<p>For some reason, my dad is very worried about orientation. I guess because of my two older brothers who went to Cal Poly SLO had a bad time with classes, so please help to clear this up for us.</p>
<p>Is it important to be completely prepared with your schedule prior to orientation? Are the academic counselors at UCSB helpful to new students and current students?</p>
<p>It’s not THAT important but it’s helpful, however if you’re going to plan out your classes beforehand make sure you choose the right classes because there are only certain classes available for upcoming freshman since we are at the bottom of the food chain. During orientation your adviser will give you a list of classes to choose from and you get more than enough time to pick out which classes you’d like and find the times to make sure they don’t conflict. Our adviser gave us all small laptops and we all looked through GOLD and the list of classes and planned everything out from there. The next day they give you like 20 minutes to do some last minute preparations and then at a specific time you log on and start choosing classes. Honestly choosing classes isn’t bad at all if you spend your time wisely and look carefully at discussion and seminar times to make sure your classes don’t conflict. I went to orientation with absolutely no thought of classes I wanted to take. I left orientation getting all the classes I wanted. Just use your time wisely during the academic advising sessions and register for the classes that fill up the fastest first and you’ll be fine.</p>
<p>Oh yeah and the advisers were very helpful when it came to helping us choose which classes to take (well my adviser at least).</p>
<p>Advisers are helpful, like above said, and you don’t need to bring a schedule. Just have in mind what your major is and choose your classes accordingly. I picked classes based on GE and I regret it because now I have some useless classes that I shouldn’t have time wasted on/repeats since my major classes also fulfilled these. Anyway, if you’re an econ major I wouldn’t look for classes such as GEOG, LAWSO, etc. Many people say it diversifies your college choices, but my experience is that its just making it harder for me to graduate in 3 or 4 years. Just my opinion</p>