Easy Physical or Biological Science Breadth at Uc Berkeley for Passno Pass

Tips for Choosing Courses at UC Berkeley

The most common question from incoming first-semester freshmen tend to be about course selections.

This isn't surprising, given that college opens up thousands of class choices, which is quite a few more than the couple of AP or IB courses you may have gotten to choose from in high school.

So, here's my short guide on how to pick your courses at Berkeley in your first semester!

1. Know that some classes will already be full.

The first thing to know is that some of the classes you may want to take will already be full. It's unfortunate, but it'll also be something you learn to get used to during your time at Cal.

The situation is particularly acute for freshmen because everyone else (sophomores, juniors and seniors) have already had their enrollment slots. Many important classes that are prerequisites for your major will be full or close to full. Econ 1, for example, is required for a variety of majors, such as Economics and Business. Just a few days before enrollment, the class is already 95% full.

So, make sure that you check before enrolling on whether the class you want to take is already full. You can do this using websites such as Berkeleytime, or by checking on the Berkeley Academic Guide. If some classes aren't full yet but seem close to full, make sure that you find some open backup classes so that you don't panic when your enrollment slot comes and your first choice is closed.

Of course, you can also choose to be waitlisted. The general advice is that the top 20% of the waitlist tends to get in the class (but this is by no means guaranteed). If you do play the waitlist game, make sure that you enroll in a section with the smallest waitlist — your ability to get in the class depends on getting in the section, not the lecture. (8 AM sections tend to be least popular!)

2. Make a list of all the prerequisites you need.

Prerequisite courses are the courses you must take to declare your major. Make sure that you research this! Here are the prerequisites to apply to the Haas School of Business.

1. UGBA 10
2. Math 16A and Math 16B or Math 1A and Math 1B
3. Economics 1 or 2
4. Statistics 20 or 21 or Statistics 131A or 134
5. English Reading & Composition A & B

This way, you can plan out which courses you will take during your first two years at Berkeley. For example, if you do intend to apply to Haas, you could take Math 16A and English R&C part A during your first semester.

You should also make a list of prerequisites for other backup majors, in case you decide to change your mind or are rejected from your first choice major. If this happens, you won't regret your decision to take courses that prepare you for other majors as well.

3. Look at other college requirements, such as breadth requirements and American Cultures.

In addition to courses you need for your major, you'll be required to take courses to fulfill breadth requirements. In L&S, these breadths would be the L&S Seven Course Breadth. You also need to take care of university-wide graduation requirements, which are listed here.

It's important to remember that you have all four years here at Berkeley to fulfill these requirements, and so there's no need to rush them back. Staggering your breadth courses out, for example, can help add variety to your course choices and allow you to explore classes outside your usual area of interest. But it's also a good idea to get some classes out of the way earlier rather than later, such as Reading & Composition.

4. Now create a list of planned classes!

Once you've made a list of prerequisite classes, and breadth courses or other general requirements you want to take in your first semester, you can create a schedule! Use the schedule planner in CalCentral to help you out.

Try to make sure there's some variety in your classes. If you want to major in something STEM-y, taking four technical courses in your first semester is usually not a good idea; instead, you might want to do two technical major prerequisites (eg. CS61A and Math 53) plus two literature/humanities classes (eg. R&C A and American History) so that there's balance.

Again, make sure you have back-up classes ready in case your desired courses have filled up by the time your enrollment slot is here.

5. Ten other first-semester tips…

1. When choosing a Reading & Composition class, courses from departments such as Comparative Literature and Rhetoric with the code "R1A" tend to be more difficult than classes from other departments (such as German or Italian) with codes R4A or R5A. Of course, this isn't always the case, but that's a general tip!
2. You may feel unconfident about some breadth classes outside your usual area of proficiency. For example, you may intend to major in English literature but you also want to take Astronomy C10 to fulfill the physical science requirement: is this feasible? You'll be pleased to learn that during the semester, you can switch the class to the Pass/No Pass option, where you only have to obtain a C- to earn a Pass without any impact on your GPA. (You can only take so many P/NP units though, so be careful!)
3. The transition from high school to Berkeley may be difficult, especially if you're used to small class sizes. Consider taking a freshman seminar! These classes meet in small groups and allow you to interact closely with a faculty member.
4. How many units should you take? Some freshmen take 13 while others take as many as 18. The usual advice is to err on the side of caution: use your first semester to adapt to Berkeley, rather than struggle with classes and screw up your grades. If you do decide to take 13, this will probably mean taking 3 4-unit courses and then adding a 1 unit Decal or seminar.
5. Courses numbered 1–99 are lower-division courses and 100–199 are upper division courses. First-semester freshmen are usually not advised to take upper-division courses. You'll have plenty of time to take those later on.
6. Make sure you check which courses you can waive with your AP or IB credits! You really don't want to be doing Reading & Composition if you already did AP or IB Literature. International students also don't have to complete requirements such as American History and American Institutions.
7. Be realistic. Are you a morning person? If you're not, taking an 8 AM breadth class every day is probably not going to work because you'll end up skipping every lecture. Do you like having classes back-to-back, or do you prefer having gaps in between? Plan those out.
8. Take RateMyProfessors with a grain of salt. Yes, those reviews can be helpful, but it's also not infrequent that students choose a class because a professor has brilliant reviews and then the lectures turn out to be a snorefest.
9. About that AC requirement: sometimes people ask whether you can use a course to fulfill both AC and a breadth. You absolutely can! Integrative Biology 35AC is a popular first-semester freshman course and it fulfills both the biological science requirement and American Cultures, for example.
10. Definitely make use of BerkeleyTime. In addition to showing how full a course is, BerkeleyTime can tell you about grade distributions and the average grade for each course (for those concerned about maintaining a good GPA).

I hope this helps!

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Source: https://medium.com/theory-of-berkeley/tips-for-choosing-courses-at-uc-berkeley-3db1d15236a0

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