Another question - what is considered a “bad time” to take a class? To me, a MWF class after 1pm feels bad since people want to get going with weekend plans. Looking ahead though it seems like there are quite a few CS classes that start in the middle of the afternoon on MWF 
Knowing what I know now, I would advise my younger self to avoid classes between noon and 3pm when there is a choice in the matter.
But I would not be surprised if students generally tended to avoid 8am and 9am class times.
If we are going to stay up late working on lab reports and HW sets, isn’t afternoon classes better? I would wake up late have a good brunch and go to classes. I would have preferred 11-4 because those are the hours that can be easily lost, between lunch and just settling in.
Would having a bicycle on campus help with going from one building to the other
The campus is rather hilly, so you need to be a reasonably strong bicyclist to find a bicycle useful.
@doneinamonth Yes, good thinking. If you wake up early, then you can use the morning time to be productive. But on other days where you spent late night doing problem sets and lab reports, then you can sleep in.
@ProfessorPlum168 Unfortunately Berkeley is very inconsiderate when it comes to MWF classes. There are very few MW classes so having an empty/lighter Friday is almost impossible unless one schedules everything on TuTh which I don’t recommend. There are even classes after 5pm on Friday, so things can get worse.
I personally liked taking labs earlier in the week because staying focused for 3~4 hours is tiring and getting enough sleep over the weekend was the best way to prepare. It’s also easier to convince the lab partners to meet over the weekend to work on the report when the report is due Monday or Tuesday. If the lab is on Thursday or Friday, then nobody would be motivated to meet right away the following weekend, and it becomes a long night the following Wednesday evening. There are other details that it makes you go to earlier office hours which means fewer people coming in and getting more help.
The only point I have to make about scheduling is don’t make the timing of the classes look like a chessboard meaning you have 8~9:30 class followed by 1.5 hour break followed by another 1.5 hour class, etc.
I thought I would be able to utilize the frequent 1.5-hour break at the library or something, and that simply didn’t work out. If the day starts early, end it early, if it’s gotta go late, just start late, etc.
Making zero-gap schedule won’t be entirely feasible unless you’re extremely lucky, but not making the mistake I did by signing up both 8am class and 3:30pm class and 11am class in between all on the same day would be a great start.
I just realized I put this question in the wrong thread, so I’m copying this:
Have you freshman folks started looking at breadth classes for registration planning for the fall yet? We looked pretty hard last night for International and there isn’t anything available. The classes are either not open, not applicable, or open only to the particular major. I can’t wait until he gets his sophomore or junior status soon so that he can get a jump on others in the near future.
Same goes for R&C B - everything is either not open or not interesting. Waaaaaah!
None of the following of interest?
GEOG 10
GEOG C32
GLOBAL 10A
GLOBAL 150Q (two sections on different topics)
GWS 102
GWS 142
HISTART 37
IAS 150 (two sections on different topics)
INTEGBI 158LF
ISF 100A
MUSIC 132
NESTUD 10
NESTUD C26
Also, those with reserved seats for majors may have open seats in later phases.
Nice…he missed the GLOB and ISF classes. Those look pretty good, thanks!
So for the classes that are reserved for majors, how does that work? When are they released for general consumption?
@ProfessorPlum168 The non-majors would be able to sign up for the waitlist, but it is locked until the class begins. If there are remaining seats after accommodating the majors, then finally the non-majors will be officially enrolled in the class.
In case of having significantly more students on the waitlist vs. available spots, the instructor may take attendance in the first few lectures and drop anyone who misses. I’ve had a case where almost nobody dropped and it was actually up to the professor to change the lecture hall to accommodate the rest of the students.
Overall, high waitlist numbers or reserved for majors isn’t something I would feel discouraged at all, but simply a matter of do I really want to take this class or not. Attend the classes, perhaps chat with the professor a bit after class, and one way or another you can find a way to enroll.
Do current sophomores register for the classes all the way up to and including July 15, 2018. Where does one look to see how many seats are available for each class? Are any classes “reserved” for freshman? TIA.
Classes.berkeley.edu would have the class info, including what classes have how many seats reserved for specific majors and/or class.
@WantInternship
http://classes.berkeley.edu/
Also, if you look at the actual class registration page on Calcentral, Academics, to the right, class enrollment, you can click on labs and discussions and see if any seats are reserved. FPF classes are reserved if you’re in FPF and Freshman seminars are reserved, but only a few main classes have reserved seats for freshmen. The phases help though. Phase 1, 13.5 units, Phase 2, 17.5 units.
@ProfessorPlum168 I agree. International classes are annoyingly hard to find. They’re worse than Philosophy. Global 10A is good and I recommend using it as a backup plan if your other classes get filled up before you can enroll in them this semester. Get International covered.
CS61A is archived. There’s a tab called course captures on either Bcourses or calcentral that has the whole semester downloaded.
Avoid gaps. They suck. Anything longer than 2 hours is bad, unless it’s 3 hours around lunch which isn’t horrible, but you still have to decide whether the break warrants the walk back and whether it’s worth the travel time. Gaps are good for doing homework but they keep you on campus for longer than you’d like. People do generally avoid morning classes. Sometimes people avoid Friday classes but only by being willing to take random classes specifically for the purpose of avoiding Friday classes. Late Friday classes aren’t that bad. I like either being done by noon 8-12:30 or going from noon late 12-5. Going from 8-5 gives you at least one day off (like Tuesday or Wednesday) but days off are less productive than you think and you’ll wish you had spread it more evenly.