<p>I'm an incoming freshman struggling with course registration - I want to take 5 full credit classes with a half credit phys ed, none of which are apart of the required classes for freshman. I was hoping you all could help me with two things:</p>
<p>1) I'm wondering what the likely hood of getting permission to exceed the 4.5 credit limit is?
and, what's the process? registration is next week .. but i don't have my housing yet - so I can't get in touch with my academic dean (because I don't know who it will be yet!). do i wait until im on campus? </p>
<p>2) How difficult is it to get into FOCUS as a second term freshman? I was really hoping to get into it for the spring (i missed the deadline for the fall). I'm interested in both offerings for the spring - and its especially appealing because it replaces both credit requirements (writing 20 and seminar). </p>
<p>5.5 credits for first semester? I think you should seriously reevaluate that. Unless this is absolutely pressing, I wouldn’t do it and you are very unlikely to get permission for this (especially over email or phone). </p>
<p>Also, even if registration is next week, you won’t be allowed to register for more than 4.5 courses until all three registration windows have opened. This is standard procedure to ensure that everyone has a fair shot at getting the minimum number of courses they need before any overloading happens.</p>
<p>I second that. I haven’t heard of very many situations where they’ve given permission for students to overload their first semester freshman year. You’ll have PLENTY of time to overload later in your academic career, so spend your first semester adjusting to Duke, your courseload, college life, and having a little fun. Believe me…4 credits will be sufficient.</p>
<p>I don’t think the second semester focuses are too terribly hard to get…I believe a much smaller number of students apply. I remember them offering a global health one 3 or 4 years ago and even that one didn’t seem to fill too fast bc they advertised spots for it in the Chron for a long time. Go for it…it hopefully won’t be an issue getting into one of them.</p>
<p>My D overloaded the first semester and regretted it. Don’t do it. Remember you can always go to the gym on your own. The East campus has its own gym and it is close to all the dorms - about a 10 minute walk at the most. My D also did FOCUS the 2nd semester. Don’t worry about getting into FOCUS the first semester.</p>
<p>According to other threads housing is already assigned. Call RLHS:</p>
<p>You can find the name and contact info for your dean on the Student Center page of ACES. To schedule an appointment to see your dean, call the Academic Advising Center at 919.684.6217. Your dean’s office is located in the Academic Advising Center, which is on East Campus.</p>
<p>In my bookbag I have a prospective schedule of 5 credits – Math 103, Physics 143, Chemistry 43, EGR 53, and Writing 20. </p>
<p>I emailed one of the department chairs to see if I could take 5 credits, and he said yes, except that I would have to wait until the add/drop period in order to be fair to all students. I’m going to register for Math, Physics, EGR, and Writing and wait to add Chemistry – I want to dual major in Physics in addition to engineering so I have a few more physics requirements to finish. I’ll talk to my advisor when the add/drop period starts and then will decide if to add chemistry.</p>
<p>The problem with that is that department chairs don’t really have the authority to grant permissions like that, your academic dean is the person you should have been talking to. But that’s not a big worry.</p>
<p>The bigger worry is whether the workload might be too much. I took 3 of those classes plus a humanity my first semester and it was already a handful. I don’t know much about Physics 143 or how much work it would be but the other 3 science/math courses will be plenty of labs/problem sets/recitation etc. You have to remember that the “1 hr class = 2 hr studying/homework” advice is actually a pretty reasonable estimate; you don’t want to be totally miserable your first semester no matter how many requirements you think you have to get done. </p>
<p>Finally, I thought the standard Pratt policy is to assign all engineers to take writing 20 in the spring?</p>
<p>Anyway, if you were to take French, definitely take I and II because those are super easy. If you did well in Calc BC & Multivariable, you’re probably good to go for Math 41 (but don’t get too complacent).</p>
<p>More for trinity students. I can almost guarantee that if you ask about the engineering curriculum, you’ll be referred to the Pratt Dean’s Office. </p>
<p>Anyway, every engineering student is assigned a faculty advisor whom you will met during your first semester. I wouldn’t worry about the dorm-specific one. I never even knew I had one and obviously I didn’t see the need to find out or meet with him/her.</p>
<p>I did farely well in AB. I’m not completely happy with how it was taught though, so I was hoping 41L would be a good fit. are the courses I listed too much? bio/chem/math/french/italian… eliminate a language?</p>