The summer before starting college was one of my absolute favorites. Even now, I look back fondly on those golden months of traveling, seeing family and hanging out with friends.

That being said, it wasn’t entirely stress-free. I was also preparing for UC Berkeley, and I remember course selection and registration being a large part of that. While the mandatory Golden Bear Advising course on bCourses provided me with direction and feedback, I still had to conduct a lot of research and continue revising my course plan on my own. I spent hours on Berkeleytime, going down Reddit rabbit holes from 10 years ago and watching YouTube videos of students ranking the courses they’d taken. I remember wishing that I had a more comprehensive guide to courses, specifically geared toward incoming freshmen. And so, I hope that this article can serve as a “one-stop” guide for our newest class of Golden Bears — or at least reduce extraneous research and stress.

Adjust your expectations

In high school, getting all the classes you wanted was probably not your top concern. But now, your courses are no longer guaranteed. While UC Berkeley offers thousands of classes, there’s a lot of competition for the ones that everyone needs to take. Think breadth courses, reading and composition classes and even that one earthquake elective that’s allegedly one of the easiest A’s.

Still, it’s not hopeless. There are plenty of ways to get a schedule that might not be perfect but that you’re happy with — you just have to adjust your expectations first.

Narrow your list

Before you go all out trying to secure your classes, it’s important that you’re confident about what you even want to take. It’s tempting to sign up for a class that everyone and their mother swears is life-changing, but if you’re not even interested in the material and it doesn’t meet any potential major requirements, then you’re not using those units effectively.

When narrowing my own list, Berkeleytime and Rate My Professors came in handy. I could see students’ average grades and comments on professors — though I took those ratings with a grain of salt. This way, I knew that no matter what courses I ended up getting, I’d enjoy taking them and could perform well.

As a freshman, there are also unique opportunities for you to explore more niche interests.

Freshman seminars are usually just one or two units, which can help you meet the minimum unit threshold. Some seminars offered this fall are Launching your professional journey: exploring careers with alumni, Philanthropy: A cross-cultural perspective and Greatest movies of all time. DeCals, or student-run classes, are also worth considering — you can learn about impact investing, baking or even Taylor Swift’s artistry.

Prioritize section enrollment over lecture

As a freshman, many of your classes will likely have hundreds of seats, which means you’ll usually need to enroll in a discussion section too. For instance, you might have a math lecture on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and a two-hour discussion section at a different time. The thing is, it’s actually more important to get into a section than the lecture itself. You could be 30th on a lecture waitlist, but if you’re second on the discussion section waitlist, you only need to wait for two people to drop. That gives you a much better chance of actually getting into the class. Sometimes you might have to look for sections at a less popular time. However, there are classes that will let you switch your section later — you just need to get into the class first.

Being on the waitlist can be frustrating, but it usually moves a lot faster than you think! Additionally, there’s an informal 10% waitlist rule: If a class has 300 seats, then the first 30 (or 10%) on the waitlist will likely get in.

Backups aren’t necessarily plan B

For my first semester, I actually only had one backup plan, and I was prepared to use it — again, having a flexible mindset helped. Little did I know, it worked out a lot better than my original plan. I satisfied two of my breadths, took an intro course for my major and a quintessentially UC Berkeley class (shout out to Data 8).

Don’t be Cinderella

In other words, be on time for enrollment, even if it’s at the odd time of 2:40 p.m. Being late could lead to website crashes or precious spots being lost. If you’re there right as the clock strikes, you’ll have the best chance of getting your classes.

That said, when you’re adding classes to your shopping cart, fill out all the logistical information in advance, including how you want the class to be graded and whether you want to join the waitlist automatically if the class is full. This saves you time so that you can simply click “Enroll” the second your enrollment window opens.

Hopefully, this gave you some perspective on course selection and registration! Again, there’s no such thing as a perfect schedule, and you’ll still have plenty of semesters to take all the classes you want. In the meantime, just do the best you can and enjoy your first semester!