<p>sort of confused on how this works? am i just selecting classes for the whole year? or whole term? what is this about a chemistry lab? am i supposed to list my preferences for the three different terms? do i have to do these frontier course selections? please help i dont get it.</p>
<p>Should this be in the Berkeley forum? Or did you decide on Caltech? If so, I have no idea what form you’re talking about, but I’m sure it’s nothing to be overly worried about…</p>
<p>cghen, The institute requirement selection is for students that are starting Caltech in the fall.<br>
300Runner, my son did his already - he just picked his class for the 1st quarter for humanities, noting his 1st, 2nd & 3rd choice. He checked off that he’d do a chem lab winter quarter. I don’t think you have to do a frontier course selection. He did pick a frontier class but he decided not to do a P.E. course (I wanted him to pick P.E. - I thought it would be a great way to meet other people and spend some time doing something besides problem sets but he didn’t want to). It was a little bit confusing. He just tried to keep it under 45 units I think. I hope that helps.</p>
<p>So far as I can remember, the form doesn’t do anything at all. Regardless of what prefrosh put on their selection form, they still have to do 1st term course registration on 9/17 the exact same way every other Techer does. Then for 2nd and 3rd term, they have to register at the same time as all the other Techers.</p>
<p>I thought we were supposed to arrive at Caltech on 9/17, though. Does that put students arriving later in the day at a disadvantage for choosing classes, or are freshmen special?</p>
<p>I think the Registrar tries to pre-register you into several of the core classes, but then you have to go ahead and register for the rest of your classes and can still switch classes in or out. flierdeke, the only classes where there may be some advantage to registering early would be the frosh humanities classes, which usually fill up pretty fast. And even then…you can always go up to the instructor with an add card if you really want to take that class.</p>
<p>Oaklandmom, what do you mean by frontier course? I’ve never heard that term before…</p>
<p>According to the freshman requirement selection form, frontier courses are “weekly seminars by faclty members who disuss their area of research.” They include BI002, Current Research in Biology, 6 unites; Ch010a, Frontiers in Chemistry, 3 units; E002, Frontiers in Engineering, 1 unit; Ph010, Frontiers in Physics, 3 units.</p>
<p>Oh, we call them pizza classes because you get free pizza for listening to people talk.</p>
<p>yup, pizza classes, except Physics doesn’t give pizza. It’s more of a “the monday after your math set was due and so you were up till 4am and it’s also after lunch so you’re sleepy anyway everyone is asleep class” On the plus side you get awesome speakers, i.e. Kip Thorne (a couple weeks later he had a talk to give at Beckman Auditorium and you get to wait in long lines to get in)</p>
<p>so really, i should just put 1,2,3 for my top humanities, 1,2,3 for my top electives, pick a chem lab for like the winter, throw in a frontier class somewhere, and then in the end it probably doesn’t make that big of a difference so don’t worry about it?</p>
<p>Let’s put it this way. I ended up completely changing my schedule when I got to campus because the classes they signed me up for were not at all what I had wanted. (The first schedule they sent me had me underunited with no humanities class.) The only thing that really matters is to order your hum prefrence because those have limited enrollment.</p>
<p>For “pizza classes,” do students do any work? Or do they just listen to lectures? If it’s only a matter of listening to lectures, do you count those classes in the total for the recommended 45 hours, or do you figure that three hours listening to a good speaker while eating pizza is merely relaxation?</p>
<p>BTW, it’s good to hear that Caltech doesn’t serve pizza to sleeping students. Otherwise the already steep health insurance charges might go up when the health center encounters a swarm of choking students.</p>
<p>P.S. The misspelling of “faculty” was mine, not Caltech’s.</p>
<p>i dont get the units. What does 9 units (3-0-6) mean? I mean, particularly, i dont get what the (3-0-6) is talking about</p>
<p>3-0-6 means that you can expect 3 hours of lecture, 0 hours of lab, and 6 hours of homework per week for that class.</p>
<p>Note that the last digit often bears no relation to reality. ;-)</p>
<p>300Runner, you might want to also join the forum your class set up:</p>
<p><a href=“http://caltech2010.houseofcheesecake.com/[/url]”>http://caltech2010.houseofcheesecake.com/</a></p>
<p>A lot of the questions you’ve asked here are covered in much more detail there, and you’ll be able to meet some of your fellow students.</p>
<p>In the physics seminar class we had to read some material and prepare a couple of questions for the next lecturer. Pretty much, a half an hour of work at most that could be done over lunch. For some the Chem pizza class I think the only thing required was the lab tour after the speaker which was an hour long or so.</p>
<p>Pretty much the classes are really nice, relaxation compared to other classes and you have a good speaker and sometimes pizza. Sign up for as many as you can frosh!</p>
<p>Ch 10 was great for me. Free Freddo’s pizza every thursday for listening to some of the biggest names in chemistry. Most importantly, not having to use declining balance for one meal a week frees up some needed funds for the coffee house.</p>
<p>so could i get away with taking 43 units by not taking an elective but instead taking 3 frontier classes?!?!</p>
<p>Could you give me your extra units? I’m having the opposite problem–I’d love to sign up for frontier classes, but don’t want them eating up units for “real” classes. Ah well. Plenty of interesting lectures anyway, and it might even be possible to sneak into pizza classes given that I’m vegan and wouldn’t steal any food =P</p>
<p>flierdeke, I’m sure there would be no problem with you attending pizza classes without actually being enrolled for them. In general I doubt professors would care if you weren’t actually enrolled for a class but pizza classes are especially laid back anyway.</p>
<p>300Runner, I don’t know what you mean by “get away with taking 43 units”. No one really cares how many units you take. I think the minimum is 36, but keeping on top of core requirements should meet that.</p>