Hi! I am an international freshman (in community college- planning to transfer eventually) and I don’t know if I should take 16 units in my first semester or 13. - Majoring in computer science.
I am for sure taking - 2 math classes and English 101. which sum up to 13. Now I don’t know If I should keep psychology or drop it… I don’t want to take too many classes, but I also don’t want to look like I’m not challenging myself.
Engineering/CS students will often have to take this kind of workload if they want to graduate in four years. I would probably take psychology, be aware of the drop deadline, and drop the class later if you feel overwhelmed.
If you are in community college and plan on taking summer classes, I’d go with 13. That’s what I’m doing right now as an Engineering Student in a Community College. I took 15 hours last semester and it was definitely manageable. But if you plan on taking summer classes, there is no real need to overload yourself with work now. Just know that once you get to University you’ll likely have class loads like that.
If you don’t plan on taking summer classes, that’s up to you to decide. I’d personally go for the 16 if I wasn’t taking summer classes, only because I want to transfer sooner rather than later.
I don’t think 16 is unusual for students in engineering or sciences. I agree with the other posters, it depends on how much time and money you have to complete your degree. Some people don’t have the resources to stay in school beyond four years. Also, as an international student you need to factor in how much extra time it takes you to study if you have to do a lot of translating to understand English. Because you are learning new material there is often a lot of new vocabulary that you have to learn and understand in English addition to the material itself.
16 isn’t too bad, it seems like the average for full time students is around 12-15
Let me put it this way. A lot of schools require approximately 120-128 semester units to graduated. If you want to graduate in 8 semesters (4 years) you’ll probably taking 15-16ish every semester depending on how the credit hours work out.
Do you have a job as well?
I work full time and I’m taking 11 units over 3 courses this semester. I’ve done it before - it’s definitely doable.