General

You want to take those elective courses without registering first? I don't think you can do that; you have to register into any program before you can take courses. Of course if its possible you can take your elective earlier than the school suggests. The best thing to do in my opinion is to see if they are offered in the summer (like many first year courses) and take them then. It will cost you more though, but I know some people in my university that did that.

I'm sure you can, but like for me, I'm taking two PSY classes during the first half of the semester, then I'm taking a single MAT class the second half (I forgot if it's called A and B tracks or whatever), so that way I can focus on math for those few weeks only.

You can usually switch majors while still retaining credit for courses which you have already taken (and passed).

If you haven't declared a major in the first place, then you're automatically defaulted into General Education until you proceed to do so.

If you're planning on taking the courses under a separate institution, you need to find out if the credits you earn for said course under the institution will carry onto your transcript and be accepted by the other institution in which you're planning on fulfilling your undergraduate program. More often than not, they will transfer, however there are cases where two institution's curricula will differ so significantly that they wont recognize the course credit at all. If this particular situation applies to you, then that is exactly what you need to figure out.

call the college for a definitive answer

You definitely won't be asked to take the same class twice, so it might work.