Choosing Your Freshman Year Classes

Shopping For Classes

Now, let's have some fun. Go back through the course catalogue and start making a list of classes you want to "shop" during your class selection period (often called "add-drop period" or "shopping period"). Make a list of the days and times that each class meets, the name of the professor teaching the class, and where the class meets. Do this for each class you're interested in taking, in every subject. Don't worry that your initial list may have too many classes on it"that's okay. We can whittle things down later. For now, you're merely shopping for things that sound "interesting" to you. Keep this list in your Campus Confidential workbook so you'll have it available for reference and a starting point for shopping in future semesters.

Ease Into Your College Experience With A Manageable First Semester

The biggest mistake that college freshmen make when arranging their freshman fall class schedules is to commit to an overly ambitious course schedule. Their analysis usually goes something like this: "I took eight classes in high school, so what's the big deal if I take six or seven in college - I can handle it!" Or "I took seven classes in high school while playing three varsity sports, running the school newspaper, and working two jobs. I can certainly manage six classes here without any extracurriculars to bog me down."

The problem with that analysis is that it presupposes that your college courses are going to have workloads similar to those of the classes you took in high school. Let us assure you that you will not find that to be the case. Your college courses may start out slowly, repeating material you learned in high school or easing you in with seemingly manageable reading assignments. But by the time you hit October, things are going to shift into overdrive, and those reading assignments are going to start doubling or even tripling in volume. Then midterms will hit, and before you know it, you're going to be overwhelmed.

Sucessfully Approaching The Add-Drop Period

Nearly every college and university has a period at the beginning of every semester during which students are free to "shop" for the courses they're going to take that semester. Typically a week or two in length, this period enables you to wander around campus, sit in on various professors, pick up syllabi, compare notes with your friends and roommates, and get a feel for your class schedule. This shopping period is extremely valuable for the orchestration of an optimal class schedule, so take it seriously and don't feel as though you need to commit to a class schedule and stick with it from day one before you've had a chance to look around. Use shopping period to evaluate your professors' teaching styles, to determine course requirements, to examine syllabi and confirm your interest in a course's subject matter and its approach to that subject matter, and to otherwise "dry run" your schedule.

Determining Your Class Schedule

Once you've shopped all the classes on your list, it's time to make some hard decisions. First of all, take another look at the chart of your core curricular requirements. Make it your habit to take something off that list during every semester"including this one. With some luck, you may even be able to kill two or even several birds with one stone, so try to be creative about your core requirements. For example, if you are thinking about being premed, you might be able to take Intro Bio and its associated laboratory and knock off several requirements at once. First, Intro Bio is one of the preprofessional curricular requirements for med school. Second, it will almost certainly satisfy your school's core curriculum re­quirement of at least two hard-science courses. Finally, if you also opt to major in a hard science, your Intro Bio course may also count toward satisfying the requirements of that major. Of course, if you took the AP or SAT II exam in biology and placed out of your Intro Bio course, you'll knock off some of these requirements without ever having to take the class at all!

Next, try to work out some balance among the disciplines in your schedule. Even if you intend to be a math major, you probably don't want to be taking three different math courses at the same time. Ditto for English classes if you are an English major. No matter how much you might like to read, too much of anything can detract from the enjoyment of the experience. If you are an English major, take a poli sci class that interests you, knock off a science requirement, and take a couple of English courses. That way, you'll keep your curricular requirements in check, make some progress toward your intended major, perhaps complete some prerequisites toward advanced courses in your major, and still have a pleasurable schedule.

"My strategy of trying to get all of my requirements out of the way as soon as possible is not one I would recommend to others," Dave advised. "By following a more normal course path, I would have eventually fulfilled all of my requirements anyway."

"I entered college thinking that I would double-major in math and women's studies," Zoe explained. "To that end, my first-year courses included Calculus II and Intro to Women's Studies in addition to a mix of other courses including philosophy, Spanish, biology, art history, and writing"a roster representing a balanced mix of requirements and curiosities. To my surprise, I found that I really didn't like the courses on math or women's studies very much at all and totally scrapped my plans to major in either one. Despite the fact that I had never considered economics to be an area of interest, I signed up for an introductory econ class on a whim. I loved it immediately and before long had declared econ as my major. The point here is that each choice you make and each seemingly random conversation that you have has the power to turn your life in a direction you never imagined," Zoe continued. "Keeping your eyes, ears, and heart open will invariably lead you to whatever and wherever you are meant to be."

Tom echoed this sentiment.

"I think part of the charms of college, as well as life itself, is to allow yourself to be a little bit elastic with your planning and control and see where it takes you."

"I didn't know what I wanted to do going in," Jim recalls, "so I spent my freshman year taking courses, including ecology, international relations, calculus, American history, and advanced French, that fulfilled a diverse array of requirements and would prepare me for several majors I was considering, while also leaving me eligible to study abroad in a French-speaking country. From this experience, I discovered that I had the most interest in history, and the requirements for the major were light, which would allow me to complete a minor in another field."

"One of the best decisions I made during freshman year," Lyndsee said, "was to depart from the course of study I thought I wanted to pursue - biology - and try a course, Japanese, in the East Asian Studies department. I had a small introduction to Japanese in high school, but I never thought of continuing it in college until I saw that course listing and decided to give it a try. After that, I continued on with Japanese and found that I was interested in other courses in the East Asian Studies department as well and ended up switching my major"all because I decided to try that one course in my freshman year."

While you're doing all this, you'll also want to pay attention to the actual schedule for these classes - both in terms of when the classes meet, when each class's major requirements (midterms, papers, projects) are due, and when the final exam or final paper is due. Use shopping period to figure out whether you can actually get from one class to another comfortably in the time allotted between the class meeting times without having to run into class perspiring and out of breath. Jogging a mile from Science Hill to the English department building in the ten-minute interval between your 9:30 and 10:30 classes may not seem like a big deal now, but it might get to be a real drag when you try to do it in a foot of snow or subzero temperatures.

"Be realistic and know your habits," Dave added. "Before you sign up for an 8:00 a.m. class on Friday mornings, consider whether you will be out partying all night on Thursday."

Examine your class syllabi carefully to determine how much work each class looks like it is going to be and how that work is distributed during the course of the semester. Use pen and paper to plot the primary assignments for each class so that you can visualize what your weekly workload is going to look like, and make sure your work is spread around. You don't want to take three classes that all have a problem set due on Monday or a paper due on Friday.

Finally, pay attention to final exam schedules, times, and types before you commit to a course. Most colleges and universities spread out final exams over a two-week period at the end of the semester. The very last thing you want to be facing is two finals on the same day or a whole series of finals on back-to-back days. Why would you knowingly set yourself up for a miserable end-of-semester experience if you can easily avoid it? 

Campus Confidential Mentors and Uber-Mentors:

Campus Confidential contains the collective advice of a a diverse group of people who have traveled the road to college. Some are recent college graduates who can counsel you on the college experience as it is today. Other are a few years removed from their college days and can provide a longer view of the decisions you will need to make before, during, and after college. Here is a little bit about the mentors and uber-mentors in these articles.

Dan Bissell – Campus Confidential Uber-Mentor

Portland, Oregon

B.A. Middlebury College cum laude, 1993. Major: Geology

M. D. University of Colorado School of Medicine, Adler Scholar, 2002

Tom Teh Chiu – Campus Confidential Uber-Mentor

Brooklyn, New York

B. A. Yale University, 1993. Major: double major in Chemistry and Music

M. M. Juilliard School, 1995

M Juilliard School, 2001

Jim Bright – Campus Confidential Uber-Mentor

Winston-Salem, North Carolina

B. A. Duke University, magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, 1997. Major: History

Amanda Cramer – Campus Confidential Uber-Mentor

Paso Robles, California

B.A. Cornell University Phi Beta Kappa, 1993. Major: Mathematics

Graduate study in food science – Enology, University of California at Davis 1997-2000

Zoe Robbins – Campus Confidential Uber-Mentor

Gouldsboro, Maine

B.A. (1) Wellesley College magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, 1997. Major: Economics

B.A. (2) University of Pennsylvania, 2001. Major: Nursing

Carolyn Koegler – Campus Confidential Uber-Mentor

Hopkinton, New Hampshire

B. A. Tufts University, cum laude, 1993. Double major: History and Spanish

Erik Norton – Campus Confidential Uber-Mentor

Boston, Massachusetts

B. A. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1993. Major: Mathematics

Lyndsee Dickson – Campus Confidential Mentor

Concord, New Hampshire

B.A. New York University, cum laude, 2004. Major: East Asian studies

Kevin Donovan – Campus Confidential Mentor

Somerville, Massachusetts

B.A. Boston College, honors in the major, 1993. Major: English, Minor: Creative Writing

Tiffany Chan – Campus Confidential Mentor

Concord, New Hampshire

B.S. New York University, 2005. Major: Communication Science

Erica Eubanks – Campus Confidential Mentor

Memphis, Tennessee

B.A. Tennessee State University, National Deans List, 2003. Major: Criminal Justice

Dave Irwin – Campus Confidential Mentor

Carlisle, Massachusetts

B.A. Middlebury College departmental honors, 2004. Major: American Civilization, Minor: Education

Chase Johnson – Campus Confidential Mentor

London, England

B. A. Duke University, with Phi Alpha Theta distinction in history, 2005. Major: History

Aaron Paskalis – Campus Confidential Mentor

Magnolia, Massachusetts

West Point Military Academy, then transferred to UMass Amherst

B. A. University of Massachusetts at Amherst, 2005. Major: Legal studies