Cynthia: For the love of G*d, please plan them before your enrollment window. I think it’s especially important if you have a later window. I remember people being frustrated in class because the classes they wanted were full, so planning allows you to prepare backups for your backups. There are a few different tools for you to use, which I linked under “useful links.” Personally, I use ZotCourse as I like the aesthetics the best. I put all of my potential schedules on one calendar, color code each lecture and discussion, and delete the ones that are either not available or clash with others. To save, I enter my ID number followed by a code that tells me what quarter and year. I also have a Google Sheet that keeps track of the courses that I have taken and plan on taking as well as what grade I got in the class, my unit count, and my GPA (color coded of course). You don’t have to go to the same extent, but I highly suggest that you have some way to keep track of your classes. You can take your major’s four-year plan and make personal adjustments. The spreadsheet will help you stay on track and might help decide whether to double major, minor, and/or the minimum amount of classes you can take per quarter. If you don’t know where to start, feel free to ask me. I’ll show you what mine looks like.
Jessica: What Cynthia said. PLAN. I was really overwhelmed when I first looked at the long list of classes I would have to take, but having some kind of plan or spreadsheet to keep track of everything helped relieve a lot of that stress.
Vy: Yes! Plan beforehand. If you’re extra like me, have a 4-yr plan ready! Tbh, planning for the future is stressful, but for sure it’ll pay off in the end! If you don’t know where to start, go to UCI general catalogue, look for your major and its 4 year plan (if they have it), and plan your 4-yr accordingly. Be flexible and allow room for changes.
Michelle: Yes, definitely plan! Once you get started planning, you won’t even realize that hours have gone by at times ! I remember days Jessica and I would spend hours in the dining halls scrolling through ratemyrprofessor, ZotCourse, WebReg, and so my other resources, giving each other advice and complaining at how many 8AMs we had to take :) My fall quarter, I was in a late SPOP session, so since I didn’t get to plan ahead, you are restricted on the classes you can take since they fill up really fast, especially the general ed ones.