D will be freshman with undecided major. Advice on setting class schedule?

beth_s_mom
Sun, 11 May 2014 00:04:41 +0000

Knowing your major (or being able to rule out certain majors) can help in choosing the courses to satisfy your GenEd requirements. For instance, a business major would need to take EC 110 and 111 (intro to Micro and Macroeconomics). Those courses count toward the SB requirement. So if you knew you were going to be a business major (or were leaning that way), you probably wouldn’t choose to take another SB course right away to satisfy your GenEd requirement. I’m sure there are similar courses in other majors, I’m just familiar with business since that’s my D’s major. So even if your daughter doesn’t know what she wants to major in, if she is leaning toward something, or can rule something out, that might help. Since your D doesn’t want to major in science, taking her GenEd science course makes sense. Taking EN101 and 102 (or EN 103) makes sense if she’s not getting AP credit for them, since they’re a requirement for everyone. Satisfying the math requirement right away makes sense, but if she’s not sure of her major and is at the MATH 110/112 level, she’d want to choose 112 so as not to foreclose anything.

The other approach is to take courses that interest her that will also satisfy a requirement. At least if she finds a course of interest, she won’t regret having taken it if she enjoys it.