Choosing Courses

Choosing your courses is one of your first—and probably most important—tasks as you head off to college. It will affect every aspect of your academic and social life while you're at school. Here are some guiding principles to keep in mind as you plan your semester.

The Course Catalog is Your Friend
Although about as exciting as the phone book, your school's course catalog is your roadmap to a successful first semester. The typical course catalog provides information on core requirements and major requirements, lists courses, course descriptions, professors, and meeting times. Within the department listings, courses are probably numbered according to difficulty, beginning with introductory-level courses and prerequisites and ending with more advanced seminars or individual readings. Pore through the course catalog and mark off possibilities.

Use Your Academic Advisor
Most colleges assign you a freshman academic advisor, probably a faculty member chosen randomly, or based on the prospective major you put on your application. By your sophomore year, as your interests develop and you get to know faculty members, you'll probably get to choose your advisor. But for now, it's hit or miss. Take the initial steps—be aggressive, make appointments, and ask questions. If your advisor isn't helpful, your academic dean, other freshmen, and older students might be.

Cut to the Core
Core requirements typically mandate that you take one or more courses in each of several subjects or areas, such as philosophy, the fine arts, the social sciences, mathematics, and the laboratory sciences. Whatever your situation, get the darn things out of the way early. You don't want to be stuck taking three science classes in your final semester or dealing with a foreign language requirement when you'd rather be deciding on or taking classes for your major. Take the requirements for what they're meant to be: An opportunity to experiment, to add breadth to your education, and to take courses that just might spark your interest.

Take placement exams and find out if Advanced Placement credit can get you out of a particular requirement. Maybe the five years of swimming lessons your mom railroaded you into can spare you a term of ballroom dancing to meet your gym requirement.

Be the Master of Your Schedule
As a general rule, you don't want to overload your schedule with either too many humanities classes or too many math and science classes. Literature, history, and humanities-type classes tend to lay the reading and papers on thick, while science, math, or econ professors may bombard you with time-consuming and intensive weekly problem sets. Five problem sets due in one week versus five papers—it's hard to decide which is worse. Save yourself the anguish of finding out by keeping your schedule fairly balanced, both in terms of subject areas and course requirements.

In addition, consider your personality and habits. Don't schedule an 8:00 a.m. biology lab if you know you never see the light of day until 10:00 a.m. Also, consider the social life. An 8:30 p.m. Thursday philosophy class may not be so attractive if all your friends generally go out Thursday nights. No, we're not saying put your social schedule ahead of your academic one. We're just being realistic. If the temptation to skip is even moderate, chances are you'll skip. This could present big problems later on. You know yourself best. Schedule accordingly.

Experiment
College, especially your first year, is a time to experiment. If your school has a pass/fail option, take advantage of it to explore courses you've had no exposure to. But whatever you do, if something in the course catalog catches your eye, don't avoid it simply because you know little about the subject. That random course in cultural anthropology could turn into one of the best classes you ever take. It could even turn into your major.

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