<p>Just wondering if someone could give some general tips for choosing classes and meeting the requirements and such at Wisconsin.</p>
<p>Is it better to aim to get a lot of the General Education Requirements out of the way early, or choose classes that you think are interesting? Any advice/tips are greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>I came into the school with 12 credits, which helped A LOT. You can test out at SOAR or via AP. </p>
<p>It <em>really</em> depends what you're majoring in and such. Private message me if you want.</p>
<p>I would definitely choose at least one class that you think will be fun during each semester. It's really painful if you don't. Very few students here care much about fulfilling requirements, often only taking classes that interest them during the first three or four years and then having to stay around an extra one or two to finish up the requirements (that's why average graduation time is so long here), though that doesn't mean you should necessarily do the same. I would try to get at least a few requirements out of the way each year; it gives you more flexibility later. Also, if you are a freshman you probably won't be able to get into many of the courses you want because you have to register after everyone else. That's okay - go to the professor on the first day of class (or if you're really hard-core, e-mail them or visit their office before the start of class) and tell them you want to get into their class very much. I have never had a teacher turn me down when I did that, though sometimes they make you come back each class period for the rest of the week before letting you in just to see how serious you are about wanting to take it.</p>
<p>on that note, which classes are good to take. any classes that has really been essential to the wisconsin experience? what about profs...which are amazing and which should I look out for? my SOAR session is in a week, so I want to be prepared and try to get the best classes possible.</p>
<p>Although it was an intro level course for me, and it has 400 people, political science 106 with professor lehney was very funny and interesting.</p>
<p>Depends on your major. I believe you're a hard science person... and I dont consider ANYTHING like that fun :)</p>
<p>What are your areas of interest? The classes I liked most probably wouldn't work for a majority of students. Tell us what you like to do in your spare time and that may help narrow the possibilities. There are so many teachers at the university that no one here could ever be familiar with more than a small fraction of them. </p>
<p>If you have questions about individual teachers you might also find useful information at the Rate My Professors website (URLs don't publish here, so it's www dot ratemyprofessors dot com). It's a place for students to rate and write comments about their profs. Everything there needs to be taken with a grain of salt since you don't know why the rater did or did not get along with the teacher, but if you see several posts with the same comment it can serve as a general guide.</p>
<p>Personally I liked upper-division anthropology courses with Dr. Sissel Schroeder, the intro geology course, women's studies classes with Sue Pastor, history with Dr. Boydston, and my senior thesis and senior seminar projects.</p>