If you’re on this site, there’s probably a very good chance that your child has been grinding away for the past four school years. Maybe they’ve been concerned about getting into college for about 18 months to two years, perhaps longer – essays, standardized testing, ECs, applications, travel tournaments. Sheesh, It’s been a lot when you stop and think about it.
My younger one is making out her class schedule for September this weekend. I reminded her that we thought she should ease into her first year of college. She’s placed a ton of stress on herself getting to this point. We told her to enjoy her first few months of college (of course, taking her classes seriously) but go check out all the different club offerings, making new friends, and, if for just a little bit, chilling out. You want to take a rigorous class, take one, but not FOUR.
YOU MADE IT. Worry about completing your major requirements and internships next year. This fall is about savoring your first days of the college life that you dreamed about during high school.
You made it, too, parents. Raising a glass to you for getting to this point as well.
Depends on the intended major. Some majors do need to have their prerequisite sequences started in the first semester in order to stay on track for on-time graduation.
Yeah, yeah, of course there are program outliers, but by-and-large my point is for our children to emotionally acclimate themselves for a considerable life transition. Obviously, our kids who are taking on the most demanding majors are aware of what’s needed to get to the academic finish line, but for the most part, they don’t need to overload themselves during fall semester.
Students should absolutely ease in because what happens is - you get homesick, you don’t know anyone, you don’t know your way around campus and all the other stuff.
That said - ease in doesn’t mean take it easy. It means maybe join a club or two and not 10…maybe study and don’t go out every night, etc. Maybe delay greek life a semester or year.
It doesn’t mean - take less classes, etc.
In the end, the student will do as the student will do because once you drop them off - you’re not there.
Everyone’s kid is an angel but yet 50% are getting drunk all the time
So it’s really up to them.
Class schedule is dependent upon the major and for some kids, what’s easy maybe rigorous for others, etc.
No one should ever load up the schedule but the schedule should be full - not under average - because you’re paying a lot to send them - and they should take the classes they want to take but knowing it’s not high school anymore.
I understand why you might feel this way, but there are several reasons to stay at the programmed pace.
The transition is difficult no matter how many classes one takes. The pace and volume are both higher. Fewer classes doesn’t really ease that like it feels it should.
Then the student has to make up that time overloading somewhere.
Finally there’s registration priority. Many schools program registration by academic progress.
I certainly wouldn’t overload first term, but I wouldn’t take fewer classes than were recommended.
I’m in the ease in camp. My child is already ahead of the curve because of dual enrollment and AP credit. I want him to take the minimum number of units and not too many challenging classes. I want him to have the time to get settled in and make friends.
We always encouraged out kids to take 18 credits so if they needed to drop one it would be fine. Dd21 is scheduled to take 21 credits next semester, she’s definitely planning on dropping a class and will decide early in the semester. Her twin chose 12 credits his first semester after crashing and burning his first semester at another school, but he had mental health issues and was commuting so no worry about losing housing.
We encouraged our sons to take 5 “easier” Gen Ed classes their first semester to maximize the likelihood of a successful transition to college 500+ miles away.
If you hit some early major related courses the first two semesters, where possible, you are ready to interview for sophomore summer internships during interview season in sophomore fall. That has been my guidance for the kids — eg the main data structures course the first semester for a CS major. There can be a lot of flexibility about everything else.
I guess it depend on the major. You don’t need to be accepted into a CS major to go and get an internship or take the first data structures course. Likewise if you want research opportunities in a profs lab in bio or Chem, you should get the first lab based bio or Chem course out of the way as early as you can so that the prof finds you useful etc…
Agreed with that. High school was indeed brutal, even for the top-tier students.
And college is a lot of unknowns - different writing styles may be expected, classes will be held differently, one might be with a completely different group of new people each class (and see them only once a week), one will have to figure out how to relate with professors, benefit from office hours - and be completely independent with personal and academic time management,…
I think it’s wise for the first semester to allow for a little breathing room to figure things out. Better it wasn’t needed when looking back, than realizing too late one can’t handle the full load on day 1.
My daughter took 15 credits, but there was
a first-year writing seminar (as she expected, an “easy” class, but still informative),
a class that was somewhat of an extension/flavor of one of her AP classes (yet differently enough, and a good way to ease into a completely different teaching/learning style),
a class to knock off a distribution requirement,
a 1-credit class to knock off a P/E requirement - plus
one genuinely advanced 4-credit class.
So not a “slacker” semester as far as credits, but course topics picked that left her with breathing room outside of class to “learn how to do college”.
Also, at her college, students typically sign up tentatively for one or two additional classes each semester, and after sampling for a week or two, decide which classes/professors/demands may not be a good fit, and which ones put-together do seem manageable for a semester.
By the second semester she was “in full swing” and by the end of sophomore year had completed six major related course to land a summer research internship.
