<p>How hard / easy is it to get your intended classes?</p>
<p>In general, how effective and involved is the advising? Are they helpful and proactive if you desire to double major, study abroad or similar?</p>
<p>Any insider tips on parking?</p>
<p>Thanks for your insights.</p>
<p>Hello! Sorry if this is a little late and incredibly long…</p>
<p>It’s not hard to get into the classes you want, but you do register by seniority… more specifically by the number of hours of college credit that you have acquired. So if you’re going in with a few credit hours, you’ll be at an advantage. If you struggle to get in to some of your major classes at the beginning, just get your general education classes out of the way and fill in with major courses when you can.</p>
<p>The advising process is what you make of it. Unless you declared your major(s) on your application, you’ll get a general advisor your freshman year. I remember meeting with that advisor once, maybe twice. If I’d needed more advice, I could’ve gotten it.</p>
<p>I didn’t really take advantage of the advising within my department. The only times I met with them were to get an override for a particular class (on the condition that I finally declare my major, whoops) and then to get courses approved for studying abroad. The study abroad department gives you a form to fill out with the classes you’d like to take. You then take that form to the department head for each course. I’d recommend bringing detailed descriptions of the classes, so the department head can easily try to match the course to a similar one at CofC. Very easy, as long as you get all your forms in on time. A lot of my friends had much more personal relationships with their advisors, especially those in the honors college. I never had my advisor as a teacher, so I didn’t feel particularly close with him. When I needed school or career advice, I just went to my favorite teachers. I could have changed my advisor to one of them, but it didn’t really matter to me.</p>
<p>Freshmen aren’t allowed to have cars on campus, but can pay monthly or by semester for spots in garages/lots owned privately or by the city. I would be surprised if you found anything cheaper than $300 a semester, and that wouldn’t be centrally located. You might check out craigslist or similar sites to see if you could rent another student’s off campus spot (this isn’t uncommon). Only a few of my friends had cars freshman year, to be honest it’s not really necessary. If you’re living on campus, everything you need is within walking distance. I brought my car down sophomore year when I moved off campus. Almost everyone lives off campus after freshman year. Then you’ll either have off street parking or a city parking pass. Pay attention to parking signs, because Charleston brings in a lot of revenue from parking tickets. After 6 and on Sundays you can pretty much park anywhere, other than obvious things like loading zones, fire hydrants, etc.</p>
<p>Sorry for writing a novel! CofC is a really fun school, and writing this makes me miss it! Enjoy college while it lasts, jobs suck.</p>
<p>Thanks dodstar. Very helpful.</p>