<p>Hey,</p>
<p>I'm a senior this year and I'm just trying to figure out the units/classes process in college.</p>
<p>How and when do freshman typically sign up for classes? </p>
<p>Are there counselors that will help you figure out a schedule?</p>
<p>How early do you need to figure out what classes you're going to take?</p>
<p>What are credit hours? What are units?</p>
<p>What is a decent number of classes to take in one semester (or quarter)?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>You sign up for class on your Freshman Orientation, which is in May/June.</p>
<p>Yes, you get paired up with an advisor who helps you. You spend like half a day at orientation JUST going over the requirements to graduate/differences between BA and BS/etc. so you get kind of “taught” what you need to do, but then the adviors help narrow it down.</p>
<p>You should have a general idea, but that’s all you need. When I got there my advisors basically said for my major, I should really be taking this, this, and this. Just have a couple gen eds in mind to fill in any open spaces.</p>
<p>Credit hours/units are basically the same thing, I think, just different schools call it different think. It’s just basically a quantitative idea of the amount of classes your taking. Each class is worth usually either 3 or 4 credit hours, and schools have certain minimum credits you need to take to graduate. Also when it comes down to housing selection and signing up for classes, it’s usually goes from who ever has the most credits goes first, and whoever has the least amount goes last, so more credits gives you advantages there.</p>
<p>For a freshman, depending on the school and the amount you take, 4 or 5 is good. I took 4 this semester, 3 4-credits and one 3-credit so I got in 15 credits. At my school to graduate in 4 years you would average taking 15 credits a semester, so thats right on par.</p>
<p>If you want to get a head start on things, have a look at the course catalog (either in print or more likely online - go to the Current Students tab on the school’s website and look under Academics). This should have a listing of how that school defines units/credits, the typical courseload, distribution/core/general education requirements etc. If you have a major in mind, check out that department’s website; there may be a listing of recommended course sequences by year.</p>
<p>You will likely be assigned an advisor, who is NOT like your high school guidance counselor. It could be someone in the Advising Center, who will know a lot about general requirements but not so much about individual majors, or it could be a professor in your major department, who will know the basics about general requirements but send you to the Advising people for complicated questions and will know lots of helpful stuff about your major, or it could be some random professor in a random department that you get assigned to until you pick a major.</p>
<p>No matter which one you get, the process will be much smoother if you go into the meeting with an understanding of the school’s basic requirements, a preliminary course list (and schedule, once the fall schedule has been posted, probably at the beginning of March), and a set of backup classes (you’re a first year student, and therefore may not get all the classes you’re hoping for).</p>
<p>One of the biggest things as far as this goes, is do you have a major decided? If not you’ll probably take a lot of classes that are just round a bout general ed classes, so that whether you decide to go into Physics or History, your first semester classes will help you out. If you’ve got a major in mind and stuff, there’s usually like a “pathway” with a general way of how your schedule looks (ie First Semester you take these specific classes, and X credits of gen ed). Have you been accepted to your school yet? Browse the website, look in your major’s department on the site if you have one, and look up the general ed requirements etc. It helps a lot.</p>
<p>
You sign up at orientation usually, which could be anywhere from a few random days in the middle of the summer, or the last week before classes start, like mine was. Freshmen at my school come to campus a week earlier than everyone else for orientation.</p>
<p>
Yes, you’ll have some sort of academic advisor. Some schools (like mine) assign a first-year advisor, regardless of major, even if you have one chosen, they still give you an advisor, from a different field than your major. Then later, like sophomore year, is when we switch to advisors in our majors. I’ll warn you that depending on your major if you have one chosen and the advisor you get, that advisor may be a complete idiot and know nothing about your degree program, even though they’re supposed to know something if they’re advising first-year students of all majors…but some don’t. So I would research it online on the school’s site what you need to take and have a sheet prepared with what you think you need to take, because trust me, some advisors can be idiots, like mine…she knew NOTHING about music majors!!! She’s a librarian, and argued with me about things and ALWAYS though she was right and she literally thought I was trying to trick her and act like a know-it-all, which I wasn’t, I was just trying to politely inform her that she was dead wrong. I have to deal with her one more time this semester to select classes for fall semester next year, and then I’m DONE with her!!! Anyways…</p>
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Like I said above, have a list of classes you think you should take based on your major, and some gen ed requirements that you want to take right away.</p>
<p>
Depends on the school. Generally, the normal system is like credit hours or semester hours, and a class is usually 3-5 credits/semester hours, whatever you want to call it. Units- some schools don’t even use this…depends. Mine refers to most classes being 1 unit, which is equivalent to 4 semester hours/credits in a normal sense, but sometimes we end up calling those units as “credits” instead here…so it really depends on the school. Some schools are also on the quarter system…I only somewhat understand this, so I’m not going to attempt to explain it, maybe someone else can.</p>
<p>
Usually you’ll take between 12-18 semester hours/credits, so that depends, but anywhere from 3-6 classes. However, if you have a major like mine (Music), you may take the normal-ish 19 semester hours your first semester, but that was 11 classes…so some majors have weird credit hours like that. That 12-18 credits and 3-6 classes varies based on how much you want to start with, how much you need in order to graduate in 4 years (depending on if you’re double majoring, you might need more, whether you have AP credits to help, etc.), your advisor, your major, etc…so it’s hard to say, but the general number is 4 classes at 16 semester hours to graduate in 4 years for 1 major, most of the time.</p>
<p>Do you have a major you’re considering???</p>
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</p>
<p>At a community college, you find out when the schedule opens and then sign up for classes the minute it opens…</p>
<p>At a four year school, they usually have some sort of orientation during the summer where you can see advisers for freshmen and register for classes. If you have possible majors in mind, you can do some checking beforehand on the school’s web site to see what courses you will need for each of those majors. Also, you can check the school’s web site to see what your AP credit, if any, counts for.</p>
<p>The information above is very good, but as a senior in high school you do NOT need to worry about this kind of thing. Colleges will give you all the information you need well ahead of time, and since different schools vary, waiting for your school’s registration info will be more helpful than anything anyone could say here. Believe me, all this will be explained to you at a time when it becomes relevant.</p>
<p>Yes, wait until you pick a school to actually try looking through classes and deciding. You could do some preliminary deciding (flipping through the course catalog to see what’s interesting), but don’t waste time trying to decide on classes before knowing where you’re going. I worked on that last summer, trying to look for classes for fall.</p>
<p>Thank you so much for the information! It all makes more sense now, I just wanted to get a head start in figuring out what these things mean. I was just wondering how much help I would actually get from advisors and such because everyone says that you’re on your own in college…good to know that some help will be available.</p>
<p>I’m interested in a linguistics major. I posted another thread requesting any information/experiences that people may have about the major…so if anyone does, please share!</p>