Isita Talukar:
Hi my name is Isita Taluka and I’m a rising junior in electrical engineering and computer science at Berkeley Engineering. One tip I’d like to give, is to make sure you have a balanced schedule for your first semester. Giving yourself time to adjust to Berkeley is really important and that starts with having a manageable schedule. I would recommend having two technical classes and one humanities class to start. That way you have the minimum twelve units and you also fulfill the two techs per semester requirement, while getting to explore humanities as well.
Laura Vogt:
Thank you Isita for sharing your tip on balancing your schedule in your first semester.
Laura Vogt:
Hello, and welcome to The (Not So) Secret Guide to Being a Berkeley Engineer. I’m your host, Laura Vogt, the Associate Director of Marketing and Communications in the College of Engineering. The registration is in a couple of weeks for all of our new students, and transfer students begin registering on July 16th, first-year students on July 18th. So please make sure that you’ve checked your registration time in CalCentral, and we’ll talk about that a little bit later. But to go along with the registration information, I’m excited to have Mayra Rivera, the associate director of Advising and Policies in Engineering Student Services here today, and she’s going to give us tips on the registration process and what to keep in mind once you finish. Hi, Mayra. Welcome to the podcast.
Mayra Rivera:
Hi, Laura. Thanks for having me.
Laura Vogt:
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your role in Berkeley Engineering?
Mayra Rivera:
So, I’m Mayra. I am the Associate Director of Advising and Policies in Engineering Student Services, and I advise a cohort of students , then I also help more with advising and policies in combination with our director, Shareena Sampson. And I’m just excited to talk to you a little bit more about all kinds of tips today.
Laura Vogt:
And you’ve been with engineering for some time now, so you really understand the registration process.
Mayra Rivera:
Yes, and I was actually a student here too in undergrad, so I have first-hand experience, and I’m happy to say that your registration is much easier than mine was when I was a student, so you’ll be fine. We just got to figure out your classes.
Laura Vogt:
So let’s start off with a little bit about how to make sure they’re ready for registration. So before you begin, what are the things that are the most important that the students do?
Mayra Rivera:
So to start off with, I would say the most important thing is to make sure that you’ve actually finished GBA, and GBA is your Golden Bear Advising. So it’s part of your online orientation. So make sure you’ve completed that, you’ve taken your time to see it, and that you’ve had an email conversation with your ESS advisor about your proposed schedule. After that, I would also make sure that you look at the College of Engineering requirements for exam scores. Make sure you understand it. That is also part of your orientation, but revisit that, make sure that you feel good about what you’re getting credit for and if you have questions, you’ll talk to your ESS advisor about that.
The other part to highlight too is make sure that you’re planning on doing 12 to 15 units maybe your first semester. Some of this will vary depending on your major. Some majors have more requirements than other majors, but it’s really important that you take it slow your first semester. 12 units is our minimum number of units in the College of Engineering every semester, but it’s your first semester, you will be dealing with a new city, a new roommate potentially, new things that you just haven’t encountered before. So we just want to make sure that for the academic piece of it, you’re feeling really good about being able to balance those things. So just remember that 12 units is your minimum number of units.
Laura Vogt:
I feel like as coming in as especially a first year student or the freshman students, that you’ve had some kind of family support most likely coming here. And it’s going to be little things like you have to plan when to do laundry. You’re not necessarily going to have it at your fingertips or making sure that you’re getting enough sleep, because there’s not anybody there to make sure that like, “Hey, go to bed at a certain time,” or “Get up at this time.”
Mayra Rivera:
That is a hundred percent true, and something that I struggled with as a student, because you have freedom, but you also have a lot of other things that you may have not realized that happened at home just naturally. So I do think that less is more for your first semester while you’re navigating how to do laundry, where to go get food, all of these different things. But really it’s going to feel very differently for each student. So I would recommend just having a conversation with your advisor and then going from there.
Laura Vogt:
And last, I know that some students might already be thinking about changing majors or trying to do double majors or things like that. So what’s the important thing to remember when you’re setting up that schedule plan?
Mayra Rivera:
The most important thing to remember is that your major that you come in with declared, right? So every student comes in with a declared major. That’s the major that you need to be making progress towards. If you’re considering changing majors, considering a double major, you can talk to your ESS advisor about this to help you make a more detailed plan, but really make sure that you are enrolled in your major-related courses.
Laura Vogt:
And now we have to start actually building that schedule and getting it in our shopping cart. So what are the tips that you have as you’re building or looking for the courses and adding them in?
Mayra Rivera:
There’s a lot of tips. So I think the first one I’m just going to throw out there in general is you have a whole module on how do you schedule planner, how the enrollment center works, really make sure that you’re going back to that and you feel good because that’s something you’re going to use your whole time here. You don’t want to be at a disadvantage by not giving yourself the time to actually go through it. But if I were to say just a couple of tips, just in terms of starting off-
Laura Vogt:
Or things that you maybe have even seen that hold people up pretty regularly on that registration day when you’re nervous anyway?
Mayra Rivera:
Yeah. So I think a couple of things would be make sure that you know what the functions are. So if you’re clicking on View All to see all available sections, because you might think that you’re looking all the sections and you only see three of them, and you’re like, “Oh no, my schedule’s impossible. There’s no way,” but you actually might not even be seeing all of the possible combinations and options. So make sure you know how the system works, what the different buttons are, that you’re hitting View All for all the different sections, make sure that you’re signing up for a course that you have prerequisites for. I think that’s a really important thing to get yourself started in the right way. And you can check the prereqs for courses on the academic guide, so you can look at the catalog of classes and see it.
So make sure that you’re taking the right courses and you have the prereqs for those courses. The other thing too is you may have an ideal schedule planned, but by the time you start registering, that ideal schedule plan may go out the window. So you may need to have some backup classes in your shopping cart ready to go just in case the class that you wanted as your first pick filled up. And that’s pretty common with reading and composition classes. So take a look at that. Math lectures, there’s multiple math lectures. Maybe you were trying to avoid the 8:00 AM one, but that’s the one that’s open, so you do have to embrace that at least for your first semester.
So I would just make sure that you have backup classes and that you’re okay knowing that your ideal schedule today may not be the ideal schedule that you’ll be enrolled in. You might just have to make that sacrifice and take that 8:00 AM class this one semester. So I would just make sure that you know that going in, it is a stressful process for many students, but you can always talk to your advisor. A lot of us have drop-ins, you’ll be able to book appointments just to make sure that you feel good about the registration process in general.
Laura Vogt:
And I know one of the things that confused me when I started learning about the registration process at Berkeley is that the classes had a lecture and a discussion and a lab. So some of them, or I guess a majority of them, when you register for the lecture, it’s automatically giving you an option to sign up for the discussions or the labs. Chemistry 1A and 1AL is one of the only ones I think that you have to make sure you do it separately, but I know it just threw me off. Can you talk about a little [inaudible 00:07:43]?
Mayra Rivera:
Yeah. So it is a little different and complicated because some classes will have the lecture with your discussion and lab as you’re signing up for it. So let’s say you add it to your shopping cart, it’ll automatically prompt you to add an open discussion or an open lab. And so that’s really what can mess up your plan. Let’s say you have only one lab that fits beautifully into this ideal schedule of yours, but that one lab that you really wanted got full. So now you have to select the one that’s open. So know that for any class that has a multiple components to it, we’ll call it, it’ll automatically prompt you for that.
There are a few classes like Chem 1A, 1AL, like MSC 45 and MSC 45L that have the lab separately. That will just vary depending on what major you are and what requirements you are. But I think the important part is make sure that all the components of those particular classes actually match your schedule, because if you’re just looking at the lecture and ignoring the discussion, you might find later on that you’re going to have some time conflicts and the system won’t actually let you enroll if you have a time conflict. So you just want to avoid those problems now and thinking about different combinations that would work.
Laura Vogt:
And if a class like the chemistry 1A, 1AL, if you’re only able to get into either the lecture or the lab, is it okay to split it up into different semesters?
Mayra Rivera:
So I personally would recommend not taking just the lab your first semester. Technically it’s okay for you to do lecture and then the lab later, but a lot of students find taking the lecture and the lab and the same semester is way more helpful, because you’re actually applying what you’re learning, versus if you hold off on taking it later, one, it’ll be a different instructor, so what you learned previously might not match necessarily the same style that you’ve learned the class in, so it’s better just to take both of them at the same time if they’re required for your major. Now there are some majors that only require the Chem 1A lecture and not the lab portion, so you’ll want to double check your major requirements to see if you need to take both or if you just need to take the lecture portion.
Laura Vogt:
And yet we definitely covered it in Golden Bear Advising. But I’ll also have links on the podcast page too where they can find the requirements for each major. So if you want to go back and just look at that on our website, I’ll have the link there for you. You’ve highlighted a couple of times now that you want to make sure you take the class that’s available. So what do you do for wait lists? If there’s an option for a wait list, I know we want to… “Don’t do the wait list. Take the class.” But I know there’s going to be a time when maybe you end up with a wait list.
Mayra Rivera:
Yeah. I think wait lists for students are scary because there’s a lot of uncertainty with a wait list, but it’s important that, let’s say, you’re trying to enroll in Math 1A and the lecture you wanted is full. If the other lecture is open and has open seats, you want to get into that. And so the wait list there, I wouldn’t even bother wait listing yourself for the first lecture and go directly to the second lecture that has open seats. Now, if the class, both of these lectures are full, I would add yourself to the wait list, and it’s important to add yourself to the wait list because it tells the school like, “Hey, there’s a certain number of students that are interested in taking this class.” If there’s any flexibility to be able to expand a class and accommodate students, they won’t know that unless you’re on the wait list.
If it’s a core major requirement for your major, so let’s say it’s math, you need math or everything, you definitely want to add yourself to the wait list, and then you can even contact the math department or your ESS advisor so that we know that this is an issue.
So in general, I would say if there’s an open lecture, take it. If one of them is at 8:00 AM, it’s not the most desirable, but it’s better that you get into a class that you really need than hang out on the wait list. If it’s a class that’s required for your major, you want to add yourself to the wait list to sort of ping the department that, “Hey, I really need this class.” So if there’s flexibility, we can try to make that happen for you.
Laura Vogt:
If there’s a class that has multiple discussion sections, do you want to try, if you’re having to go on a wait list, do you want to choose the discussion section that has the least number of people in the wait list for that discussion section, to give you a better chance of getting into the class?
Mayra Rivera:
Yes, that’s correct. So if you have to add yourself to the wait list for a lecture and the discussion components still have open seats, or there are some discussions that have less students on the wait list, you want to go for those because those are going to maximize your chances of getting into the class. There’s a lot of students who make changes to their schedules. Some students drop classes because they’re shopping around, still figuring out what their final schedule looks like. So in general, if you have to add yourself to the wait list, choose a discussion or a lab that has open seats or the least number of students on the wait list for those different sections.
Laura Vogt:
And I know some students, once they go through and do the registration process, they’ll end up being on a wait list for a class that still shows that there’s available seats. Do you know what are the reasons that might happen?
Mayra Rivera:
Yeah. So there’s different number of reasons that could happen. One of them could be that there’s a time conflict, and if you have a time conflict, you’ll never be enrolled off of the wait list. System will still let you add yourself to the wait list, but you won’t actually be enrolled off the wait list because there’s a time conflict. So sometimes, that’s why you see that happen. Other times, and especially I find this to be true, the day of enrollment. So the day of enrollment, everyone’s enrolling that day at different times, and sometimes the system is just trying to catch up because there’s hundreds of students enrolling at the same time. So in your enrollment center it might say that it’s open or you might see it on classes.berkeley.edu, but sometimes it just takes a little bit for that data to catch up if everyone’s enrolling at the same time. And it’ll prompt you to add yourself to the wait list. And in general, you want to add yourself to the wait list for any class that’s a core requirement that you need to take.
Laura Vogt:
And when you’re registering, there’s a unit cap to how much you could register for, correct?
Mayra Rivera:
Yes, that’s correct. 17.5 units is the unit cap for your first phase of enrollment at Berkeley.
Laura Vogt:
So I know that with the wait list, you kind of want to make sure that you get enrolled in all of your classes and then do maybe the wait list one. So you are in classes. Again, we want you in the classes. And then add the wait list one so you don’t meet that enrollment cap too early.
Mayra Rivera:
Yes, correct. And anything that you are added on the wait list for will count towards that unit cap. So just keep that in mind. In the ideal world, we want you to sign up and be enrolled in all of your classes, but if you are in a situation where you need to add yourself to a wait list, that’s okay. Wait lists, I would say embrace them. They are normal. They will give the department more information saying that you need it and then we’ll just kind of work through your plan together.
Laura Vogt:
Is there a place to find the most up-to-date registration data?
Mayra Rivera:
So in general, the place to find the most up-to-date registration data is classes.berkeley.edu. Some students like to look at Berkeley time, but that is something that isn’t always the most up-to-date. So in general, that’s going to be the best place to look at.
Laura Vogt:
I know we suggest to students not to do swaps because there can be problems later if you do them, but if you do do a swap, definitely make it so it’s the last thing you do, because the swap class will count towards that unit cap that we talked about earlier, the 17.5 units. But what are the problems and the concerns with doing a swap?
Mayra Rivera:
Yeah, that’s a good question. A lot of times a student can forget they did a swap. Let’s say you did a swap for your math class, and the system, what it does is that it will drop you from the class that you initiated the swap with if that other class now has space that you want it to swap it with.
The problem is sometimes you forget because enrollment day can be so hectic, and later on you’re looking at the schedule and you’re like, “What? I was dropped from this class? How did this happen?” So in general, if you don’t want that to happen to you, then I would say just add yourself to the wait list versus actually doing a swap, because I’ve had many students be in that situation where they thought they were just added on the wait list normally, but then it dropped them from a class because they initiated a swap, and now they have to add themselves to the wait list of the original class that they wanted.
So in general, I would say stay away from the swap feature just because if you forget or if you decide you really want to keep that class and kind of swap your classes and mess with your ideal schedule if you happen to forget, but the wait list, adding yourself to the wait list is just the safest bet for that.
Laura Vogt:
I feel like there’s been a horror story of somebody who forgot about the swap and then after two weeks of school and we hit the add drop deadline, suddenly they switched and they’re now enrolled in the class that they’ve never been to, and… aah.
Mayra Rivera:
That has definitely happened. I can confirm that that horror story is real. So that’s usually why I tell students to stay away from the swap feature. If you’re even remotely unsure about whether or not you want to keep the class, then I would not do a swap.
Laura Vogt:
So I think the number one tip that we really want to really focus on is being flexible. Your first course choice, it might not be available, things are going to change a lot, especially during the day of registration. So this is why your GBA schedule included backups when we went through and did it, and be ready to change your schedule around if you need to. It’s not a bad thing, and you can always work with your ESS advisor later to try to fix it up.
And you do have the rest of the summer to do more tweaking with your schedule if you need to. And then we already talked about being enrolled, be enrolled. If you have a class, be enrolled in the class. You want to make sure that you’re getting your classes and you’re getting your units. You don’t want to put yourself into a situation where you can’t get something that you need to move forward with your education. One of the questions I was going to ask about is with the math classes, do you need to build on them as you go, or can you switch around like take 54 before 53 or any 1B before 1A. Is there a set way that you want to do that?
Mayra Rivera:
Yes. That’s a good question. So you definitely want to follow prerequisites. So Math 1A is the prereq for Math 1B. So do not jump into Math 1B if you have not completed Math 1A. For Math 53 and 54, the prereqs or both of those classes are Math 1A and Math 1B. So in theory, you could take 54 before 53, or 53 before 54. As long as you’re following the prereqs that are listed for the courses, it’s fine. It’s just most students think 53 is a prereq for 54 just in terms of sequence of numbers. But that’s why it’s important for you to double check your prereqs. But you can take 53 before 54, vice versa.
Laura Vogt:
And if you run into any technical issues on the day of registration, what’s your best hope to get help with those?
Mayra Rivera:
Yeah, so the day of registration, if it’s a technical issue, you definitely want to communicate with CalCentral. So we do have the SIS team, which is a student information systems team, that will help. And you can contact them via email at sishelp@berkeley.edu, or you can open up a case with them. Oftentimes there’s also a way to get a hold of them over phone. The other thing too is the day of registration, a lot of advisors will have drop-ins. So if there is something that maybe you think is a technical issue, you’re not really sure, you’re not sure who to ask, you can always ask your advisor as well, and then they can confirm whether that’s normal, or if it really is a technical issue and you need to contact the student information systems office, so you can do that.
Laura Vogt:
And then does registration close at some point over the summer where they can’t… Is there a time when they’re not able to make any changes to their schedule?
Mayra Rivera:
So there is a time when students cannot make changes to their schedule, and that is basically the gap in between the end of a new student’s first phase and the adjustment period, which the gap is only like a weekend. So your enrollment appointment time that’s on your CalCentral signals the beginning of your enrollment appointment time. I think there’s a lot of confusion for students where they think that’s the only time they can enroll, and it’s like that is literally only the beginning of your enrollment phase.
So if you add yourself on the wait list, if you need to add a different class, you can still continue to make changes. You just want to make sure that you’re ready to go at the start of your enrollment appointment time to have the best chances of getting into your first pick of classes. But it doesn’t mean that you can’t make later on. You can still make changes to your schedule even once a semester gets started up until the add drop deadline. It’s just we want to finalize your schedule as soon as possible just to make sure that you’re getting into all the classes that you need.
Laura Vogt:
Is there anything we haven’t talked about that you would like to add?
Mayra Rivera:
I think one thing that I just want to highlight is the day of enrollment, I think it’s a very stressful day for students, so I just want to remind everyone to try your best to not freak out. Know that if there’s a wait list, that’s okay, embrace it. If you are on the wait list for more than one class, that is still okay. The best thing that you can do is try to get into the most number of classes that are required for your major, and then work with your advisor so that you can get into the classes that you need. If you’re still on a wait list, a lot of students get scared that, “Oh no, I can’t get into math and I’m not going to be able to be an engineering student because math is important for everything.” But this is just the beginning of enrollment.
So if a lecture gets full, if you’re on the wait list, the department needs to get some time to be able to see if that’s an option to expand. So it’s not something that’s going to be resolved on enrollment day itself. So don’t freak out that first day. Embrace it, talk to your advisor. We’ll talk about different plans. And know that if it costs expense, it’s going to require a little bit of time for us to get all the pieces together. So I think that’s the number one thing that happens on enrollment day itself, is everyone gets really nervous that their engineering career’s over before it even got started. But there is a process to these things. It just takes a little bit of time. So long as you’re communicating with us, you’ll be fine.
Laura Vogt:
Yeah, yeah, we have the requirement that we want everyone to be able to finish in four years for first years and in two-and-a-half years for transfers. So we are doing all that we can to make sure that you can get into the classes that you need to make that happen. So we’re here for you, we’re supporting you. It might just take a little patience.
Mayra Rivera:
Yes, definitely. We’re trying our best to make sure that you are supported and that does require just different pieces, whether it’s making sure that we have more tutoring support if we’re going to be expanding more classes. So all of those are pieces that aren’t necessarily something that students think about, but that’s just the reason why there can be a little bit of a delay. So just don’t be scared of the wait list. You’ll all be fine.
Laura Vogt:
Well, thank you so much for being here today to talk about registration and tips and getting ready for those July, what is it, July 16th and 18th.
Mayra Rivera:
Yes. No problem. Thank you for having me. I look forward to hopefully getting to meet some of the new students soon.
Laura Vogt:
Awesome. And thank you everyone for tuning in to The (Not So) Secret Guide to Being a Berkeley Engineer. We’ll be back next week with more info and resources for your time here at Berkeley Engineering.
