ESS 718: Add/Drop deadlines

Laura Vogt:
Hello and welcome to The (Not So) Secret Guide to Being a Berkeley Engineer. I’m your host, Laura Vogt. I’m the associate director for marketing and communications for the College of Engineering. This week we’re talking about some of the academic deadlines that are heading your way with two of our ESS advisors, Joey Wong and Mayra Rivera. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you both for being here. Let’s have you introduce yourselves and tell us about your role in engineering student services. Joey, you go first.

Joey Wong:
Hi, everyone. My name’s Joey Wong. I’m an ESS advisor. I primarily work with engineering undeclared students as well as bioengineering students, and we’re here for any questions you might have.

Laura Vogt:
And Mayra?

Mayra Rivera:
Hi, everyone. I’m Myra Rivera and I’m also an ESS advisor. I advise specifically aerospace engineering students, materials science and engineering students, and then a portion of the mechanical engineering students, as well.

Laura Vogt:
Well, again, thank you both for being here. This podcast is going to air the first week of school, so we’re talking because we’ve got academic deadlines that come up right when school starts. Again, we’re officially in the thick of it. The first academic deadlines are this Friday. So let’s get to some of our questions. Where can students find a list of the academic deadlines each semester?

Joey Wong:
Yeah, on our website, coesandbox.berkeley.edu/ess. If you just click on the students, top link there, you’ll find the deadlines on our right-hand bar there outlined for each semester. And yeah, they’re coming up fast. Deadlines as early as the second week, so make sure to check that often.

Laura Vogt:
Yeah, definitely. We’ve got two add-drop deadlines. What is the difference, Mayra,

Mayra Rivera:
I can talk about that. The first drop deadline is known as the early drop deadline, and that usually happens the second week of instruction. I believe that’s September 1st. That one exists for certain courses, so classes like physics 7A, 7B, bio 1A, 1B, and I think CS162, which are the popular ones from engineering side. Those are all early drop deadline courses, so that means after September 1st you’re stuck with them. You cannot drop them. That one is the important one. That deadline exists for classes that historically have had high demand and high attrition. So you’re in those classes, you want to make sure that you’re finalizing your schedule before that deadline.
Then the second deadline is during the fourth week of instruction. I believe this fall semester it’s going to be September 13th. That one exists for all the rest of your classes. So that’s the absolute latest you can make any sort of changes to your schedule. Ideally, you should have it all figured out way in advance, also because after the first add-drop deadline, they start charging you money for dropping classes, so just keep that in mind. But that’s why there’s two. So just important to make sure that you have everything finalized, ideally by the end of your second week.

Laura Vogt:
And so what should students keep in mind when they’re adding and dropping their courses?

Joey Wong:
Yeah, there’s a few things that you want to keep in mind adding and dropping. Making sure to double check that those actions that you think have happened have actually happened, making sure that you’re checking your CalCentral schedule to make sure it’s reflecting what you think you’re enrolled in and what you’ve added or dropped. Another thing to keep in mind when you’re doing adding and dropping courses is obviously the college minimums, which is 12 units and two technical courses. Most students want to be making normal progress, that’s usually defined as 12 unit minimum and two technical courses towards a major. So if you are doing a lot of adding and dropping, just making sure that your schedule keeps with that structure,

Laura Vogt:
Are there any tasks that they need to double check before they start finalizing their schedule?

Mayra Rivera:
I would say definitely make sure that you’re enrolled in all of your classes. Don’t assume that you’ve added a class. Like if you were on the wait list for a class and you thought you got enrolled, actually make sure that you got enrolled. I’ve had a lot of students who either forgot that they enrolled in the class or added off the wait list for a class, so you just want to make sure that your schedule looks good. You’re confirming that in CalCentral, you see that you’re not on the wait list for anything. Don’t forget to drop yourself from the wait list before the add-drop deadline. I’ve had some students who were enrolled literally on the ad drop deadline, had never attended the class, and now were four weeks behind.
You don’t want to be in that situation, so definitely make sure that you’re actually in the classes that you think that you’re enrolled in. You’re not on the wait list for anything and that you’re doing all of these changes before the add-drop deadline. Don’t ever add a class on the add-drop deadline in a panic. It’s a terrible idea. Just don’t do it. Save yourself, honestly, a lot of stress and homework from catching up for four weeks. I think those are the main things that students really need to check when it comes to adding and dropping classes, finalizing their schedule. Just make sure that you’re in the classes that you think you’re in.

Laura Vogt:
One of the other academic deadlines that we have is changing the unit value of a class. What needs to be considered when they’re changing their unit values?

Joey Wong:
Yeah, there’s a few things. When you’re changing a unit value for a variable-unit course, you want to make sure that you understand the expectations and responsibilities for that course, whether you’re enrolling in it for four units versus two units, making sure you have that communication with the instructor, whether you should be enrolling in it for two units, three units, or four units, how that might change the deliverables of that course and expectations for that course. Again, obviously the college minimum two 12 units maximums of 20.5 units, you want to keep those in mind as well as you change variable-unit courses. Yeah, I think those are some of the important things to keep in mind for variable-unit courses.

Laura Vogt:
Later in September, we’ve got a deadline for changing non-degree tech courses options from graded to pass no pass. Is that available for all students or is there a very specific criteria?

Mayra Rivera:
There’s a very specific criteria for the non-degree technical course grading option. I think just to break down what that means, first of all, a non-degree technical course is a technical class that is not required for your major. So you’re purely doing this class for fun. This class cannot fulfill any major requirements, so double check to make sure this class cannot count for anything.
I think where it can be a little confusing is some of your majors have technical elective options. If that class is a technical elective and you haven’t fulfilled that technical elective, then it counts as a technical course for your major. So it’s very specific. It’s technical classes that are not major requirements. You have up until the fifth week of the semester, I think that’s September 22nd, to be able to change your grading option. You’ll not be able to change your grading option after that for a non-degree technical course. So you just want to make sure that you double check that the technical class you’re taking doesn’t count for a requirement. If it satisfies a requirement at the time that you’re taking it, then it’s going to have to be for a letter grade.

Laura Vogt:
Is it the same requirements for the non-tech grading option deadline that’s in October?

Joey Wong:
Well, it’s a little different for the deadline in October. October 27th, usually the 10th week of the semester, that’s the deadline to change grading option for your non-technical courses, and that usually encompasses your humanity social science requirements, not including reading composition A and B, those have to be taken for letter grade. Otherwise, humanity social science courses generally can be taken for PMP or letter grade and you can change that up until the 10th week, October 27th. That’s a lot of time to kind of determine and figure out, “Okay, how do I want to proceed with this class and whether I want to take this course for a letter grade or pass/no pass.” So the humanity social science and non-technical courses, you definitely have a lot more flexibility than your technical courses.

Laura Vogt:
Why would you want to take a class pass/no pass?

Mayra Rivera:
For a number of reasons. For some students, the reason why they’ll wait, let’s say to the 10th week, they want to see how they’re doing in the class. If they feel like they need to spend more time maybe in their technical classes instead of the humanities classes and just want a little bit more time, less pressure, I would say, about worrying about a letter grade, then some students will opt for pass/no pass. Any class that you take for pass/no pass doesn’t affect your UC Berkeley, GPA, so there’s a benefit of that. So it’s still going to fulfill your requirements for a humanities class, but gives you a little bit more time and flexibility to be able to focus on your core technical classes that have to be for a letter grade.
It’s really up to you if you want to do that. I have some students who will wait and see how they’re feeling in the class. If they think that their grade looks good, they’ll just keep it for a letter grade. And some students who just don’t want to worry about the humanities class, will just opt for a pass/no pass grading option.

Laura Vogt:
I feel like I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that if anyone has questions about any of these and trying to make a decision of what they need to do, they should contact their ESS advisor

Joey Wong:
For sure. Yeah, reach out. If a deadline is approaching and you’re not sure what you want to do, check in with your ESS advisor to talk about options and the best path forward. Definitely don’t wait until the drop deadline date because it is usually going to be really busy around that time. But just make sure that you have these deadlines in mind. Second week for early drop deadline, fourth week for the regular add-drop deadline. Just making sure, by then, your schedule really needs to be at a pretty good solid point, because making changes after that is going to be very, very difficult.

Laura Vogt:
If there’s any issues after the fact, there might be something that could be done, but that all has to be discussed with the ESS advisor, correct?

Joey Wong:
Yeah, there’s a process to request late schedule changes. It’s definitely a lot more longer process that has certain criteria and requirements that the college looks at, but that late schedule change is never a guarantee, so you don’t want to count on that or rely on that. Just making sure you’re scheduled by that fourth week deadline is at a pretty good state, making sure your CalCentral schedule reflects what you want to be in and what you think you’re in. Like Mayra said, making sure your wait lists are all either dropped from the wait list. You don’t want to be hanging out on the wait list and have the class put you in when you don’t want to be or don’t expect to be put in. So just making sure your courses, enrollments are settled and finalized by that fourth week deadline in September.

Laura Vogt:
And that has to do with the swaps too, right? You want to make sure that you’ve turned off whatever swap function you might’ve been trying to use earlier.

Joey Wong:
Yeah, yeah. Personally, I hate swaps, but you don’t want to have a lingering or pending swap as the deadline approaches, because you don’t know whether that’ll take place or not.

Laura Vogt:
We’ve talked quite a bit this summer about time management and different tools, and I feel like adding these academic deadlines onto your bCal might be something worth doing at the beginning of the semester.

Joey Wong:
Definitely. Yeah, Google reminders and calendar alarms, all those things will be helpful, as well as keeping on top of the ESS newsletters that is sent out weekly. Those newsletters will usually have been bold, “Hey, deadline is coming up this week.”

Laura Vogt:
Yeah, we make sure to put the deadlines in the address envelopes to make sure that, even if you don’t open the email, at least look at what the content of the email is in it will let you know. Well, thank you both so much for being here today and going over the details of the deadlines and what they mean.

Joey Wong:
You’re welcome. No problem.

Mayra Rivera:
Thanks for having us.

Laura Vogt:
And thank you everyone for tuning into The (Not So) Secret Guide of Being a Berkeley Engineer, and thank you for joining us for this entire season and we’ll record and talk to you again next year.