<p>My understanding is that students take either 0 or 1 CAP courses, since you only have 1 adviser. One can register for more later through normal registration, but that’s separate. Any course you take you should take seriously to get the most out of it. You should make sure it’s a course you want to take and a professor you’d like to be your adviser, because it can be pretty awful to spend an entire semester in a course you don’t like or have an adviser you don’t want to meet with. So only sign up for ones your sure you’d want to take. It’s also not a good idea to sign up and drop because that could become awkward with the professor, who would be your adviser. I had a fine, enjoyable first year despite having neither an FYS course nor a CAP course. It’s recommended if you like the topic, but don’t take one just for the sake of taking one.</p>
<p>Can you take a CAP course that’s not going to be your concentration, just because it sounds interesting? Then the professor would not be your advisor. Or by taking it, are you saying that you expect that topic to be your concentration and the prof must be your advisor?</p>
<p>Your freshman adviser is seldom in your concentration, so that should have no effect; if you sign up for a CAP course as an advising program, the professor will be your adviser. If you sign up for the course in September (provided there are still openings), you’ll be assigned a different adviser but still take the course. This past year, my adviser was the Modern Greek teacher - I have no intention of studying modern Greek in my time at Brown.</p>
<p>If a course sounds interesting and it would not be extremely detrimental to the overall Brown experience (i.e. if it keeps you from taking courses to complete your concentration), you should seriously consider taking it. Don’t worry too much about concentrations yet. It may all change.</p>