<p>I am a feshman and I have signed up for 18 credits. Do you guys think this is doable? Everyone seems to be telling me that it is too much and it is scaring me.</p>
<p>Depends on the courses and the person.</p>
<p>For some, 18 credits might be okay, but for most people, that course load would be a huge risk. You'll really want to think about what you are doing during your first semester. You're going to a new place where you'll have to make a new group of friends. You'll also have to get used to the environment. College is not high school (academically nor socially).</p>
<p>I took 18 credits first semester of my freshman year. It wasn't fun. I didn't have a social life.</p>
<p>I'm looking at 16 possibly 17, that's pretty average right?</p>
<p>It's really which classes you take rather than how many credits. 18 credits is good for if you find out one of your classes is really, really boring or something and want to drop it. I redid my courses like 20 times...don't do that. (Staring at the course guide is still a bad habit of mine.)</p>
<p>Average course load is 12-18 credits. I'm going to take 15 credits so..yeah :)</p>
<p>15 is the average (If you do the math, 15*8 semesters = 120, the requirement to graduate).</p>
<p>if you want a stellar gpa, you won't really have much of a social life with 18 credits. i mean yeah, people at umich study all the time, but let's just say you won't have much free time.</p>
<p>it also depends on what courses you take.. but i've come to realize that if you want that 4.0 or anything close to it, you need to work your butt off for any class.</p>
<p>I took 18 credits last winter, and it was really tough. Especially when it comes down to actually doing well in them. I'm in engineering school, so taking 18 credits was insane. I even had to pass fail my elective (french) so i could focus more on my other classes. </p>
<p>There are several factors when determining how many credits you want to take. It depends on what classes you would like to take, some classes require MUCH more work than others, so that can be lopsided. Also, if you select a bunch of "blow-off" classes, you have to be careful, because you will naturally spend less time in that course, and it can catch u by surprise. </p>
<p>If you take 18 credits, u can safely assume that you will have less leisure time. So plan accordingly. I strongly discourage doing this first semester of freshman year, because youll probably want to go out and have fun and meet people when you first get here. </p>
<p>You should register for the 18 if u really want to. U can drop/add without penalty within the first 3 weeks of class, so if it gets too bad, u can drop it.</p>
<p>It REALLY depends on the classes you take. I think I worked MUCH less second semester with 18 credits than first semester with 13 credits.</p>
<p>I've done 17/18 credits most semesters. It's not that bad most of the time, there's just occasionally a few bad weekends (especially near the end) where everything seems to be happening at once and life kinda sucks.</p>
<p>^^^He doesn't have a social life, but he does have a girl who meets his needs. Life only sucks if you make it suck...and I didn't let it really suck till the last week...</p>
<p>I always recommend 12-15 credits the first semester, just to gauge the intensity of the University, get used to the new setting, have time to make new friends and get used to the pace of college academics.</p>
<p>Save it for second semester. I was a freshman last year, did 18 credits second semester, semester gpa of 3.6. You are going to spend a lot of time in class. I had a bad schedule, all of the activities I had didn't really help. My time demands were something like this:
Monday: 11am-9pm
Tuesday: 9am-12pm,6-8pm
Wednesday: 11-12,1-3
Thursday:9am-12,6-8pm,8pm-midnight (Scrambling to finish hw due at 6 from 12-6)
Friday: 11-12,1-3</p>
<p>I don't really know what to think of the semester simply because I had so much going on along with some personal troubles. All I know is that I survived and actually did better than first semester. I took a pretty tough schedule: Great Books 192, Calc 3 Applied Honors, Physics 140 and lab, Chem 130 and lab.</p>
<p>I had a social life. I hung out with the kids in my hall and partied Fridays and Saturdays. When it became warmer, I played football for 30 minutes or so every day. I watched tv occasionally, but I was usually doing work when that happened. My activities kept me busy so that when they didn't take up my time, I spent a lot of time doing work. Since I had so much stuff to do and ran around all week, I had to set aside time for myself to just relax. On Fridays after class I picked up a movie from the library to watch over the weekend. Might work for some, might not for others. It helped that my homework assignments were all due on Thursday or Sunday nights so I didn't have any upcoming deadlines going into the weekend.</p>
<p>I think that 18 credits is doable, in fact, I will be taking 18 credits again this fall. But you MUST stay on top of things. For Calc 3 and physics, I spent the days before the exam just cramming from when I woke up to the time I went to bed. That is not fun (but I did earn A- grades in both classes.) Great Books involved a lot of reading, it is best to set time aside for that kind of work and use it specifically for reading. Chemistry I somewhat knew from high school. I did all of the homeworks on time and that was usually enough for me to do well on the exams.</p>
<p>I agree with what Dilksy said: when everything happens at once, life sucks. I had weeks where I had 3 exams and a paper plus my activities. If you go into that week with nothing accomplished, you spend time just worrying yourself to death. But in my mind, I knew that I could do it, and I was satisfied with my GPA for the semester.</p>
<p>I would recommend you don't take 18 credits of subjects you don't know. I knew somewhat about Chemistry 130 from high school, so that greatly helped me in that class. This class was three credits. Replacing that with three credits of something very difficult that I didn't know (like Organic Chem,) probably would have greatly changed my outlook on the semester. I would definitely suggest fitting in one completely manageable class into your schedule.</p>
<p>One final thing is that you will be a first-year, first-semester student. This is the semester where you will be making new friends and getting involved in new activities. I think that taking 18 credits is fine, but first semester you might want to put a little more effort into the social aspects of college. It will help you out later when you are stressed out and want to just relax with your friends. Trying to get all of your classwork done and to make friends will be tough.</p>
<p>Good luck with your decision, anything more specific, don't be afraid to ask.</p>
<p>Oh yeah...I made friends through school and inefficiently socialized while I studied...that's how I fit it all in.</p>
<p>dsmo couldn't have said it any better.</p>
<p>Thanks for that.....anyways...I am considering taking it down to like 16...just because of the whole transition thing...</p>
<p>Thank you all.</p>
<p>What classes are you taking?</p>
<p>if i were you, i'd do 16 or less. I did 18 my first semester, and dropped two credits a few weeks in. College was a huge transition for me, new freedoms, competition for the first time. I struggled even with 16. These new found freedoms will kill you, especially if you like to party.</p>