HELP! Freshman Classes

Colleges and Universities A-Z Northeastern University
1

I heard that most freshmen are preregistered for their classes. Does this seriously mean I don’t get to choose my classes? From the people I’ve spoken to, it seems that starting freshman year, your classes are very major oriented. If you check my other threads, you’ll see I’m interested in potentially transferring which I only brought up in my most recent thread to make sure I take the right classes in case I do decide to apply to transfer. However, I also love learning for the sake of learning and really wanted to focus on a broader curriculum freshman year. While I’m open to change, I’m 100% sure I want to major in poly sci, so I’m not really looking to go in undeclared or into the Explore Program. If I want to take an English (not first year writing because I AP credit), social science, natural science, foreign language, etc., will I have to switch to the Explore Program?

I talked to a biology major and three of her classes first semester are natural sciences. I was really looking forward to taking classes outside of my major. I am going to email my rep on Monday (not mentioning potentially transferring, of course). Does anyone have any experience with being able to take a more liberal arts focused curriculum without being in the explore program? Has anyone gotten around the pre-registration and gotten to pick their classes? If I’m paying this much, I don’t see why I can’t take the classes I would like to take (not to sound entitled, but I mean…). I understand they try to give a lot of the class spots to those who need them to fulfill their major, but at the majority of the schools I’ve looked into, if you want to take a math, science, english, etc., course, they’re not going to stop you.

2

Some majors are more prescriptive than others. Typically, social science means one class as an intro to your major, English, statistics, and two other classes. However science majors must take math, their science, that science’s lab, and often the concurrent science (often two from bio, chem, physics.)

3

@MYOS1634 Thanks for your response! So for one of my “two other” classes, do you think I should be able to take a natural science?

4

Yes. Choose carefully - for you, a " science degree citizenship" (a class to understand the science in the world around you) would be more useful than the premed bio class.

5

You’re pre-registered for the courses but you can drop and modify them with your advisor at orientation for the first semester as far as I’m aware and have full autonomy in the second. Preregistering is just so you have the guarantee of classes that most will need. You should be able to shape your courses as needed, but I’d note that if you do stay and do co-op’s you’ll want some depth in your major. You’ll also likely need it for research you seem to be interested in. I’d try to do 2 major and 2 liberal arts type courses rather than full liberal arts for that reason.