<p>Well I'm an International student and I enrolled at Cal a few days ago; and essentially (since the expense of air travel and the rest of that is quite considerable), I'm asking if it's necessary to attend CalSO. What do other Internationals do? / is it possible to register/get advice about classes and the rest of that online (through email or whatnot) without actually being there? I'm a Regents' Scholar so would that help me any?</p>
<p>I am freshman international now.
I didn't attend CalSO last year and it took me some time to understand how to register for the courses. Anyway I called Berkeley and everything was OK.
So just call your student advisor or whatever you have (I am engineer and had student advisor - i dont know how are the other colleges).</p>
<p>You do not have to attend CalSO. You can learn how to register for classes by yourself-it's really not that hard, but just something that is new to everyone. However, you will be registering classes last if you do not attend CalSO-it's not as bad as it sounds though. You usually can get into the classes you want.</p>