Like many college students, one of my goals as a freshman was to graduate in four years or fewer. An important aspect of working towards this goal has been figuring out how to plan my classes. I’m not an academic advisor, but here are the tips and tricks that I’ve found most useful.
Decide on an overall vision for your academic experience
What do you want to gain from your college classes? Everyone will answer this differently. For example, I decided to focus on classes for the first two years of college and research/work experience for the last two years. Because of this, I took more units per quarter during my first two years than my last two years, but I spent more time on work, internships, and volunteering during my last two years. Maybe you want to ease into classes by taking a lighter load during your freshman year, or maybe you want to spread out your general education requirements so each quarter has variety. This tip is obviously flexible (new factors such as COVID-19 might come into play throughout college), but it will help you to create an outline for your plan.
Create a spreadsheet
I recommend making a spreadsheet to lay out your plan because spreadsheets are easy to modify. I like to do this by designating a column for each quarter (fall, winter, and spring) at the top and several rows for each year (freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior) on the left. For example, if I wanted to see my sophomore winter quarter classes, I would start at the left until I found my sophomore rows, then move to the right until I found the column for winter quarter. Then, I write one class in each cell, making sure that all of my major, minor, and GE requirements are included. Each cell doesn’t have to have a specific class right away. For example, I used to write, “upper division major elective” in several of my junior and senior year cells. You can also keep some cells blank and add classes to your spreadsheet as needed. If you would like to, you can start with the outline on http://plans.ucsd.edu/. Just be sure to account for credits from AP classes, community college, etc. if you have them.
Add up your total units
I leave one cell open next to each class and write the number of units that the class provides in that cell. Then, I create a formula in a cell under the rows of classes to easily add up my total units. This ensures that I will have enough units, but not too many, to graduate. You can do this by writing “=SUM()” in the cell in Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets and putting the corresponding columns between the parentheses.
Be flexible
Life happens. Maybe a class filled up before you could register for it, maybe a class’s time overlapped with that of another class in your schedule, or maybe a class was canceled. Just make adjustments as needed.
Check the schedule of classes
Many departments tentatively list, at the beginning of the year, which classes will be offered each quarter. Check the websites of the departments that are relevant to you (major, minor, GE, etc.) to look up which quarter your required classes (or electives that are important to you) are offered. For example, if you know that a required class is only offered once a year, you will want to ensure that it’s in the appropriate quarter on your plan. Oftentimes, these classes occur during the same quarter every year; in this case you can plan ahead even further, but this is not guaranteed.
Take note of prerequisites and corequisites
If a class requires a prerequisite, make sure that the prerequisite class is listed first in your plan (before the class that requires it), and if a class requires a corequisite, make sure the corequisite class is listed in the same quarter as the class that requires it.
Check for overlap
If you want to overlap any major/minor/GE classes, check your college and major/minor department’s policies before adding them.
Account for study abroad, summer classes, and other factors
The study abroad program that I wanted to do was sadly canceled due to COVID-19, but I originally incorporated it into my plan. For example, one of my required classes was only offered during fall quarter, but I wanted to study abroad during the fall of my junior year. Therefore, I took the class during the fall quarter of my sophomore year.
Although these tips might seem stressful at first, they’ve given me a lot of peace of mind in knowing that I can meet my academic goals. However, if you face an unexpected obstacle and don’t meet one of your goals, don’t stress about it. Just do the best that you can. Good luck with class selection!