<p>Hi everyone,</p>
<p>I just wanted to inquire when should freshmen select courses for the fall semester? Approximately how many subjects do first-year students take? </p>
<p>Thank you in advance for your help.</p>
<p>First-years select their courses after they take placement tests during orientation week. This helps you and your proctor (RA/academic advisor) come up with a reasonable course of study for the first year.</p>
<p>A typical semester load is 4 courses, although I have known some students to take 3…or 5…or 6 courses. That being said, overextending oneself in the Fall of freshman year is not a smart move. Relax and enjoy it. You’ll be adjusting to the college experience, making friends, living on your own (away from your parents), getting used to the Boston area, becoming involved in extracurriculars, having fun, etc. Depending on your interests, it would probably make sense to take a balanced load with, at most, one difficult course. Take one or two interesting courses which would fulfill the Program in General Education (formerly the Core Curriculum).</p>
<p>You’ll have to fit in your frosh Expos class in either the Fall or Spring semester.</p>
<p>You may also opt to take a freshman seminar course, which students seem to like.</p>
<p>If you haven’t signed up for FOP, FUP, or the other pre-frosh experiences, I’d recommend looking into it. The vast majority of students participating in such activities give positive feedback.</p>
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<p>I second this. I didn’t do this, and even 30 years later, I think it was a mistake. (I also never took Ec 10. My father told me the biggest mistake he had made at Harvard was not taking Ec 10. Then I duplicated it. So consider taking Ec 10 while you’re at Harvard, too.)</p>
<p>Ec 10 is HUGE-- I mean 500 students huge. If you are better prepared and motivated do Ec 1010. You maybe late for FAP and other freshman orientation programs – even if not, move fast. Dorm Crew is lots of fun, a great way to get to know the campus and not a huge amount of work.</p>
<p>Your advisor will NOT even think of allowing you to do more than 4 courses in the Fall-- so don’t waste your breath asking. Expos is random if you get it in the Fall or Spring. The seminars are terrific-- but the “bonding with the prof” thing that the College promotes about it is much more hype than reality.</p>
<p>Bartleby is right–the biggest mistake one can make is to become overwhelmed–and it very very easy to do so-- therefore, go slowly-- don’t over commit either curricularly or extracurricularly… You can add more in the Spring when you have a better handle on how best to manage being at Harvard.</p>
<p>You have 8 Gen Eds (and language too if you haven’t placed out of the requirement)-- don’t let them pile up-- try to take a Gen Ed each semester (maybe more before you declare a concentration) Also the language needs to be done before the end of sophomore year and your advisor will push you very very hard to get it done freshman year. (BTW-- word from the freshmen I know-- if you think Spanish will be a gut-- wrong!! Lots of native speaker setc that are looking for the easy A will be there-- so the curve is killer–) </p>
<p>Try if you can (if you are pre-med–sorry) to stay away from those courses that have enforced curves (usually large lecture courses–like Ec 10 or Gov 20 or the intro LS courses). Curves, aside from being both pedagogically and morally heinous, means that you will not be graded on what you know/learned but rather how much you know relative to the others in the class-- this breeds paranoia and becoming Lamont-monsters…very bad thing to be…)</p>
<p>4? Woah, is this the normal courseload of freshmen in the US? I’ve had 6 courses for both my freshman semesters in my college. Not trying to undermine the schools, I actually think this is awesome!</p>
<p>How about in higher years? What’s the average number of units per semester of Sophs and Juniors?</p>
<p>Five hundred? That’s half the size Ec 10 used to be in the '80s. Literally. And I actually mean literally.</p>
<p>Ec 10 enrollment was 950-1050 every year I was at Harvard. Of course, back then the registrar called it “Social Analysis 10” and counted it for Core credit. That could have inflated enrollment some.</p>
<p>I was being conservative in estimates-- it could be much bigger-- I just know that when I popped my head in Sanders one day it looked like 500 or so that day. I haven’t looked at a Q Guide to confirm-- but once you get over 250 or so, it kinda doesn’t matter much, does it?</p>
<p>Harvard doesn’t use “units” rather each course counts as one course each semester. One needs 32 courses (fulfilling the concentration, language and Gen Ed requirements) for graduation. One can have more, but not less than 32</p>
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@melody10511: Yup. 4 courses is considered a full semester load at Harvard…for all students. You seem to be suggesting that a student taking “only” 4 courses during a given semester at Harvard is not working as hard as another student taking 6 courses at another college in some foreign country. You’re comparing apples to oranges.</p>
<p>As etondad pointed out, Harvard doesn’t use the course unit system to calculate graduation requirements – students graduate if they take 32 or more semester-long courses while fulfilling departmental and Gen Ed. requirements.</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, the number of courses a student takes may not be a direct reflection of how much work he/she is doing. For example, some courses at Harvard take a ridiculous amount of a student’s time/effort (Math 55, some CS courses, etc.), whereas others have a fairly minimal time/effort commitment (Gen Ed. “gut” courses).</p>
<p>Ah, I see. I didn’t mean to sound like Harvard has a loose curriculum though. The course system sounds pretty good to me.</p>