Hey all! So next year I’ll be a freshman at the University of Alabama, and I’m really excited! They offered me the National Merit Finalist Scholarship which includes five years of full tuition. With that in mind, here are some concerns I have and some questions I have for all of you.
Here is the link to Alabama’s core requirements: https://catalog.ua.edu/undergraduate/about/academic-regulations/curriculum/core-curriculum-general-education-requirements/
From what I can gather, this is the complete core curriculum that must be completed in order to graduate:
- 6 hours of written composition (FC)
- 6 hours in 300 or 400 level courses, preferably in your major, with a writing (W) designation
- 6 hours of a foreign language OR classes with a computer (C) designation
- 12 hours of humanities and fine arts
- 12 hours of history and social/behavioral sciences
- 11 hours of math and natural sciences
Adding this all up, you get 53 total hours of core requirements (47 hours if you lump the writing classes in with your major requirements). Is it just me, or does this seem like a lot? How much is this compared to other colleges?
I’ll be entering freshman year with 34 total credits from AP classes:
6 FC credits (English Language/Literature)
3 Computer credits (Statistics)
3 Humanities credits (Scoring 5 on both English exams)
18 Social/Behavioral Science credits (Psychology, US Government, US History, and World History)
4 Math/Science credits (Calculus AB)
It seems that I need 3 more Computer credits, 9 more Humanities credits, and 7 more Math/Science credits to fulfill the core requirements. I’ll try to take all of these in the Honors College if I can so that I can get the honors designation but it’s still quite a bit considering how many AP credits I’ll have going in.
Overall, I’m planning on double majoring in Political Science and Economics while also doing the Blount Scholars program (which is basically a small honors program worth 20 credit hours) and being enrolled in the honors college (which makes me do 18 credit hours worth of honors courses). I want to be done with this in three years.
Political Science major will be 30 credits (15 of which can be graduate level), Economics major will be 27 credits (I could also take 15 graduate credits as an undergrad if I want to), and the Blount Liberal Arts minor will be 20 credits. So 77 credits in six semesters on things I actually care about… can I do this while still fulfilling the core requirements? That’s 96 credit hours for all of it (including the core), which comes out to 16 hours a semester. Is this feasible?
I’m thinking of studying abroad during my third or fourth year as well, and then ultimately completing a masters degree (or two) in my fifth year (thanks to the Accelerated Masters Program). Should I take seven semesters instead of six to complete my undergraduate studies and then study abroad in my eighth semester? Would that make things easier? Or is a full year of study abroad really worth it?
What I really want to do is the Alabama Honors Program at Oxford; it can also cover a couple of Honors college credits which should help. What do you all think? Is the eighth semester a good time to do this?
I know that this is a lengthy post and I included so much information but I wanted to give everyone a very clear idea of my situation so that hopefully you are able to help me out a bit. Any thoughts, comments, or suggestions are much appreciated. Thanks!