Just registered for all my classes, which were of course pre-determined for me. That's not a complaint, though.

My schedule looks like this:
Core Studio 1- MWF 2-6pm
Arch. Tech. 1- T 4-6pm, Th 1-3pm
Arch. Hist. 1- Th 11-1pm
Arch. Drawing & Representation 1- T 6-8pm

4 classes, 18 credits, half from Studio alone. There are other hidden scheduled periods as well, for example the History syllabus mentions small study groups that will be set up to meet ever two weeks.

I noticed on the Degree Requirements website that the 2nd and 3rd year students follow a slightly different set of classes than the 1st years. Over the past two years of looking at the school I became somewhat familiar with what the first semester entails, so I wonder why they changed up the classes and how things will be different.

It seems that there are many similarities between the structure of law school and architecture school. When a student enters, they take basically the same classes as every other 1st year student in every other school nationwide (more so for law). They proceed through their education with the same body of students that they entered with, and only near the end is there room for electives.

This is a lot different than my last time in school, where there weren't that many core classes and no set order for taking them. Of course, that was for museum studies, a much newer (and more vague) subject than both architecture and law.