer credit from.</p>
<p><a href=“https://uic.transfer.org/cas/[/url]”>https://uic.transfer.org/cas/</a></p>