Hi, I have a question about getting the courses I want at UCSD. Do students get priority based only on how many credits they have? Or is it also by major? How difficult would it be to get into chemistry and computer sciences classes (both lower and upper division) without majoring in those areas? Thank you in advance.
Yes, students get priority based on how many credits they have EXCEPT for the very first enrollment in fall quarter freshman year (where it is random). However, for impacted computer science and upper-division math classes, computer science/computer engineering majors and math majors get priority (respectively).
It might be difficult to enroll in impacted and popular CS classes without the major and may be even more difficult without a decent amount of units. You can tell when classes are cherrypicking majors though by looking to see whether enrollment counts are kept low (as individuals with the major are picked off of the waitlist).
So if there is a class with about 0-7 TOTAL seats per section, compared to a larger number like 25-40, then the class is trying to prioritize people with their respective major.