Econ 1 Freshman Year

I’ve already Phase I’d Econ 1 with Olney this fall semester as a rising freshman. The counselors and the advisors all recommend not taking Econ 1 your first semester, so I’m actually thinking about switching it to another breadth and postponing it until next year. The reason why I initially wanted to take it was because I thought I had a solid foundation in Economics (medaled in Academic Decathlon, self-studied AP tests, and placed at the state level in California for Econ in FBLA). People say to avoid it to get into the swing of things, and get used to life at Berkeley.

Is the workload/rigor of the class really that significant to potentially make a dent in my experience first semester? Looking through the notes/outlines provided and a couple of the midterm questions, it seems like I’ve already learned most of the material already in high school, so I’m not sure if waiting and potentially becoming rusty in economics would be worth it. If anyone has any experience or advice regarding this, I’d greatly appreciate it!

If you got a 5 in both AP economics tests, you can skip Economics 1 for both the business and economics majors (the economics major allows skipping with scores of 4 on both). You can then take more advanced economics courses if you have the math prerequisities. If you want to check your knowledge against what is in Berkeley Economics 1, you can look for old exams like:

http://eml.berkeley.edu/~olney/fall13/econ1/oldmt1.html
http://eml.berkeley.edu/~olney/fall13/econ1/oldmt2.html
http://eml.berkeley.edu/~olney/fall13/econ1/oldfinal.html
http://eml.berkeley.edu/~olney/fall13/econ1/final%20essay.pdf

Not sure why people think it is that hard of a course, although many of those taking it are prospective business and/or economics majors who are concerned about their GPAs for admission into those majors.