<p>How many of your freshman classes were core reqs? electives? major reqs?</p>
<p>It really depends on what your intended major is. (Your AP credit, if any, may also give you some additional elective space.)</p>
<p>I know its different for me, so I just want a general picture. I got into NYU LSP but they only allow me to take 1 elective freshman year (screw them), but if that is what people normally do anyway, then the program doesnt put me in that much of a disadvantage.</p>
<p>shadowzoid - the answer depends a bit on the college as well. Most incoming students are in the College of Letters and Sciences, but another big chunk are College of Engineering. L&S grants BA degrees, which have a smaller number of mandated units and thus more room for electives and broadening your education, versus the BS degrees issued by CoE.</p>
<p>Let me give you an example of a student coming into L&S who believes they will become an English major. </p>
<p>12 courses total are needed for the major, of which four are specific courses and the rest are choices from among pools of options. Some pools are small - the major requires one course on Shakespeare and one course covering pre-1800 literature - and some are very broad sets of approved courses as electives, choosing among the two dozen or so classes available from the department each semester. </p>
<p>In order to declare, the student should have completed two of the mandated classes for the major, have satisfied their Reading and Composition obligation and have at least 30 total units earned. That is basically one class per year for the major plus one R&C per year. </p>
<p>L&S and Cal and the UC system impose some general requirements like the R&C courses, an American Cultures course, the seven breadth electives, and some other stuff but all of these are addressable from among a very broad range of choices making them essentially electives. Good standardized test scores, AP credits or high school class sequences can satisfy a number of those requirements - waiving R&C, American History, Math, Foreign Language obligations but both American Cultures (AC) and the breadths are usually taken here regardless of test scores, AP or other high school prep. College level courses might be transferable and acceptable against these, however. Since many students arrive with lots of AP credit and a fair number arrive with some college credits already earned, those have a small set of obligations to address outside of their major.</p>
<p>Netting this out, you might have 36-42 units to satisfy the 12 courses for the English major, and perhaps 24-36 towards those general obligations that are not waived. Since an L&S degree requires 120 units minimum, that leaves 42 to 60 units that are entirely free as electives for you to take among anything you like here. In other words, you have about half courses you need for obligations and the major, half courses you take solely because the topic appeals to you.</p>
<p>There is no general picture. Science and engineering majors typically have chains of prerequisite courses (e.g. Math 1A -> 1B -> 53 and 54, or Physics 7A -> 7B -> 7C), so they must take courses on schedule to avoid being delayed.</p>
<p>But humanities and most social studies majors have fewer constraints. For example, while the History major requires 4 lower division (or 3 lower division and 1 upper division) History courses before declaring the major, they generally do not have any prerequisites, so they may be taken in any order at any time in the first 4 semesters. And Linguistics has only one course (which has no prerequisites) needed before declaring the major.</p>
<p>Of course, there are also breadth requirements, but each breadth requirement has a fairly large list of courses that fulfills it.</p>
<p>I had 2 breadths and 1 core req first semester.
then 2 classes for fun and 2 core req second semester. One of which there is very little hw.</p>
<p>I highly recommend taking 1 or 2 core first semester until your acquainted more with the school and your life.</p>