difficulty of classes

<p>hi guyz. my course schedule for fall freshman quarter is:</p>

<p>chem 6a
math 10c
spanish lit 2a
lign 7 study of sign language and its culture</p>

<p>do u guyz know the difficulty of any of these classes? am i overloading myself? will i be able to maintain a good gpa with this courseload if i have a good study ethic? should i take spanish or lign 7 as a pass/no pass class since they are not major requirements? i am planning to go to med skool so im gonna try and maintain a high gpa. any input would be grateful. thank you.</p>

<p>A good rule of thumb:</p>

<p>A college credit is defined as three hours' work per week; one in class and two outside. That's why adding a three-hour lab to a class only results in one additional credit.</p>

<p>This means that 12 credits translates to an average of 36 hours' work a week. That's why 12 credits is considered full time; it's the equivalent of a full-time job.</p>

<p>If you have a course that meets three hours a week for 3 credits but doesn't require six hours of outside work a week to keep up, consider yourself lucky. Other courses may require more time. Also, individual students require different amounts of study time. It does no good to complain that three hours a week per credit is excessive, any more than it does to complain that 26 miles is too long for a marathon. They are what they are.</p>

<p>The one thing you can count on is that a few hours of cramming before the final will not give good results.</p>

<p>ic thanx. my 4 classes are giving me 17 units total. spanish is 5 units. is that a heavy workload for a freshman?</p>

<p>yes (ten char)</p>

<p>Well...yes and no. In terms of the actual classes, you should be ok...Spanish tends to be a time sink though so be prepared for that.</p>

<p>:)</p>

<p>karthikkito that may be true for you, but you don't know this dude's needs/abilities. Start your freshman year off with the recommended load and increase once you figure out what works for you. GPA is an important factor so go easy, get adjusted and listen to others time honored wisdom.</p>

<p>Hence the yes and no =p.</p>

<p>It's not an excruciatingly difficult load, but it can take some balancing. Also, ludakrishna mentioned that he's a premed, so I wouldn't push past the 17 mark at least for your first quarter (to help the GPA :)).</p>

<p>thanx guyz! i really appreciate it. u guyz seem to know a lot about college. which colleges r u in, voice of wisdom and karthikkito? im in warren. i had a late appointment so i didnt get all the classes i wanted so i took a class for my spanish pofc for a backup. hope to c u guyz soon! o ya, should i take spanish as pass/no pass?</p>

<p>I'm in Revelle, 2nd year.</p>

<p>Er, as far as spanish goes...how are you in the subject? If you're awesome, it could help your GPA. If you're not so great, take it P/NP.</p>

<p>:)</p>

<p>I was admitted into sixth. (my fourth choice) I will be attending UCD.</p>

<p>i've had a very strict spanish teacher in high school for 4 yrs and i think he prepared me well. i've been getting either low A's or very high B's every semester and i took the spanish IB test and AP test. hopefully it will help in college. karthikkito, r u premed?</p>

<p>You have a few weeks at the start of the quarter to decide between p/np and letter - make your decision then.</p>

<p>And no...I'm in Aerospace Engineering.</p>

<p>:)</p>

<p>Uhoh. <em>shifty eyes</em> I have 19 units. And although I'm not premed by name, I am essentially one.</p>

<p>I'd say that as long as you're following your counselor's recommendations, you should be alright. I don't know the exact site (I'm sure it's been posted in another thread), but UCSD does have 4 year plans, which is basically what the advisors pull their recommendations from (at least, for the first quarter). I'm sure that your advisor wouldn't suggest an unbearable load, especially for your first quarter in college. So, if you're following the recommendations, don't sweat it.</p>

<p>Classes here are easy, but there is a lot of unfair grading going on, as well as student cheating.</p>

<p>subjecttochange: what do you mean by unfair grading?</p>

<p>Er...the classes I've been in [and the students that I've worked with] have all been very much against cheating. I'm also not sure what you mean by unfair grading. Everything is on a curve (at least in the engineering and sciences) as is the case at virtually every university or college, so it's mathematically certain to be fair ;).</p>

<p>Like gather around like?</p>

<p>There was this computer class that I took, and the prof was really bad, and the course material was easy, so a lot of people stopped attending the class after a few weeks. Then one day, he passed around a piece of paper in class to ask everyone to put their name and PID on it, and counted that as 10% of the class grade, even though the syllabus did not include a component for attendence. </p>

<p>I ended up with an A minus, instead of an A, it was dumb, and I feel cheated.</p>