<p>Just a few things I was wondering about NYU, Orientation, and MAP in particular:</p>
<li><p>Typically, do a lot of international students attend summer orientation? Is it a considerable disadvantage to just register for classes at welcome week?</p></li>
<li><p>Say i do go for welcome week, I’ve already researched which professors I’d like for specific classes. Do i just tell my advisor which ones I’m interested in and see if they’re free?</p></li>
<li><p>Is the Freshman Honours Seminar open to all students? Is there any criteria I would need to meet in order to apply? How competitive is it? Does anyone have any experience with The Writer in New York with Vince Passaro, Welcome to College: The Novel with Carol Sternhell or Realism and How to Get Rid of It with Tom Bishop.</p></li>
<li><p>I’m relatively proficient in my second language, and think I could place out of the language requirement with it. However, I’m taking Spanish now in school, and I’d like to continue it. Is it worth being able to skip the language requirement? I guess I could just continue learning spanish outside college…</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>As someone fluent in a second language (French), unless you want to major in languages, I'd recommend taking a language outside of college. I took languages in college to meet the requirement, but honestly didn't really learn to speak until I went in country, and then honed my skills at the Alliance Francaise in Paris - there must be some equivalent for Spanish, where you could take an intensive summer course. If I'd been able to test out of the requirement, I would've, and freed up credit hours for other, more interesting subjects.</p>
<p>if you wait until orientation to register, you might night get all the classes you want at the time you want. Not sure if you can register earlier than welcome week if you don't go to summer orientation. You will have to check with your advisor.</p>
<p>You have to be invited to attend the Freshman Honor's Seminars. My son took "what makes a great leader". </p>
<p>I think testing out of the language would be great. That would definitely free you up. Even if you could only test out of the elementary level, you could go right into the intermediate (that is the MAP requirement, up thru intermediate level).</p>
<p>Actually, anyone can take Freshman Honor's Seminars. You sign up during orientation.</p>
<p>It's helpful to place out of the language requirement. Then, if u get sick of taking the language, or don't have time, you don't have to worry about completing enough of the lanuage (you need to do 4 classes, or up until Intermediate II). You can still continue with spanish, but by completing the language requirement, it makes life easier. I completed the lang. requirement (french) through the test during orientation, and I'm planning on taking spanish. But now, I only have to take as many as I want to.</p>
<p>CAS holds certain portions of the classes for the last orientation session. A lot of people find it difficult to get into certain seminars by that point, however.
<em>*What major are you considering? What sort of AP credits will you have by the time you get to NYU? This will help me answer this question. *</em></p>
<p>ps. I'm CAS 2011, so I had experience. Although, I went to the first orientation, and scheduling was hard then too b/c they limit the number of spots.</p>
<p>1) There is no disadvantage to missing orientation in terms of class sign up, however I found it useful for talking with my advisor and starting to plan the next few years. But I didn't have to travel far at all, which is obviously not true for you, I'm not sure how worth overseas travel it would be. The only concern I'd have is if you're interested in taking honors bio or honors chem you have to test in at orientation, so you may want to look into seeing if those tests are offered during welcome week.</p>
<p>2) The Welcome Week orientation leads you through the registration process like any other orientation, but going in with professors and classes planned will make it easier for people helping you.</p>
<p>3) Freshman seminars are open to all students, and they all have slots saved for the last orientation. That being said people with the Presidential Honors Scholarship get first choice, before any orientation (which closed out my first choice seminar last year). I don't know about the other two, but a friend of mine didn't like Realism and How to Get Rid of it, he felt the books were not really the best examples of either realism or anti-realism.</p>
<p>4) You should definitely place out of your language requirement as much as possible, more flexibility is always better. I'm trying to fit both chem and english majors into my schedule and the language requirement is killing me. Once you've place out you can still study language if you're interested, but with more freedom. Also you may want to look into the Speaking Freely program, which lets you learn a language for no credit and no cost.</p>