<p>I have orientation monday and basically because I'm going to the first orientation session, I get first pick for class times. Any tips or suggestions on scheduling classes?</p>
<p>The classes I have to take are:</p>
<p>Chemistry 101: General Chemistry, 4 Credits
3 hours of lecture a week (1 hour M,W,F or 1.5 hours T,Th), one 3 hour lab each week</p>
<p>Chinese 101: Elementary Chinese, 4 Credits
3 hours of lecture a week (1 hour M,W,F or 1.5 hours T,Th), one 1 hour lab each week</p>
<p>College Of Engineering And Science 102: Engineering Disciplines And Skills, 2 Credits
1 hour of lecture a week, a 3 hour lab each week</p>
<p>English 103: Accelerated Composition, 3 Credits
3 hours of lecture a week (same as above classes), one 1 hour lab each week</p>
<p>Mathematical Sciences 106: Calculus Of One Variable I (4 credits)
4 hours of lecture a week (1 hour class for 4 days a week)</p>
<p>I will have to do approximately 2-3 hours of homework for each credit hour a class is worth.</p>
<p>Don’t assume that you necessarily get first pick of class times.</p>
<p>At colleges that run staggered orientations throughout the summer, usually only a certain number of seats in each course are “released” for each orientation group. This is a deliberate effort to avoid giving students in early orientation sessions preference in scheduling.</p>
<p>So even though you are in the first orientation group, you may still get stuck with lousy class times (such as 8 am) or get closed out of a course that you want.</p>
<p>Some people like sticking most of their classes on either MWF or TR and having the opposite set off, some like spreading them out. It’s really up to you to try one out and see how it goes. I hate sitting in a room for an hour and a half, let alone 3 or 4.5 hours, so if I were going to overload days they would be MWF. But if your attention span is better you might like the TR.</p>
<p>Some general tips D has picked up in the past two years -</p>
<p>-Avoid the 8:00AM classes if you are a night owl
-Check which building your classes are in and make sure to allow for enough time between classes
-Try not to schedule too many “heavy” classes on the same day if you can avoid it
-Schedule your hardest class for the time of day you will be at your peak
-If you wind up with a several hour break between classes, then treat that as regular study/homework time. You will have more free time in the evenings.</p>
<p>Remember, if you schedule all classes MWF or TR, all assignments, papers, tests, etc. will also likely be clumped together. All a matter of personal study/learning style whether this is a good or bad thing :)</p>
<p>If you are not a morning person,don’t fool yourself into thinking you’ll be able to change in college. S2 is def. not an a.m. person but signed up for an 8:00 class his first sem. He ended up dropping it a few weeks into the semester when he realized he was just not going to be successful in there because he kept sleeping thru the class. He had all good intentions of going when the sem. started but then reality kicked in. Luckily it was just a 2 hr. elective so dropping it was not a big deal.</p>
<p>If you’re entirely unsure I would schedule either MWF or TR heavier than the other, but not block everything on that set. So if you’re in 4 classes 3 on one and one on the other. That way you can get a feel for what works best for you and not be entirely messed up if it turns out you’re better with a balanced schedule.</p>
<p>are 8 AM classes really that bad? I’m not totally a morning person but I’ve been waking up at 6:30 every morning for my 7:30 high school/middle school classes for the last 8 years haha</p>
<p>In college it’s very different from high school–if you’ll be living in a dorm, the socializing is often at its peak between 12 and 3 in the morning. If you don’t get to sleep until 2 or 3, waking up at 7 no longer seems like an easily doable thing. I’d advise against the 8am classes, if you can avoid them.</p>
<p>College students tend to live on a later schedule than high school students do. Especially if you have a roommate, you may find it difficult to go to bed early enough to get enough sleep before getting up for an 8 am class.</p>
<p>Another scheduling point: If you are going to be on a meal plan, a 2-hour break during the hours when lunch is served is ideal. It gives you enough time to walk to the dining hall, wait in line, eat, and then walk to your next class. Depending on the locations of your classes and the dining hall, you might not be able to eat lunch if you have only 1 hour available, and obviously, you won’t be able to eat lunch if you have no breaks during the hours when lunch is served. In this situation, the dining service probably provides box lunches that you can pick up in the morning and carry with you, but most students don’t bother ordering the box lunches. They buy food for cash at some campus snack bar instead, which is unfortunate because they’ve already paid for that dining hall lunch that they couldn’t eat.</p>
<p>I don’t know how many days a week your classes will meet, but classes that have homework every session (typically language and math, can’t say for the rest of your classes) are things you might want to spread out to different days if you can.</p>
<p>S was not a morning person either and had basically the same HS schedule that you had. He was assigned (he had no choice) FIVE 8:00 classes in his first semester. It wasn’t his choice, but he made it work because he had to. </p>
<p>He was able to avoid any more 8:00’s until last semester. He needed to pick up a required course and the only one that fit was at 8:00. The nice thing was the prof. knew that kids don’t like 8:00’s, so offered 5 pts. extra credit for those who made it to all the classes. S had all good intentions of doing that, but didn’t quite make it. But he did get an A for the course - his first full A (not A-) of his college career. </p>
<p>If you can avoid them, great. But if not, you can make it work.</p>
<p>Make sure you go to scheduling with some “backup” classes. You’ve got a fair amount of “labs” in conjunction with your classroom time. It’s possible your schedule may not come together in a way you want it to, so good to have some other classes you might want to take if you need to retrofit your schedule on the spot. My sons all get up/got up for a zero hour class in high school that started at 6:30 am…however my oldest will avoid 8 AM classes like the plague. He says the profs aren’t even awake for those classes. Lest you think I’m kidding, I do remember one econ class of mine a million years ago at 8 AM. It took the prof at least 15 minutes to wake up and he often came in with his sweater inside out. Not a fun class and kids told me he was one of the most engaging, beloved profs…not at 8 AM he wasn’t. I also told my S to take something “fun” if he could freshman fall and not to overload the fall semester until he got a handle on himself and how it was all going to come together…I’m assuming that is what the Chinese is for you. But do schedule something “fun”. You’ve got 4 years to get all your credits in and there is generally breathing room for “fun” classes. My son likes to load up classes on M-W-F, load up his labs on Tuesday or Thursday and leave one day in the week free. He either uses that day to catch up on homework if needed and sometimes he just gives himself a “day off.” My son also doesn’t mind early evening labs…most kids are studying at that time and he says the night labs are more relaxed and not too many people sign up for them. We never had “evening” labs but his college does so it might be one of those rarities. My now college junior son would tell you to "be chill - translated that means have balance to your life between classes, homework and fun stuff; he would tell you to find a place where you are comfortable studying, he would say “probably not gonna be your dorm room” and he would say “go to every single class every single day even if you really don’t want to”.</p>
<p>When S1 went to orientation, they first had him hand write a schedule out. When he went to the computer lab to sign up, the person there essentially had everyone throw them away. He showed them how to let the system show them the availability of each course session, which had openings and which were closed. You then picked the open sessions that allowed you to take the classes you wanted. I think he only picked the courses he wanted and never planned times out after that. He did schedule all his single session classes before registering for multiple session classes though.</p>
<p>When I was at BC, I tried to take one course per semester from the “Evening College.” They had great professors (often the same ones who taught daytime classes), they had a nice mix of older students and current daytime students, and they met only once per week. Those classes that meet 3 times per week are real time-wasters.</p>
<p>There are colleges where you get a fixed number of meals per week – say, 14. If you don’t eat breakfast – which a lot of students don’t – and you have classes or extracurricular activities that cause you to miss some lunches and dinners, you will never use all of the 14 meals you’ve paid for.</p>
<p>My kids honestly chose their schedules based on times. They have a HORRIBLE time in early ams, so tried to get classes no earlier than noon or as close to that as they could. It has worked well for them and allowed them to perform much better in college than those early am classes in HS. If you can handle early morning classes, you have a lot more options, since competition for later courses seems to be stiffer.</p>
<p>I choose first by professor, and then by time. Though I will take a worse professor in order to not take an 8am class. I had an 8am my first semester…bad idea! When I made it to class, I was never really that awake and neither were the other students.</p>
<p>Personally, I like to block my classes together and have 2-3 in a row and then be done for the day, but that makes more sense for me because I have to go off campus and ride my horse and it’s hard to do that if I have one class 8-9, another 10-11, etc…plus I’d rather not have to go to class in my riding clothes. Plus when I had one class and then an hour and then another class, I always felt like I got nothing useful done during that hour between classes.</p>
<p>It really depends on you, though…I know people that are fine in 8ams, people that hate having even two classes in a row, people that can’t stand night classes, people that like to get all their classes done in the morning and be done by 1, and others that plan their schedules entirely around having a 3 or 4 day weekend.</p>