How hard is it to get classes?

<p>Do classes ever fill up? Do you ever have problems with 2 required classes being offered at the same time - making it impossible to take both? How big are the classes in core?</p>

<p>Do classes ever fill up?</p>

<p>Rarely. Lab courses often have limited enrollment (for obvious reasons), and in labs like Ch3a, sometimes people will race to sign up for a lab section that has a better schedule than others. I've heard that there's some limited enrollment science fiction class that fills up very quickly too. For things like this, racing to sign up just means getting up before 8 a.m. and clicking around as fast as possible. Very few classes have this problem. The only time I had to deal with it was when I wanted an afternoon Ch3a section but had to settle for a morning section instead.</p>

<p>Do you ever have problems with 2 required classes being offered at the same time - making it impossible to take both?</p>

<p>I've heard that at UCSD, whether you can even graduate in 4 years is a toss-up because you never know if two classes you need to take will be scheduled in the same slot. Caltech is much, much smarter in this regard. If you follow the suggested course schedule for your option, then your required courses will pretty much never conflict. Even if you deviate from the schedule, as I do, it's almost never the case that required courses will conflict. They just manage the schedule to avoid this problem at all costs. Elective courses, of course, are a toss-up. Some courses have organizational meetings to decide what class time would work best for the students in the class, and this usually solves any problems that may come up.</p>

<p>How big are the classes in core?</p>

<p>Just figure that everyone, or almost everyone, in the frosh / sophomore class will be in core. So roughly 225. Some will pass out of classes, and many won't go to class, so lecture size could be anywhere from 30 (in poorly taught courses) to 200-ish (in better taught courses).</p>

<p>If there are two classes that conflict, all you have to do is register a conflict and get it approved by your advisor, the course instructors, and the dean. Then just go to whichever lecture doesn't put good notes online. Since it's possible to do well in most classes without attending lecture and just by doing extra studying on your own time, this usually won't screw you over. Most people will never have to have a conflict in their schedule though - those that do usually don't have to do it because of core/major requirements, but because of some random classes they want to take for fun. The only non-lab classes I ever hear people waking up early to register online for are En 181a (Classics of Science Fiction: 1940–70) and En 181c (Classics of Science Fiction: The 1960s.) All of the humanity classes are capped at a relatively low number though, which is good as it makes them more discussion-based.</p>

<p>Warren Brown's medieval history classes have been known to fill up, particularly his Knighthood one. But that's just because the topics are so cool and the instructor is so fantastic.</p>

<p>I am a junior and I think all but one of my terms so far has had a conflict. It's always been okay since I don't go to classes anyway. (Most of the classes also "conflict" with my sleep.) And it gives you an excuse not to go to either of them.</p>

<p>Xuan, nothing you do is typical of anyone. Most people here have never had a conflict.</p>

<p>At frosh camp, one of the speakers said that there's one undergraduate who purposely picks classes that do conflict so that he wouldn't feel as bad about not going to class. Hopefully that is not this Xuan here.</p>

<p>I've had conflicting classes in three of my nine terms here so far. Each time a prof in one of these classes either put notes online or gave out a copy of the notes for the whole term on the first day, so I didnt miss much by missing that class.</p>