<p>I'm putting together a schedule on courserank and at the moment i have 14 units with three classes. Currently my schedule only has classes tuesday thursday which seems kind of ridiculous, so i'm considering adding more classes to total up to 17 or 19 units. Is this too much? Or should i be OK with only classes Tu/Thu? Thanks</p>
<p>Anywhere from 13-15 units is recommended. I know many people who were unhappy or had trouble adjusting because they took 17-18 units their first semester.</p>
<p>Since your tuesdays and thursdays are obviously packed, you probably won’t have much time to do homework/projects/studying on those days. Now, add to that the fact that you want to do social activities, extracurriculars, etc. and you have your mondays, wednesdays, and fridays filled.</p>
<p>I suppose you could add a seminar or decal on one of those days.</p>
<p>Good thinking–I’m used to doing nothing in high school but i guess college means filled up days even without classes. thanks!</p>
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This is absolutely false. Ask any counselor and they will tell you unequivocaly that 13-15 units your 1st semester at Berkeley will provide the best possible course load and smooth transition into college. Get a feel for Berkeley before signing up for 4+ classes that may do you harm than good. Remember, that it’s not how fast you finish college, but how well you end up doing after 4 years. The amount of units you take 1st semester is not a reflection of anything, especially not your high school rigor. Think of this time as a period to adapt to college life and understand what Berkeley’s pace is like.</p>
<p>My son is starting next year an Engineering major (Undeclared). He has tons of AP Credits and is entering as a second semester sophomore. He just went to Calso and he had put together a schedule of 16 units. His counselor recommended he take twelve units. She said he would be fine because he had so many AP credits that satisfied some of his general ed requirements. She wanted him to start slow and get adjusted and told him that is why having AP credits is great. Because it allows him to do this. Is this true? I was kind of worried when he told me 12 units, but I figured his counselor knew what she was doing.</p>
<p>My recommendation (14-15) is still within that range.</p>
<p>They blanket recommend 13 units to everyone knowing people from less rigorous backgrounds will still be able to do well.
I’ve heard from several people who said they regret taking 13 units after their freshman year, because they were just under-challenged and found themselves with way too much time.</p>
<p>Too few units can be dangerous, because two few units can leave with so much free time, that you begin to not only waste your free time but start to eat drastically into your study time. Freshman year, I saw roommates and floormates fall into that trap.</p>
<p>If you are from an academically rigorous background, you really don’t have any significant advantage from taking a very light schedule.</p>
<p>If it feels like too much, you can always drop a course or make a breadth course P/NP</p>
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<p>I don’t know if that CalSO counselor knew exactly what they were doing. Most of the time CoE students are the big exception to the light schedule recommendation, because they have rather strict curricula to follow and they have a lot more coursework than L&S students. I haven’t heard of many CoE students taking 12 units their first semester. I would suppose a CoE student would know better whether this is recommendation is odd or not</p>
<p>Okay, that’s interesting. My son is from a very rigorous background (13 AP classes, GPA 4.8, class rank #1). She still recommended the twelve units. Math 53, Engineering 92, Engineering 10, and Chemistry (1A or 4A). He hasn’t made up his mind yet. I will talk with him about this.</p>
<p>Momfirst3, I’d say your counselor gave sound advice.</p>
<p>All of the engineering students (and I mean ALL - civil, mechanical, and bio) on my floor took 12-13 units last Fall. Your son could take a seminar or decal if he wants to round it up a bit, but three standard classes are fine.</p>
<p>By the way, he was talking to his academic advisor, not a Calso counselor. He showed her his original schedule (which included Physics 7A) and she recommended he drop that.</p>
<p>Thanks IvyRomantic. I’m totally confused. I have two older children, but neither had so many AP credits. He’s my youngest and very smart. He also has senioritis so talking to him about this stuff right now is kind of rough. haha. He’s earned his senioritis though. Thanks for the help. Your comments made me feel much better.</p>
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No. of units is not as well correlated with amount of free time as is depth of major/classes taken first semester. Any science/engineer major can tell you that having labs drastically reduces the amount of time in a week despite taking 13-14 units. Any humanities major can tell you that they have so much free time they don’t know what do all day except read and write papers. </p>
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Wrong. The single most important advantage from having taking rigorous AP classes and scoring 4/5s on them is so you can better plan for Berkeley. With so many AP units, you are allowed to take 13 units/semester and still graduate. Most of my friends who are MCB/EECS never take a heavy course load because they are not forced into it. Time leftover is nice for research/work-study/outside activities/studying.</p>
<p>momfirst3:
If you are unclear about how many units your son should take, I suggest making a phone appointment with an academic counselor from his engineering department. The counselor who recommended 12 units knows what he/she is doing because having overseen so many students in the past make or break their first year at Berkeley the counselor can make a sound judgment to help your son succeed. With that said, the min. amount of units is 13 which is required for full-time students, which also happens to be the min amount if your son received fin-aid.</p>
<p>Ahhh, okay. Thanks.</p>
<p>I just talked to my son. He will just take a seminar to get to 13 as he did receive very significant financial aid. I had no idea about the 13 units! Thanks. I didn’t mean to take over the thread. Thanks for the help. Feel free to give me more advice if needed. :-)</p>
<p>Look what I found… This was on the Berkeley financial aid website. I guess 12 units is fine. </p>
<p>“You are expected to attend full time. At Berkeley that is 12 units for financial aid purposes”.</p>
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An incoming freshman normally would only have one lab course their first semester. The correlation isn’t perfect, but it still exists. An average 4 unit course will be more work than an average 3 unit course. An average 15 units schedule will involve more work than an average 14 unit schedule and so on. Unit values are based on the average amount of work per week a student would spend on a class. They are not just randomly determined numbers.</p>
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<p>You obviously don’t understand how TeleBEARS works. The “week” your appointment is controlled by your non-AP level. Taking 13 units one semester won’t hurt in the long run, but if you keeping doing it and don’t average 15 units per semester, you will fall behind on this and you won’t progress through these levels at the appropriate time (unless you take enough summer school units to correct for this). If you **** up your non-AP level standing, you won’t be having TeleBEARs with people in the same class as you and you won’t be able to get into your courses and won’t be able to graduate on time.</p>
<p>AP units push your appointment up amongst people with the same non-AP level, but they won’t push up your non-AP level.</p>
<p>over 9000…</p>
<p>lol JK I think the limit is 20.5 or something anyway. hmm 12-16 seems like a reasonable load to me.</p>
<p>Would 16 be considered reasonable? A workload consisting solely of 4-unit classes? I’m asking this even tho a couple of ppl have already addressed 16-units, 'cause I want more opinions</p>
<p>16 units your first semester is doable. I had 16 units and was Bowles Hall Association secretary in Fall 07 and still had plenty of time.</p>
<p>The caveat is that 16 units is a little too much for some students. You should have at least one class that you are comfortable changing to P/NP if it is too much.</p>
<p>Ah, okay. I have an AC course for the P/NP thing, so thanks!</p>
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Interesting…so you are suggesting everyone take 15+ units/semester so they can have the best Telebears appointment and get out as fast as possible; as opposed to planning a comfortable schedule that feels right for someone who could care less if it takes 4-5 years to graduate.
You probably remember Bio1AL, a 2 unit class. I can probably think of many other exceptions, but the correlation between workload and units is secondary to what you’re majoring in. True someone taking 20 units will have less time on their hands than someone taking 15 units. But I would disagree that a 15 unit humanities courseload is more time consuming than say a 13 unit MCB/EECS/Chem/Engineering courseload.</p>
<p>What is a typical amt of Units for 1st semester Freshman ? 13</p>