<p>hey CC,
I am starting my second semester of college and I register for classs tomorrow. I was wondering if my schedule seems like its a lot of work or gonna be tough. I am planning on taking 17 units at my community college and the classes are:
Critical Thinking (3)
Sociology (3)
Anthropology (3)
Calculus I (4)
Oceanography with lab (4)
I really need to keep the Calculus I, I could drop Anthro to be at 14 units similar to the 15 units I'm taking now (Freshman English, Human Bio, History, Humanities, and Intro to Biz).
Please tell me if thats a lot, or if its really doable with A's.
thanks!</p>
<p>Personally i think it totally depend on how much interest you have taken in these subjects. If you have enough interest in these subjects then 5 courses are really doable with A’s.</p>
<p>OP, what is your personal history? Did you carry a large workload in high school? How did you do first term? The ability to handle a large workload is a very personal trait. 17 credits is nothing for me, but that’s just me. </p>
<p>Good luck with your studies.</p>
<p>plumazul is right. It depends on how well you have done before. My first two semesters were 22 and 26 credits and its easy enough for mostly A’s and two B’s while working full time. It just depends on the person.</p>
<p>17 doesn’t sound hard at all. I’m taking 22 next semester, and I’m a freshman. I took 19 this semester.</p>
<p>^^The number of credits you take as a whole doesn’t really say much for how difficult those classes are. Taking 22 credits as a music major isn’t necessarily the same as taking a high number of credits bogged down with lab classes or math that are more work then you get credit for. Not to say the OPs schedule is “bogged down” per se, but it’s not so cut and dry where you can say “Oh, I took 100 credits hours this semester and I’m a freshman. What you’re doing is blah, blah, blah.” unless you’re taking similar classes — but you aren’t.</p>
<p>OP:</p>
<p>It depends on you and your instructors. I took Soc and Anthro together my first semester and a lot of the material crossed over. A lot of the time it felt like the chapters just synced up in the textbooks. If you’re not good at math, drop something like critical thinking (unless it’s required). If your mathematics background is weak, that class could kick your butt. Same for oceanography. If it’s an upper-level course at your school, expect for lab to take up a sizable chunk of time. You could just keep them all and see how you feel for the first week and then decide during the drop or withdraw period if your grades start to suffer.</p>
<p>That close load is nothing compared to Nuclear Engineering courses. For this semester, I have a combined fluid and thermodynamics course in 1, Nuclear&Reactor Theory and the labs, Calculus 2, Nuclear materials and the lab, and a Statics course (super easy).</p>
<p>I think my course load for this semester looks a lot heavier than Jaces. Therefore I can say that those 22 and 26 credit semesters are more difficult than what Jace would be taking.</p>
<p>Its easy even if you work full time like we do.</p>
<p>
I’m sick of hearing that stupid engineering classes, etc. are the only hard classes. Music majors are in class more than just about anybody else, plus hours and hours of practicing per week. I’m sick of hearing this crap from some messed up engineering/science people on here. FYI, there are tons of music classes I have that are worth the same number of credits as non-music classes but are more work than those others, or some that I have that are 0 credits but we have to take anyways. Example- for my applied piano lessons, which are 0.5 units (or 2 semester hours, that’s it!!!) and I have over 20 hours of homework (practicing) per week, plus 3 hours spent in class (1 hr lesson, 1 hour piano studio class, and 1 hour piano departmental). Take that!</p>
<p>Woah, guys! Let’s be civil, here. Anyway, I don’t think music classes are easy what-so-ever. My sister and friends have taken music appreciation courses and…damn, they are hard! If you’re not passionate about it, you can get lost in the course and some of the assignments take forever to finish. Math classes can be difficult, but if you put a lot dedication, work, and get help to understand the material, a B-A grade definitely doable. Music classes require more abstract thinking, and sometimes that can get exhausting as hell. I love my film studies courses, but damn, sometimes the assignments can get hard and I know some people who failed the first exam and dropped it. Both field of studies are hard, no doubt about it.</p>
<p>Not saying music classes are easy, but have you actually ever taken a difficult lab course? One of the ones I took required 4 hours in lab and a 10 page lab report due every other week, which was graded on the basis that it should be of a quality where it could be published as is (only one person got an A in the course) and so with data analysis, research, etc. easily took 20 hours to write . And lab courses are only one credit, not two like yours. So…while your case certainly isn’t easy, it’s not so much a “take that” to science majors like you think it is. Of course your courses are more work than lecture classes even though they aren’t as many credits and I wouldn’t question that, but you don’t necessarily have it worse than science and engineering majors do.</p>
<p>But 18 credit hours to me means that I’m either in class or in lab from 8 am to 9 pm every day of the week. There is no way more than that would be doable in my major.</p>
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<p>Seriously? “Take that”? What is this, the playground?</p>
<p>Take that chip off your shoulder and calm down. I didn’t say music classes are easy. No one did. But you can’t seriously think that you’re the only person with “hours and hours” of homework. That’s college, big deal. It’s not exclusive to music majors. Your music class is 2 semester hours…I’ve taken two lab classes that were required and you didn’t get credit hours for them even passing with an A. I’ve also taken lab classes that are only 1 credit hour even though you spend hours upon hours per semester in the lab, writing reports, doing assignments, studying for lab exams, etc. </p>
<p>So, like I said. Bragging about taking 22 semester hours as a music major is NOT the same as taking 22 credit hours as a STEM major. It’s completely different set of skills required for both. Stop being so defensive because I never said your major was “easy” they’re just different. Jesus.</p>
<p>For my first semester I have been doing with all A’s but one B in those five classes (15 units) without much effort to put into work except for prepping for the midterms, tests, and the few projects I’ve had. Basically it hasn’t been much additional work.
The Human Bio class did not have a lab attached to it so I am not totally sure how the Oceanography will be. The Oceanography class will have an hour and a half of lecture twice a week with a two hour lab once a week.
As far as my course load history has been since high school, i’ve always taken a science and a math class. I took calculus I in high school before, got a C the first semester, then a B the second. I passed the AP test, but I feel it is better I should take it again. So potentially, I guess the Calculus class could “almost” be classified as a review class. In terms of more course history, not too many AP and Honors classes, but I did take about one or two every year of high school and I did well by getting an mostly A’s and B’s with the exception of that C in calc. And some of my classes each year of high school were somewhat demanding, ones had hw everynight, others had hardly any, but a test every two weeks, so hopefully this helps people out more in giving me advice.
But I am planning on seeing how things go the first week and if managing these classes are doable or not. When I mean doable, I mean I can work to get A’s in them without studying and school constantly eating up all my free time because I might be working part time next semester</p>