I was wondering what the average number of courses students at Brown take per semester? My son is a freshman and is concentrating in math and science. He is finding many students take only four classes per semester and are able to graduate on time. Since he is taking advanced math and science courses, four classes seems like a challenging enough workload. When I was in college, most students completed five classes per semester. Can someone explain the difference in the Brown curriculum? My son is planning on getting involved in research and attending graduate school after Brown. I would appreciate any insight parents or students may have.
The vast majority of Brown students take 4 courses per semester. Each course is worth one “Brown credit,” which is equivalent to 4 credit hours elsewhere. From what I saw of my friends at other colleges while I was at Brown, they were generally taking about 16 credit hours, but many courses were worth less than 4 credit hours (met less often/for shorter time periods). It all evens out in the end.
He will be at no disadvantage in the grad school process.
I’ll second what bruno said. In fact, you can graduate Brown with only 30 credits, which means some students might take three courses for two semesters (or can still graduate after getting a couple of NCs).
I’m a Brown graduate, and I’ve taken classes and taught at other universities. The workload and expectations for one Brown course was higher than the workload for one course at other schools. IOW, while some students are taking 5 or even 6 classes at University X and Brown students are taking 4 classes, the workload is equivalent.
BTW, Harvard students have a similar expectation (they need 32 classes to graduate).
I’m sure there is a study somewhere of the average number of total classes taken by Brown students. I’d also like to know the number of students who start with five classes who end up dropping one midsemester – my suspicion is that happens a lot. There do seem to be more students now interested in taking five classes than when I was at Brown (I knew no one – absolutely no one – who even expressed interest in taking more than four classes a semester).
Yale requires 36 courses for graduation, so in the absence of summer work, some semesters, 5 classes are usually needed, although some foreign language classes and courses with labs are more than 1 credit.
Thank you for the quick response. The classes and workload for four classes does seem equivalent to five classes at other universities, especially if you are taking difficult courses. The education is top notch and I expect my son to be able to get into a highly rated grad program.
We are very happy with our experience at Brown so far. One of the best things has been the incredible support network when a student is having difficulty in a course. Students may meet with their academic advisor, a student advisor, the professor or a TA for assistance. Students may also attend office hours with a dean of the university. Overall, it is an incredibly friendly, supportive environment. We are also happy with the amount of activites on campus. There are many ways to make new friends and stay active on campus.
@lmb123 I wish I could be specific but I don’t think I was aware after the first year or two of how many classes my daughter was taking. But I do know of a couple of attempts early on of 5 with a dropped class. She also took an enormous amount of math, science and CS classes as she was able to do that due to lack of distribution requirements. She did take other stuff but I wish she had done more elsewhere (at least I would have.) And she did take some classes summers as she usually did research on campus as well. She had an excellent resume for PhD programs mainly due to that research experience. She did a semester abroad in math too and I don’t know how those credits were applied. When your son declares his major he will have a contract with his advisor to lay out the path to graduation, it can be amended of course but he will be on track and he can discuss what is appropriate for grad school aspirations.
Getting accepted into a research program is very much about your experience in research, understanding and affinity for what it entails, aptitude for it according to the letters of recommendation from the professors you have worked with on research. Did Well in Class is just a given and not the end all be all of getting into a phd program. Also at Brown you can take a grad class or two should it be an area of interest or something you need to learn for the undergraduate research you are working on.