<p>I know they're 6 credits per class, but they cover 4 GE's and the writing II requirement.</p>
<p>Why does everyone seem to hate them? Are they that hard?</p>
<p>until this year they were only 5 units and satisfied 3 GEs and WII</p>
<p>They don’t cover 4 GE’s, they cover 3, AFAIK. There’s also nothing extraordinary about them covering the writing II requirement either, there are many classes that do that. They’re not THAT hard, it’s just that it’s a lot of work for a GE, especially when you get to winter and spring quarters and you start taking classes for your major. </p>
<p>When you have 5 unit GEs like Astro 3, where the professor says on his syllabus that the average grade is a B+, it’s hard to recommend taking a cluster over that. They also have no flexibility, you need to plan your whole schedule around it. While that may be OK with some people, it definitely can and does get annoying.</p>
<p>The clusters are basically three GE classes that take place over the course of a school-year that are on the same topic, with the spring course also fulfilling the Writing II requirement. If you find one of the topics really interesting and are OK with the higher than usual for a GE workload, go ahead and take it. Otherwise, stick with taking GEs the normal way.</p>
<p>@rusoboy23 Actually the clusters now account for 4 GEs+Writing II. Yeah a lot of people seem to think they raised the value to 6 units to make up for how one had to do more work. :P</p>
<p>@hermaphrodite I went through the same questioning as you & a lot of people told me to 1. only take it if I was interested in it or else it’s a waste of time, and 2. it’s better to take a cluster that’s not under your major so you can fulfill GEs in a more efficient way. Some people like being with the same group all year, others hate the inflexibility it provides. For me personally, I got into the Myth one but decided to drop it because I’m undecided so I need flexibility in my schedule to take other classes I really want. While it may seem like you get more bang for your buck, I also thought that so many people are people to get everything they need without a cluster that it’s really not necessary.
At the end of the day, mostly everyone’s comment was “it’s too much work for a GE”. But then again, it’s worth more this year.</p>
<p>It’s up to you if you want to work for it though, esp. if some are reviewed as easy. It might end up being a really great time for you. You can always check the syllabus if they have it posted already & decide from there, whether it’s the required reading/papers that’ll pull you in or push you out. Good luck!
Out of curiousity, which, if any, were you interested in?</p>
<p>They do cover 4 GE’s now. </p>
<p>The reason why it’s not all so recommended is that it takes a lot of your time and it takes away your flexibility for each quarter. Not to mention that when you’re done with all your GE’s, all you got left is your major’s classes. That means a minimum of 3 of your classes, whether it be 3 hard maths, or 3 tantalizing memorization for history…it’s a lot of crap to do. </p>
<p>The reason why I didn’t take it is simple. It takes a lot of time. It takes away flexibility. It takes away the easy GE’s that you take during your school year of taking your hard major courses. </p>
<p>To be honest the choice is easy for me. But if you want to take all hard classes after your first year, be my guest. It is doable, but practical, is another story.</p>
<p>Another thing. I asked my cousins and their friends about taking it and now…the ones that didn’t take it said they didn’t care if they took it or not. The ones that said they took it, said they’d rather not take it. (but they’re all sci/math majors)</p>
<p>The fact that they added an extra credit per class and an extra GE requirement fulfillment shows how the school wants to make them more enticing. I think clusters are very “YMMV” - your mileage may vary. My roommate was in one all the way up until week 4 Friday of spring quarter. Not sure why he decided to drop it, but obviously he went that far and still dropped it.</p>
<p>^ which cluster did he drop?</p>
<p>Thanks for all the responses. Your opinions really helps.</p>
<p>@jayjiggle: I was contemplating about the sex cluster, before realizing that my lower division classes will cover the same of some GEs. So I scrapped that and chose instead Hist 20 taught by Ruiz. But the thing is, I’m #2 on the waitlist, which kind of scares me since I need the class to be considered a full-time student.</p>
<p>If you’re #2 on the waitlist I think you have a reaallyyy good shot, and you’ll have until the second week to drop/enroll in classes without it showing up in your transcripts, so even if that doesn’t work out you can still work SOMETHING out. 
But good luck!!</p>