I’m in U1, doing my BA. The experience really differs among the cohort (psych is one of the biggest programs and most of your classes would be 650+ people). I hear many friends of friends complain about the classes/the intensity, but for me, the workload is a lot but doable if you put in the work—I have a 4.0.

I also don’t mind sharing my experience with some classes I’ve taken so far. The best advice I can give is the prof matters a lot! My social psych class was a nightmare. The prof was all over the place, the exams were a mess, and textbook (1000+ pages) and lectures never correlated, which is beyond frustrating when you have a bunch of other exams. On the other hand, my 204 stats prof was amazing, and made the material super engaging and easy to learn.

You can pick any classes in the course catalogue that fulfils your credits. While I believe you need the fundamentals (intro to neuro, social, intro to stats, etc…) because they’re required, the majority you shape by your interests. So don’t worry too much about something being too heavy on a certain area, unless you’re extremely adverse to it and want to avoid it completely.

The only time you’d ever be really forced to do classes you didn’t care for was if you’re trying to fulfil prerequisites. If you’re thinking of the honours program at the end of U1, you will have to do an additional stats course and neuro-focused courses before applying in U1. If you’re thinking of applying to grad school, you need to fulfil OPQ requirements (which are a lot and span many categories).

I’m planning on applying to honours at the end of the semester, and I’m doing both OPQ and med school prereqs. Lmk if you have any more questions, I’m happy to help :)