<p>So I'm really confused.
Apparently when you get to Calso, you can only phase 10.5 units as a freshmen? but people are saying that it's recommended to have 13 units for your frehsmen year...
So can i expect to only have 10.5 units this coming semester? </p>
<p>No, you have it wrong. There are TWO phases of telebears. In the first phase( CalSO), you may only sign up for 10.5 units worth of class within that phase of time. When phase 2 starts, which will be AFTER Calso, then you sign up for the remaining units of classes you which to take. This is done so the people who sign up for their classes first cannot fill up all spaces in a specific class.</p>
<p>Now in regards to your question, for you first semester, it’s best to take between 13-15 units, and no more than 2 science classes. After this, feel out what is right for you.</p>
<p>oooh! i kept thinking that phase 2 was during the 2nd semester. thank you!</p>
<p>Telebears (what the system of getting your classes is called) is made up of two phases: Phase I and Phase II. Phase I is a earlier date and Phase II is usually a couple of months later. The date you get usually depends on your units coming into berkeley. For your Phase I, your unit cap is 10.5 units (and this is during your CalSO). When your Phase II comes, your unit cap is increased to 16 units (this is a soft cap, which means if your classes hit 16 units, you cannot add more. </p>
<p>However, “soft” means that you can go over 16 units, just that you have rearrange your classes to fit the soft cap. So if you had 13 units, and you wanted to add a 2 unit class, and a 3 unit class. You would add the 2 unit class first, 13+2= 15 units, and then you would add the 3 unit class. You wouldn’t want to add the 3 unit class because you would hit the soft unit cap of 16 (13+3). After your phase II, there is a adjustment period that is a couple of weeks before the semester, and you can add up to 20.5 units. </p>
<p>13 to 17 units should be fine. Aim for the lower end if you have high workload courses (courses with labs, art studio, music performance, computer programming assignments, or large term projects). You are more likely to be able to handle the higher end if you have low workload courses without the high workload “features”.</p>
<p>1 unit is supposed to mean 3 hours of work per week, including both class time and out-of-class time. Nominally, this means that 15 units means 45 hours of school work per week. Actual workloads are probably less in most cases, except for the courses with high workload “features”.</p>
<p>What you may want to do in phase 2 or the adjustment period is to try for one more class than you intend to take, and then drop the least interesting one (or the one that you are on the waitlist that you are unlikely to get into, or the one that is much higher workload per unit than you expected) to leave yourself a normal number of units and workload.</p>
<p>Of course, your intended major matters in terms of what courses you need to take from the start. So does credit you have going in (AP, IB, A-level, college).</p>