<p>As my orientation date draws near, I'm realizing that I don't want to go into chemical engineeing. I want to go into civil engineering. It's a long story that involves me remembering my childhood dream career...yada yada yada...I don't even know if want I want to do is a career. Anywho, previously, I planned out my courses for chemical engineering and, now, am doing so for civil engineering, but I've come into a problem: I'd be taking at most 150 credits. My AP credits towards CE won't help me out as much as they would in ChemE. </p>
<p>How am I going to fit all of these courses in? I don't want to take more than 15 credits a semester or a maximum of 5 classes a semester. As a look into the college's requirements, the feasibility of getting a civil engineering degree isn't looking so great. I need 131 credits for my degree. 15-18 of those credits must be in my concentration. I am required to take 24 credits worth of honors courses through my honors college. I need two semesters of a foreign language or a minimum of four weeks in a non-English speaking country. </p>
<p>If I go into civil engineering, I'd have to:
•Take summer classes for my entire four years
-when I was planning on going into ChemE, these summers were for study abroad or interships
•Put studying abroad on the back burner
-Studying abroad is high on my priority list. I'd be missing out on an experience that I would get scholarships for through the Honors College
•Dip into funds for summer sessions
-I'm not worried about the tuition ($3000 for all three summer session for 9 credits a session) I'm worried about housing, meals, etc. That adds up. </p>
<p>What are ways that you guys handled a high amount of credits with little time? Is doing civil engineering still worth it? I have yet to speak to my advisor and I'm sure many of my questions will be solved, but I just wanted to see how some of you guy did it and handled it. </p>
<p>Thanks for reading. :)</p>
<p>Well, as you can see from the flowchart (<a href=“http://ce.eng.usf.edu/docs/BSCE_Flowchart_Fall2012.pdf[/url]”>http://ce.eng.usf.edu/docs/BSCE_Flowchart_Fall2012.pdf</a>), the suggested way to do it is to carry more than 15 hours some semesters, and to take at least one (fairly heavy) summer term.</p>
<p>Alternatively, a 5-year plan.</p>
<p>Yes, I understand that there are multiple semesters that are above 15 credits, except I don’t want that for myself. I want the path to taking my degree to involve the least amount of stress as possible. I want enough time to study, take in information, and enjoy my classes. I can’t take 5 years. That’d simply be wasting money and a year. I will graduate in 2017. The main reason I chose USF is for the research, priority registration, and scholarships. To take an extra tea and waste money I might as well go to UF. </p>
<p>I’ve completed my four year plan and I’ve come up one credit short so I will have to have a semester where my credits exceed 15 and my classes exceed 5 classes; luckily, I was able to clear up one summer so hopefully I might be able to use that to study abroad or co-op. </p>
<p>Another question, have any of you taken an internship while taking summer classes? Did they interfere with each other?</p>
<p>I’ve taken 2 terms of summer classes while working an extremely flexible job (where I was required to get my work done, not to put in specific hours, and I had relatively little work to get done because the summer is the low season for my job). </p>
<p>One summer, I took 12 credits (6 credits as two consecutive 4-week courses which met for the entire morning 5 days a week, 6 credits as two simultaneous 8-week courses which met for 3 total hours in the evening 3 days a week). All 4 were introductory-level classes in an area I’d worked in for 7 or 8 years and required relatively little homework or study time. I got approximately zero work done the entire time.</p>
<p>One summer, I took 6 credits, with one in-person advanced class that met at night in the area in which I work, and one online class in an area I found personally interesting (and had 9 previous credits covering similar material, but from a different angle, taken 10+ years previously). Again, relatively light courseloads with no big papers or significant studying needed. I had no issue working basically full-time hours that summer.</p>
<p>So it really depends on the courses you’re taking and the flexibility of the internship.</p>