Winter 2025 Undergraduate Course Updates

 Updated: January 6th, 2025

Welcome to the Winter 2025 Updates page!

Here you will learn: Important Winter 2025 course information, how we manage the waitlists, enrollment priority information for CSE majors, when we are opening any available seats, and how non-CSE majors can request to enroll in CSE restricted courses. 

Due to the high demand for CSE courses, enrolling in CSE courses can be difficult and confusing. Please read the following page in detail. This page is subject to change periodically so we recommend checking our website and the Schedule of Classes for the most up to date information. 

The capacity in each course is determined by multiple variables (not just the classroom size), including but not limited to: 

• Classroom size availability
• Instructor availability 
• Instructor teaching load
• Instructional support availability (TA/tutor support) 
• Scalability of the course

Important Notes: 

1. Students will need to assume everything is in person and/or synchronous only unless stated otherwise in the "Notes" below for the course section. 

2. Course components with the location listed as RCLAS on the Schedule of Classes/WebReg will be remote/online course components.

3. CSE instrcutors are not directly involved with student enrollment, do not contact the course instructor regarding enrollment concerns. This includes questions pertaining to waitlists, late adds, general enrollment, major restrictions, and/or graduate requests. All enrollment questions need to be relayed in the VAC.

Advising

Current students may contact us via the Virtual Advising Center (vac.ucsd.edu) or csestudent@ucsd.edu. We are offering drop-in advising (all students) and advising appointments (current CSE majors only) which can be conducted via Zoom or in-person. To schedule an appointment, please email csestudent@ucsd.edu.

Our front Intake Office is typically open Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM and 1:00 - 3:30 PM during the Winter Quarter. Please visit our Academic Advising page or Undergraduate Advising page for the most up to date information. 

Major Priority 

CSE/EC26 Major Major Priority Deadline: Monday, December 2nd at 11:59 PM - Current CSE and EC26 majors who want enrollment priority must waitlist their requested applicable courses by this date/time.

CSE majors are cleared in waitlist order as seats become available (only for courses/sections with reserved seats). This is NOT a guarantee for a requested course.

• CSE will use first-come, first-served order of the waitlists. Depending on the demand for the course, continuing CSE and ECE CE undergraduate majors might be given clearance to add a course prior to other majors being allowed into the course if they waitlist by the CSE Major Priority Deadline listed above. Note that even for CSE/EC26 majors we use first-come, first-served order.

• ***The course clearance process is not automatic, you will need to take action*** - CSE Majors waitlisted for lower-division core courses, CSE 100, CSE 101, and/or CSE 105 must follow the course clearance instructions sent to them via email on Tuesday, December 3rd and take enrollment action by the deadline specified in the email.***

• CSE Double Majors: If CSE is not your first major, you will not receive CSE Major Priority for courses with a waitlist that require manual clearance (i.e. seats reserved for CSE majors)

• Read your @ucsd email DAILY. This is how we contact you to tell you if you were cleared to add a course with reserved seats. If you do not respond by the deadline, you will lose the seat!

• Please refer to the 2024-2025 academic and administrative calendar for important enrollment dates and deadlines.

Priority: After major priority, all undergraduates have a priority to add undergraduate CSE courses; graduate students have priority to add graduate CSE courses. Priority is not given to:

• Students who postpone taking a course hoping for a particular instructor in a future quarter.
• Seniors (or others) who do not use their 1st and 2nd pass early-enrollment times.
• Students who failed or withdrew from the course in a previous quarter.

Late Add Policy

No late adds - no exceptions.The CSE department does not allow students to add courses past week 2. If a student is not enrolled in enough units by the beginning of week 1, the student should contact their department advisors via the VAC.

EASy requests for Late Adds in the CSE Department will be denied, so please plan accordingly.   

If you are on the waitlist for a class, you are expected to attend class for the first two weeks and complete all assignments. NOTE: Attending class and completing course assignments does not guarantee enrollment. If students choose to miss class or not turn in assignments while on the waitlist, the student will receive a "0" on all missed assignments, if they secure a seat in the course off the waitlist. 

CSE instructors are not directly involved with student enrollment, do not contact the course instructor regarding enrollment or late add concerns.

Waitlist Policy

Once all seats are released, students will only be added to courses with waitlists in waitlist order via the automatic waitlist enrollment process. The last waitlist add runs on Thursday of week 2. The CSE department will NOT manually clear any students to enroll even if space becomes available on the last day of enrollment (Friday of week 2). 

Non-CSE majors: If you are not able to enroll in your CSE courses in Winter 2025, you may need to enroll in a subsequent quarter.

CSE instructors are not directly involved with student enrollment, do not contact the course instructor regarding enrollment or waitlist concerns.

Enrollment/Course Policies

Prerequisites: Enforced for ALL classes. View the Prerequisites for CSE Undergraduates page for information on all our prerequisites, in addition to transfer courses, course substitutions, and our Upper Division Prerequisite Policy.

Enrollment Strategies: See Enrolling in CSE Courses to learn the best strategies for getting into CSE classes.

EASy: For course clearances, please use the Enrollment Authorization System (EASy). These may take 5 business days to be processed. 

Petitions: If you need to petition a course for transfer credit, please use our ONLINE PETITION to do so. Please view our CSE Petitions page for detailed information.

Swaps: No swaps - no exceptions.  Be sure to enroll or waitlist in the section with the assigned time you will attend and the assigned final exam you can attend. This includes R (remote) courses. If a student is waitlisted for a course and then enrolls in the R version (or vice versa) or a duplicate version of the course, the system will drop you from the waitlist or will not allow you to enroll because it recognizes you are already enrolled or waitlisted for the other course. 

• We will not clear students to add to the course in these situations as the system moves on and automatically adds the next eligible student on the waitlist. 

We do not release names of instructors until their appointments are official with the University. Once official, instructor names are posted on the Schedule of Classes and WebReg. 

CSE instructors are not directly involved with student enrollment, do not contact the course instructor regarding enrollment concerns.

Non-CSE Majors and Major Restricted Courses

For all courses with major priority, the remaining seats will be released in mid December after our CSE majors have had a chance to enroll. 

Non-CSE Undergraduates who want to enroll in CSE Major restricted courses should submit an enrollment request through Enrollment Authorization System (EASy). 

• Major restricted courses are indicated with an asterisk (*) below. Please see CSE Course Prerequisites webpage for information on which majors are approved for major restricted courses. 
• Requests from non-CSE major undergraduate students to be cleared to enroll in CSE major restricted courses will be placed on a "Department Hold" until after CSE Majors have had the opportunity to enroll.
• The requests may be reviewed between Wednesday, December 11th and the start of classes if there are seats available.

Clearance to enroll/waitlist a CSE undergraduate course with a large waitlist does NOT indicate we intend to offer additional seats. The courses and sections we intend to offer are listed in the Schedule of Classes. 

CSE instructors are not directly involved with student enrollment, do not contact the course instructor regarding enrollment or major restriction concerns.

Non-CSE Courses

For questions about enrolling in ENG 100D or ENG 100L, please see Global Ties

Each department handles course clearances for their own courses. Please contact the respective department for course clearance to ECE, COGS, MGT, etc.

Graduate Students

Graduate students who wish to add undergraduate courses must submit a request through the Enrollment Authorization System (EASy). 

Prerequisite clearances and approvals to add will be reviewed by the end of week two of classes based on if there is seat availability after undergraduates enroll. The CSE department does not allow students to add courses past week 2. No late adds - no exceptions.

Requests to enroll will be reviewed after undergraduate students have had the chance to enroll, which is typically by the beginning of Week 2. Depending on the demand from undergraduate students, some courses will not be open to graduate students. Seats will only be given to graduate students based on availability after undergraduate students enroll.

Enrollment in undergraduate courses is not guaranteed. Please check your EASy request status history for the most up-to-date information.

CSE instructors are not directly involved with student enrollment, do not contact the course instructor regarding enrollment concerns.

Graduate Course Request: Please see the Graduate Courses and Enrollment Information

Graduate Level CSE Courses

CSE Undergraduate Advising does not manage enrollment in graduate-level courses.

Undergraduate students who wish to add graduate courses must submit a request through the Enrollment Authorization System (EASy).

Deadline for undergraduate students to submit their EASy request for graduate courses is Monday of Week 1. The CSE department does not allow students to add courses past week 2. No late adds - no exceptions.

Requests to enroll will be reviewed by the instructor after graduate students have had the chance to enroll, which is typically by the beginning of Week 2. Depending on the demand from graduate students, some courses will not be open to undergraduates. Seats will only be given to undergraduate students based on availability after graduate students enroll. 

Enrollment in graduate courses is not guaranteed. Please check your EASy request status history for the most up-to-date information.

CSE instructors are not directly involved with student enrollment, do not contact the course instructor regarding enrollment concerns.

Make sure to carefully review the Winter 2025 Graduate Course Updates page and direct any inquiries about graduate course enrollment to cse-grad-enrollment@ucsd.edu.

Max Unit Exceptions

Students who are on the waitlist will not be moved into the course if they need a max unit exception.

When the college grants a max unit exception it is for the course requested, not the quarter. If a seat becomes available in the waitlisted class the system will bypass the student needing a max unit exception and add the next student on the waitlist to the course, which means that the student needing the max unit exception will not be added because the available seat will be taken.

If a student wants to be added off of the waitlist, they would need to be under the max unit limit (enrolled and waitlisted courses combined) so the system can bring them into the course if a seat opens up (in waitlist order of course).

We will not approve requests to enroll in CSE courses exceeding the max unit limit if there is a waitlist. Please plan accordingly. 

CSE 29/30 Update

We are introducing a course, CSE 29, and updating our current CSE 30.

What is CSE 29?

CSE 29: Systems Programming and Software Tools (4)
A programmer's view of how computer systems execute programs, store information, and communicate. Emphasis on understanding the details of how a single computer program executes on a computer. Hands-on systems programming using the C programming language and software tools (e.g., gdb, valgrind, make) in the UNIX environment. Builds foundation for courses on computer organization, operating systems, networks, and compilers.

Why this change? These changes serve two purposes:

1. CSE 15L (2 units) and CSE 30 (4 units) attempt to introduce many concepts that are essential to systems-level foundations of Computer Science and Engineering. We have expanded this coverage from 6 to 8 units (by replacing CSE 15L with a 4 unit course, CSE 29) to align the required workload for this material with the credit students receive and to make space to introduce security and high performance computing concepts that are increasingly critical for computer scientists and engineers.
2. The new CSE 29 course will replace CSE 15L and move some of the content from CSE 30. It will introduce C programming and continue teaching command line tools (e.g., gdb, make). CSE 29 will move fundamental systems-level topics (e.g., intro to operating systems, concurrency, socket programming) to lower division courses so that students are prepared for increased flexibility in the upper division

If you have questions about how CSE 29 will impact your major requirements as a non-CSE major, please contact your respective major department

See the CSE Prerequisite page for updates on the requirements for the new courses.

Please refer to the CSE minor page to see how these changes affect the requirements for the minor.

You can find how this impacts your CSE degree by viewing the corresponding CSE Undergraduate Degree Programs page.

The courses listed below are the courses/sections we intend to offer in Winter 2025. 

Major restricted courses are indicated with an asterisk (*) below.