<p>I do. They wanted to protect their GPAs for stuff like internships, which I guess can be somewhat competitive. But throwing a semester’s worth of work away like that strikes me as an incommensurate response.</p>
<p>I know some people who have talked about dropping a class to avoid a C, and I know a few who have actually followed through on it. One legitimate rationale that I’ve heard is that if someone is taking 4 classes, struggling to get a C in one, struggling to get a B in another and then getting A’s in the other two, by dropping the class they are struggling with, they give themselves a better chance at catching up in another class they are struggling with. Some of my friends also just did not feel comfortable with the material at all, and if the class is part of a 2 class sequence, they’d be better off redoing the first part to get a good foundation for the second class.</p>
<p>^This is why people should take one class per semester S/NC :-)</p>
<p>Exactly, one thing I would advise people about is that if you are going to take 5 classes, make sure the quality of learning in several of them does not suffer significantly. I know one person in freshman year got in way over their head by taking 5 classes (one was mandatory S/NC but still required a significant amount of work). The result was that her grades in two classes suffered, and she struggled with the material and homework. That being said, she was taking some very hard science classes, so with the right classes, 5 is possible but it depends on the class. Also, when making a decision, don’t forget to consider jobs and sports. For someone who doesn’t do sports or have a job, it may be easy to take 5 classes, but as someone who played sports last year and will have a job and sports this year, I’m much more likely to take 4 classes.</p>