<p>Oh tnx ! Do international students only start to register for classes at orientation ,which is in 17th of august? If so, are international students in disadvantage of not getting first choice classes?</p>
<p>There are a bunch of threads on this topic; each registration session has an equal chance of registering for classes because spots are held for each session.</p>
<p>I’m trying to get a general idea of what classes I want to take and I was wondering how many I should take for the first semester? I don’t want to overwhelm myself but I don’t want to slack off either. </p>
<p>I’ve heard 4 is the norm for first year students?</p>
<p>Take as many as you’re comfortable with. If you find that you really hate a class or believe that you’re biting off more than you can choose, you do have a window where you can drop classes with no penalties.</p>
<p>Focus on credits as well. My first semester, I took 4 classes that were 3 credits each, and 2 1-credit seminars. So even though I had 6 classes, I was only taking 14 credits. 12-15 credits is a good course load.</p>
<p>The window to drop classes is very small, unless you are in the engineering school. Better to have more free time to socialize and end up with a high GPA than be overwhelmed, not socialize enough, and have poor grades, imho.</p>
<p>For SEAS students, note you have a 15 credit minimum. To go lower you have to get the permission of your advisor and the Dean’s office.</p>
<p>In order to graduate in 8 semesters, without any AP or IB credit when you arrive, you should really be taking 15 credits a semester. That evens out to 30 a year, therefore 120 overall and boom, graduation! Of course, you can take as little as 12 a semester if you’ve got advanced credit, but honestly there are so many great classes on offer that I will never be taking fewer than 15 credits a semester. I may even go up to 18, and I arrived with 17 credits in the bag!</p>
<p>Don’t underestimate how difficult it will be to get adjusted to the college workload. You will no longer be the smartest person in the room by far. Profs will try to hit you over the head by grading their first assignment very harshly so you get the message. </p>
<p>As a result, do not take more than 15 credits your first semester. Also, there will often be competing deadlines that will make it impossible for you to do your best work on each of the assignments and tests. I compare it to juggling - trying to keep 5 balls in the air at each time.</p>
<p>The easiest time to make friends is in the first month of college. After that, people start to get their social groups established, and it can be harder to break into them</p>
<p>^ I sidestepped that issue by taking some “easy” classes first semester, so even though I was getting 15 credits, I wasn’t having a huge workload. I took Acting 1, Human Bio & DIsease (exactly the same as my A level class so nothing new to learn) and a French class which was slightly below the level I could have stretched to.</p>
<p>Yeah, I came in to UVA with almost 2 years of credit, so I took plenty of low credit semesters (at least two 14-credit and 2 12-credit) and never took over 16, that was a LOT of work and affected my ability to do all of the activities I wanted to do (there is always something going on).</p>
<p>I’ll be coming in as a transfer - but only 56 credits were accepted, so i’m four short of third year status.
I’ll have to take 15 credits for the first semester, 18 credits for my second, 18 for my third, and 15 for my last semester (i’m still class of '13).</p>
<p>I have a pretty good work-ethic, and I’ve become pretty fantastic (if I do say so myself :p) at time management.</p>
<p>Do you guys think that’s manageable?</p>
<p>Transferring is different than being a first year, you at least have a decent idea of college work ethics. You still should definitely just take 15 your first semester, to get used to UVA course work, but you should be fine after that. If you struggle, you can always take summer classes between your 3rd and 4th year!</p>
<p>Thanks!
That makes me feel a little better.
There’s no way I can graduate, if I don’t take two extra classes so…
But that’s okay! I’m happy to be able to go to UVa in the first place!!</p>
<p>(& thanks for the Brown help. I’ve accepted the housing offer - yay!)</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure that this has been talked about or a link about this has been shared, but what are some interesting courses that you would recommend first years taking, schedule permitting?</p>
<p>If this was already discussed some where else, or if there is a link where this has been discussed, please be kind enough to share it with me :)</p>
<p>Aku:</p>
<p>I don’t think there has been too much discussion about “interesting” first year courses on here. The first years may have trouble getting into many of them, because of limited space. It is much easier to get into the popular non-required classes as a second year.</p>
<p>Most first years are mainly trying to get required classes out of the way. It also is good to take some classes first semester first year that cover some of the same material you have already have studied, to give you a little leeway in adjusting to college. </p>
<p>However, it is valuable to try to take one class that you will personally enjoy each semester. It also is valuable to check [url=<a href=“http://www.thecourseforum.com%5DtheCourseForum%5B/url”>http://www.thecourseforum.com]theCourseForum[/url</a>] to try to try to find profs who made routine courses interesting. </p>
<p>As a start, take a look at the first year seminars, which I believe are under “UMES”, if you google “UVa” and “Lou’s List”.</p>
<p>[Google[/url</a>]
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-virginia/178644-classes-not-miss-uva.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-virginia/178644-classes-not-miss-uva.html](<a href=“Google”>Google)</a>
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-virginia/1103393-cant-miss-classes.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-virginia/1103393-cant-miss-classes.html</a>
You’ll get a packet at orientation of some of the best classes first years can get into as well.</p>
<p>It is call USEM and those are good too.</p>
<p>Just wondering, do SEAS classes usually give out lots of handouts? For all of hs I used binders, but started using spiral notebooks for notes at the end and was wondering if I could continue with that or if I need a place to put things.</p>
<p>There generally aren’t a lot of handouts, it’s impractical to photocopy something 200 times when the professor could just stick it on the class website.</p>
<p>It really depends on the class – math classes will have barely any handouts, but STS classes will have more. You’ll probably end up deciding how to organize yourself on a class-by-class basis</p>
<p>Hi! I’m having trouble navigating the lous list site and have a couple questions…
- Some people were talking about freshman seminars of some sort in the thread earlier but I couldn’t find them, can anyone find a link to them?
- At the bottom of the home page of lous list it says ‘Special Listings’ are those classes that first years can take?
- I’m coming in with a couple AP scores (mostly in history, gov, and english) in the fall but not too many… and for my schedule I was thinking about taking the advanced academic writing course, a language class, a math or science class, and 2 more “fun” classes (at least for me) like international relations or anthropology. Is this a typical schedule? And are there any suggestions for easier math or science courses (like the physics class ‘how things work’)
- And something that kind of goes along with the question before…what sorts of classes count for math and sciences? Does an intro econ class count for math or an intro psych class count for a science?
I go to orientation next week and I’m slightly nervous for picking classes thanks so much for your help!</p>