<p>What are the required classes for incoming freshman? </p>
<p>Also, if you can, can you tell me what classes you took, what professors you had, and what you thought about the class (such as teaching style, difficulty, your grade, etc.)</p>
<p>There is no one, specific course that is required for every single first year student. </p>
<p>Requirements vary from school to school. The College of Arts and Sciences tends to have more flexibility than the specialty schools when it comes to course selection in the first year. The individual school website will give you information about requirements.</p>
<p>Once you get a UVa email, you can sign up for [url=<a href=“http://www.thecourseforum.com%5DtheCourseForum%5B/url”>http://www.thecourseforum.com]theCourseForum[/url</a>] That is where students rate professors and courses. It is extremely useful - just note that the same course and prof is often under more than one listing because of different abbreviatons.</p>
<p>Be sure to check the web pages for the school within UVa you were admitted to for its requirements. Most first years focus on classes meeting those requirements to the extent they have not already tested out of them through AB/IB/SAT I or II.</p>
<p>I will like to know this information as well since I am deciding classes now.</p>
<p>Out of curiosity, do students in freshman year all take similar courses, such as English 101</p>
<p>And can you request professors?</p>
<p>Okay, here we go.</p>
<ol>
<li>You are not a freshman. You are a “first year”</li>
<li>Depending on your school (eschool, college, etc) you will have a different schedule.</li>
</ol>
<p>2a. Eschool first years all have the same schedule all year unless you have AP credit. There was a thread about this recently so I would go read that.</p>
<p>2b. I’m not familiar with nursing or architecture schedules. Curry also accept first years now (but for kinesiology?) and I’m not sure what that schedule would be like, but I went through the education program and we had identical classes with eachother (small program) so I would assume the same.</p>
<p>2c. In the college of arts and sciences (which is what I am assuming you are asking about), you have a large number of requirements to fulfill, but no required courses. You can find more information by going here [The</a> Undergraduate College of Arts & Sciences, U.Va.](<a href=“http://college.artsandsciences.virginia.edu/requirements]The”>http://college.artsandsciences.virginia.edu/requirements) but let me talk a bit about each.</p>
<p>2c1. Competency requirements - these are things you are probably assuming would be in a required first year schedule - you need to prove competency in english and foreign language. Your first writing requirement needs to be proven competent by your first year, either in your fall semester, spring semester, or by placing out. Your foreign language requirement you have about the first 3 years to complete. The second writing requirement is usually met by a class you take in your major so don’t worry about that until after your second year.</p>
<p>2c2. Area requirements - these are classes you have to take to prove you are getting a well rounded education. A lot of AP credits fulfill these. You can see the whole list of departments (english, anthropology, biology, etc) on that page I linked, but it’s basically a “choose 1 of the 3 departments and take any class” kind of requirement list. Use thecourseforum .com when you get your UVA email to check out professors. You sign up for any professor and course you like, but sometimes there is only one professor teaching a course you want to take.</p>
<ul>
<li>* * I will really emphasize that a bad professor makes even the best course awful * * *</li>
</ul>
<p>2c3. Major - you need to complete a major in any department offering one by the end of your fourth year, and declare (choose) by the end of your second year. Many majors have prerequisites. I would try to take some of the prerequisites your first year so that if you change your mind about what you want to major in (99% of people do, by the way) you have time to take other prerequisites.</p>
<p>You will get this whole spiel again at summer orientation, and then you get to sign up for classes. You can change your classes for the first week or two, which is also common (even for upperclassmen). And you have 8 semesters, so don’t worry too much about fitting everything in your first semester – just take a reasonable (no more than 15 credits, about 4-5 classes) load and enjoy socializing and college.</p>
<p>There are a number of old threads with lists of what people took their first year. You can start up another one (to survey students already at UVa who post to this board) if you think that might help you understand that everyone has a different schedule.</p>
<p>Oh and here was my first year schedule since morton asked for that:</p>
<p>(Fall 2006)</p>
<p>Hebr 101 - Hebrew - professor no longer here - A
RELG 265 - Bioethics - Childress - B- (interesting class but lost interest after the first midterm)
MATH 310 - Probability - professor no longer here - A-
MATH 354 - Survey of Algebra - professor on sabbatical - B+
then two 1-credit seminars:
LASE History of UVA - taught by different people each time - (pass) - really good class if they are offering it
INST Brown Backstage (course for first years living in Brown) (pass)</p>
<p>(Spring 2007)</p>
<p>MATH 552 - Algebra - grad student no longer here - C (hardest course ever)
ENWR 250 - Fiction Writing - grad student no longer here - A - easy class if you want to take a writing class but don’t have to do first writing requirement, though writing stories on a deadline was not as enjoyable for me as I would have liked
ASTR 121 - Intro astronomy - Ed Murphy - A- (fantastic professor)
HEBR 102 - Hebrew - professor no longer here - A
CCSS - Rural Poverty in Our Time - Grace Hale - B+ (class was interesting/depressing, professor I did not care for)</p>
<p>Like I said everyone takes a different first year schedule. I could jump right into my major because I had prereqs done, and I chose to start a new language rather than keeping going with my high school language because I had enough electives to do so. I placed out of all but a few of the area requirements, and placed out of my first writing requirement. I took my second writing requirement in my major 2nd year (even math has a second writing requirement class).</p>
<p>The area requirements I had to take:
RELG above
CCSS above
Non-western perspectives - I took archaeoastronomy which counts for science and non-western, cool class.
I also took a psychology class (child psych) which was somewhat interesting.
All the others were fulfilled with AP credits.</p>
<p>If you are thinking about taking a course and the prof has very bad reviews on thecourseforum.com, sometimes it makes sense to wait until the next semester or next year and hope a different prof is offered.</p>
<p>First years don’t register until the summer. Put together a long list of potential classes. It is difficult for first years to get into the smaller classes with the more popular professors, but you will have much better odds second year. Also, take a look at some of the 18 student seminars that are specifically limited to first year students (such as USEMs).</p>
<p>Hazel is an absolute font of knowledge and a real dear for continuing to post helpful information on this site. All should carefully review her posts for great insights into UVa.</p>
<p>Couple other key sources of information – after you review the requirements for your currently-intended major – including the CLAS competency requirements – a good next place to look is “Lou’s List:” [UVa</a> Class Schedule for Fall 2012 (Unofficial. Lou’s List)](<a href=“http://rabi.phys.virginia.edu/mySIS/CS2/index.php]UVa”>http://rabi.phys.virginia.edu/mySIS/CS2/index.php).</p>
<p>This is complied and maintained by a very helpful and generous physics professor and is vastly easier to use than the class search feature on SIS. The classes being offered Fall 2012 are up now. Be sure and take a look at what are known as COLA classes. You can find the offerings for Fall 2012 by searching “COLA” under the Class Search Page tab at the top of Lou’s list. These are 1 credit seminars within the College of Arts and Sciences reserved for first years or second year transfer students. They are structured as 2/3’s content teaching and 1/3 group advising. The idea is sign up for a COLA class taught by a professor within the department that offers your preferred major. That professor then becomes your advisor at least until you declare a major. The one challenge with the COLA classes is they are not well publicized and there are not enough of them for all incoming First Years in the College of Arts and Sciences. Currently, they are only offered first semester.</p>
<p>In the next several days, Fourth Years will start registering, so you will start seeing classes fill up. Don’t despair! There are seats reserved in common first-year classes which are opened up as Summer Orientations/First year registrations progress. There will likely be more chatter on this topic as first years get closer to registration, but a good piece of advice is to have a list of many different classes in mind, since classes will fill and most first years in the college will not be able to take every class they want to first semester or even first year.</p>
<p>Can’t believe I forgot Lou’s List!!! Good call AVA55! There was this amazing thing called the COD (course offering directory) but when UVA “upgraded” from ISIS to SIS (registering aka not getting kicked out 239821093812093 times, and applying to graduate, definite updates. Sometimes the other updates are questionable) it disappeared. Lou’s List is basically just as good if not better than the COD. Much faster than searching in SIS.</p>