I’m an undeclared social sciences major and I’m going to be attending UCLA’s orientation in late August. I’m planning on majoring in either Econ or Political Science. I’m a little stressed about signing up for classes because one of my friends who’s an undeclared physical sciences major told me that all the harder curriculum classes are reserved for students who’ve declared their majors (he got stuck with taking Greek Lit, Music Appreciation and a class about Dinosaurs…), and another one of my friends described the class selection process as a “race”. Can anyone offer advice on how to make sure I can take classes that are pertinent to my major so I don’t graduate in six years? Should I declare my major ASAP? Where should I do research? Etc. Thanks for all your help.
Your friend is mistaken, no one but engineering and nursing is in their majors yet. Everyone else is undeclared. Pre majors only help place you in orientation groups and what classes to pick. They reserve a certain amount of spots for classes for each session. Be flexible on what times and professors. He prob didn’t have enough options for his classes in his planner and was set in certain classes. Also undeclared physical science means that there’s a lot of flexibility on what he can take. He could’ve taken a math class easily there are so many spots for them. Don’t worry you’ll be fine.
Honestly it doesn’t really matter what you take first quarter as a Econ/Poli-sci major. There are only a handful of classes required to be accepted into these majors and you can easily take them in 2 years or less. Ideally you’ll take classes that count towards breadth requirements and perhaps one towards entry into the major, but even if not you are still building up units towards graduation.
For students entering in 2014 a whopping 80% were able to graduate in 4 years according to https://www.apb.ucla.edu/campus-statistics/graduation-ttd so any stories you hear about people being stuck because they couldn’t get classes are just that, stories. You have nothing to worry about.