<p>Do we do this at orientation, at the summer advising sessions, or on our own in the summer? </p>
<p>Thanks-this is for a incoming freshman</p>
<p>at orientation I believe</p>
<p>^correct…</p>
<p>let me add onto that question, forgive me.
should we know which courses we want to enroll in before we arrive at orientation?</p>
<p>It’s good to have an idea because there isn’t too much advising going on…you can schedule a meeting with your advisor, but it’s good to go in talking about what you’re going to do. Also, if you do go in, be prepared to have not too many questions answered–they won’t really have answers. </p>
<p>I had a good idea of what classes I wanted to take–Lit Hum, U Writing, Foreign Language, Calc (which helps fulfill science), and Econ (which I went in thinking I would major in). Most people will just try to do core requirements. Anyway, I know that wasn’t your question, but thought it might help.</p>
<p>do we ever get a physical course catalogue? I imagine people walk into orientation with a good idea of their intended class schedule, so are the online listing the only source for that info?</p>
<p>There is a hard copy of the catalog. But I believe you have to get it at the Columbia bookstore. I’m not sure if it’s free.</p>
<p>Aren’t incoming freshman also assigned to Lit Hum and Writing/Frontiers sections, without choice? That makes it difficult to see what else you can schedule when ahead of time, unless you can change your LitHum section, etc. My sense of it is that it’s difficult to do that, right? So until you have that info, what can you do? Also, is registration all done online, and when can it first be accessed by freshmen?</p>
<p>Registration is done online. I don’t think freshman get access until they arrive to orientation and do the advising, although I could be completely wrong about that.</p>
<p>If you already have a UNI you might be able to log into SSOL and look at the courses being offered in the fall, even if you can’t register for them yet. There’s also a class directory that you can access from the main Columbia page that shows all classes offered in 2009.</p>
<p>for a course catalog just go to columbia’s website, click on the “students” link on the left, then go to course directory on the right (of the students page).</p>
<p>how accurate and error-free is the online directory? Is there any difference between that and the paper version?</p>
<p>The online one’s pretty accurate, it lists which courses are being taught the upcoming semester and who’s teaching them (for advanced courses they’re not always taught every semester), if there is a paper version, I would think it’s a yearly publication of all the courses offered by Columbia, and probably course description (no description really at the directory but you can usually find one at…another page that I forget how you get to lol). But yeah, online’s usually pretty error-free, although obviously sometimes classes get moved around with classrooms and professors, but it’s still quite good.</p>
<p>Ok, thanks.</p>
<p>What is occasionally annoying is that the major requirements for different departments are listed in many ways. Some are helpful and tell you the total number of points needed; others just list the courses and you have to look up each course yourself.</p>
<p>Yeah for major requirements different departments have them in different places. this page (<a href=“http://www.college.columbia.edu/academics/programs[/url]”>http://www.college.columbia.edu/academics/programs</a>) should have everything you need in terms of major requirements (hopefully, hasn’t failed me yet). Just click on your major from the list obviously. Also if you go to course listings once you’ve already selected a department, that should give descriptions of all the courses in the department if you scroll down.</p>