Diary of an Undecided Freshman: Picking GE’s

As an undecided freshman who had – and still has- no idea what she wants to study or what she wants to be, freshman orientation was crazy, absolutely crazy. I was completely unsure about what I wanted to study and had no idea what a GE was. So here is my completely random schedule that consists of GE after GE: Spanish 150, Climate Change,Wireless Computing Technologies for Medicine with Legal and Ethical Implications, and Law, Politics, and Public Policy.   

When I walked into the registration room at 12:50 with my laptop and the perfect schedule on my desktop, I thought my dream schedule would be a reality at 1:00 p.m.–but I was wrong. I did not get any of the GE classes I wanted because (1) I did not realize some of the classes consisted of a lecture and discussion and (2) I did not sign up quickly enough to get the GSEM I wanted. Resultantly, I had to completely redo my schedule and I panicked. I thought to myself, “here goes another year of no classes that I like.” Unfortunately, that statement could not be more true.

I am not a math or science person by any means and I was not looking forward to taking those classes. I thought why not take those GE’s when I am a senior and it does not really matter. But somehow I ended up being persuaded by an OA (orientation advisor) to take a quantitative reasoning and physical science GE after my schedule bounced. My only requirement was to take Spanish because for some odd reason undecided students are required to do this before declaring a major!

Since I am horrible at math, I decided to take Wireless Computing Technologies for Medicine with Legal and Ethical Implications because I thought I would not have to do “real” math and I would get to learn about the crazy world of technology. Honestly, I could not be more glad I am taking it because it is a small class and so I have gotten to make lots of friends and learn a lot.

I decided to take Climate Change because I hear about it all the time on the news and I wanted to know what really does it mean. The class is hard and sometimes I regret taking it, but at least I will leave freshman year with an extensive understanding of the atmosphere. Lastly, I took Law, Politics, and Public Policy because I wanted to give pre-law a try since both my parents are lawyers. I am glad I gave it a try because I realized I do not want to be a lawyer and politics are not for me.

Yes, I am not particularly interested in the majority of the classes I am currently taking; however, I am glad that by the end of my freshman year I will never have to take another language, science, or math class. I also learned it is important to take classes you GENUINELY like, not classes that are later in the day or ensure that you will not have classes on Friday.

So if I have any advice for incoming undecided freshman it would be this: take the GE’s you dislike the most in your first semester and take classes in each category that excite you and you will be easy to understand. Make sure you take classes you like because you only have this opportunity once!