<p>Saw this in another group. What is everyone planning to take first semester? Thought this would be a good place to discuss - also, and advice for picking classes for first semester would be cool as I'll be attending international orientation and therefore have to sign up classes myself online end of July without the advantage of someone from UVA by my side...</p>
<p>What are the popular choices? If I wanted to major in psychology, what would be good/interesting classes to take first semester? Also, any other input would be really interesting from current students such as, do students usually prefer morning/afternoon/evening classes? How do people go about scheduling what 'sections' (time) they take? Do people spread out their classes our schedule for a couple on one day and leave one day free? Etc.</p>
<p>Thanks guys, hope this will be interesting!</p>
<p>I was thinking about starting a thread like this, asking if anyone (esp upperclassmen) were taking any interesting classes this semester.</p>
<p>There are a bunch of 200-level (I guess they’re now 2000-level) classes that are intro but still specific, such as Intro to Child Psychology etc. They’re better than the “101” class, in that you learn psychology basics but you apply them to a specific field.</p>
<p>As far as times, it’s really a personal preference: some people like being done by the afternoon, some people like not starting until the afternoon, some people like having Fridays free - but it typically means a really long day on another day, so other people would rather just spread it out over all of the days. I’ve done just about everything…
-Days where I started in the afternoon and ran through mid-late evening are okay, but I really dislike evening classes in the residential college setting. I took night classes in high school and liked them then, and am taking a night class at a community college right now which I like the time of, but I hate the ed school night classes I have no choice but to take.
-Next semester I’ll have 8am’s MTWR so I’ll let you know how that goes… I had my Wednesday starting at 9am and over by 1pm last semester and I actually liked that a lot. But I liked being able to sleep in until 11 on other days.
-I had no friday classes my 2nd year and I really missed it this past year. I am excited to not have Friday classes again this coming year.
-OTOH, I liked only having 1-2 classes per day. But I think I liked having my Fridays off better.</p>
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<p>What do you mean by this? Each class has a separate number, and so you only sign up for what section fits your schedule (ie, the Calc 2 at 9am has a different number than the Calc 2 at 10am).</p>
<p>Edit:
Here was my first semester schedule:
2 math classes (Prob and Survey of Algebra)
The Brown College “Backstage” class (1 credit)
History of UVA (run by UGuides - met in Rotunda, so cool - 1 credit)
Bioethics with Professor Childress (great class, but you have to do your reading)
Hebrew (if you’re debating, TAKE IT - Hedda is amazing - my best friend took it 4 semesters with me and she’s Christian so if you’re even slighly inclined I’d recommend it, you get really close with the class and it’s very fun, but lots of work like all of the foreign language classes).</p>
<p>This semester I have the easiest schedule ever, I had better get a 4.0, it is 4 ed school classes and Yiddish (after 5 semesters of Hebrew and through AP German in high school I think I’m set).</p>
<p>I plan to double major in Biology (maybe Human Biology instead) and Management in the Comm school. So I need to exempt some course I have AP credit for to keep from having an insane schedule.<br>
My question is is it a good idea to skip intro classes if they are directly related to your major? I have the AP credit to skip all introductory Chemistry and Biology classes but I took Biology sophomore year and Chemistry junior year. Should I study this summer, not worry about it and skip the classes, or take the intro classes?</p>
<p>if you’re pre-med you can’t use your ap credit for science classes.
if you’re not pre-med and know you never will be (you’d be surprised how many people who are bio end up doing it just because they’re so close anyways, people who swore they would never be pre-med and then by 3rd yr changed their mind) then go for it. intro classes are more weed-out classes at uva anyways, esp. calculus.</p>
<p>I think I am starting out pre-med…going for</p>
<p>Introductory College Chemistry 1410
Introduction to Biology: Cell Biology and Genetics 2010
Spanish 2010
and…I don’t know. </p>
<p>Including the labs, those three classes add up to 13 credits. I am having trouble fitting a desirable 4th class (Intro to Anthropology, Psychology or Sociology, or General Religion 101) into the schedule of labs and discussions. Does anyone have an opinion about only taking 13 credits 1st semester (I’ll be a first year)? My AP credits more than make up the difference.</p>
<p>I could fit in Anthropology if I took a night biology lab (would prefer to do it earlier), but the Anthropology professor is new. Is that risky?</p>
<p>Chem is hard, and Spanish is a lot of (busy-) work. Could you get into a USEM? Or something else dinky? I took Fiction Writing my 2nd semester which was a totally BS class. Very fun. The department also offers Poetry Writing. Otherwise, 13 credits is not a huge problem - I took 12 credits my 2nd year 1st semester, but I was really bored out of my mind. I think I took 13 credits the next semester and that was a decent course load with the 2nd job I picked up. I would definitely advise against a humanities class with a lot of reading like the ones you are thinking of taking.</p>
<p>if you’re premed, you can use ap credit for science classes; you just have to take upper level courses such as upper level bio. but, it sometimes varies between different schools. I had friends who had ap credit for intro chem and they just took the lab portion. I also had friends who decided to waive the ap credit and take the class again.</p>
<p>Thanks, hazelorb! I didn’t think about the reading involved…Anthro 1010 just closed anyway. I’ll go try and hunt some down some easy USEMs, but the 13 credit idea is looking pretty appealing at this point. What kind of poetry do you have to write in the poetry class? I would be more hesitant to go with that class if they have to write epic, Beowulf-style poetry.</p>
<p>no it’s free style poetry. i didn’t take that, but in the fiction writing class, we got to write about whatever we wanted. i wrote silly G rated romance stories, but other people wrote suspense, autobiographical, crazy insane english, etc. i’m assuming the poetry writing class is the same.</p>
<p>I’m looking at the list of one credit “college advising seminars” (COLA 1500), and they only allow 2 people in a class? Is a COLA like a normal lecture class?</p>
<p>Does anyone know how difficult it is to get into an Italian class?</p>
<p>Also, I’m pre-commerce, and want to get started on the pre-requisites. Would it be a horrible idea to take Calculus and Accounting at the same time during my first semester?</p>
<p>@BTE23
we are not allowed to take any accounting courses from mcintire the first semester…the substitute can be STAT 2120 along with calc 2…that is another prereq unless u have a 5 in ap stats…i think they can be managed together and so can be accounting and calc 2 but not until the second semster…I am 100% sure abt this because I called mcintire to ask them if we could do this and got the answer that we cant in the first semester.</p>
<p>You should be able to get into Italian by your 2nd year, and I know a few first years who have managed it… But it’s pretty popular.</p>
<p>You can definitely take Econ first semester.</p>
<p>Don’t take 2 math classes your first semester unless you’re planning to major in math, or unless you took two AP math classes in high school at the same time. You have plenty of time to take the math classes, at least wait a semester to double up. Econ is math-y enough, or you could take something like astronomy.</p>
<p>Econ 201 and 202 are not too much math…only simple multiplication and division and u just hav to remember a few formulas thats it…but intermediate micro or mathematical micro involves some calculus only the basic calc…yeah astronomy is definitely worth taking…I too want to take astronomy, art history and french in college before i graduate i hope i will</p>
The department also offers Poetry Writing. Otherwise, 13 credits is not a huge problem - I took 12 credits my 2nd year 1st semester, but I was really bored out of my mind. I think I took 13 credits the next semester and that was a decent course load with the 2nd job I picked up. I would definitely advise against a humanities class with a lot of reading like the ones you are thinking of taking.</p>
Oh, well. I definitely don’t want to take STAT during my first semester. Can we take ECON?</p>