<p>After meeting with all our advisors? Doesn’t seem like we’ll have a lot of time before classes start on Sept 2nd.</p>
<p>You have a lot of time but it will be filled with things to do. you don’t actually register until the end of shopping period. or well you register through OCS which won’t be open until probably August 31st or something but you don’t finalize until the end of shopping period. i don’t know when that is.</p>
<p>Hannah: sgt hints at the fabulous Yale institution known as “shopping period”. Just peek and attend what you want (except for upper level courses which require pre-reqs). In about 8-10 days after classes begin, you submit your completed registration form.</p>
<p>(at least this is how it used to work for me – maybe there may be more online registration/submission nowadays)</p>
<p>The basic idea for registering is what T26E4 says. You attend whatever classes you want for the first week+ and then submit a registration form by whatever the deadline is (you’ll be told by your college dean during orientation). Schedules are filled out online, via OCS (which will show up in your SIS menu on August 31 or thereabouts), and finalized there, but a hard copy must still be submitted to your residential college dean, signed by you, your adviser, and (as a freshman) by your freshman counselor.</p>
<p>How does shopping period work in terms of homework and textbooks? I heard you have to do the homework for every class you consider attending. And would oyu need to get textbooks for them as well?</p>
<p>also, is there often no tenough space in classes? Is signing up early something necessary to get into the classes you want?</p>
<p>There is never any advantage to submitting your course schedule early. Some classes may require preregistration, but that doesn’t commit you to taking the class. When classes are space-limited, generally only a problem in seminars, the department/professor will have a procedure for determining who can take it - submitting your course schedule early won’t help. That said, it can sometimes be advantageous to sign up for a section as early as possible, in order to make sure the times you like don’t fill up. But signing up for a section doesn’t require finalizing your schedule.</p>
<p>As for homework and textbooks, there is homework assigned during shopping period, though there are basically no classes except for language classes that will require you to turn work in. That means, theoretically you can catch up with reading once you’ve decided what you are taking. In a class with an expensive textbook, you’ll probably want to be sure you’re taking it before you go out and buy the book. Also, for the first couple class sessions, homework will normally be relatively light, which gives you some leeway to put off your initial assignments. Ideally, by later in shopping period, you should probably be certain of a couple classes even if you haven’t figured out your whole schedule, so you can at least do the work for them.</p>
<p>awesome, i’m so excited!=) thanks for the insight into shopping period!</p>
<p>Thanks so much! I was a little worried for shopping period, but now it sounds great!</p>
<p>Can you explain a little more what you mean about not being able to shop upper-level classes w/ pre-reqs? Don’t most classes have pre-reqs? What about L5 language classes?</p>
<p>You can mine the course listings but you can imagine a class like a mid-level Economics class like Econometrics being not offered to students who haven’t taken intro level Econ classes. You might be able to sit in on the class for a few days but I doubt your Dean would sign off on your taking the class unless you were able to convince him/her and get the prof to allow it too.</p>
<p>Most intro level classes or “general” classes are open to anyone. For example a 200 level History class on the French Revolution – anyone could shop and eventually enroll in that class.</p>
<p>Language is different in that the departments test and then place all students.</p>