Freshman year first semester courseload too heavy?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Cornell University
1

I’ve figured out the schedule I want to have in the fall, but it ended up being 18 academic credits and then one PE class. With these classes in mind, would this be way too much to take on my first semester?

BIOEE 1610
CHEM 2070
MATH 1110
PE 1265
SINHA 1121 (this language class should be really chill)
And then an FWS

(I’m a non-premed bio major if it makes a difference)

2

I have no experience with any of those courses specifically, but 18 credits is the maximum amount you can take your freshman year. To me it looks like a lot, but certainly there are some people who are able to take BIOEE and CHEM and MATH. I definitely would not be able to.

There is no harm in signing up for them and then dropping one after a few weeks if you find it is too much. The drop period usually lasts until after the typical first round of prelims, so if you find you are struggling in one class or that you can’t balance everything, you have plenty of time to drop something.

3

I don’t know… as a freshman, DD registered for 21 credits, but she ended up dropping Old Norse to take 17 credits and did very well. She only had one science/math course per semester, though.

4

That should be tough, but doable.

5

My daughter took 18 units first semester too. 2 of them, pre-req for her major. She did good.

Second semester, she tried 18 units again (5 classes), with 1 Math and 1 (advanced) CS. She dropped 1 class bot not the Math and CS.

It all depend on you and how you will adjust to college life. My advice, get help right away if you’re getting behind. Take advantage of Office Hours and tutoring. And you can always drop a class if you find you’re struggling.

6

If your’re transferring in AP credit for Lit or Eng Composition I would put off the FWS a semester. It seems like a packed schedule for first semester. Plenty get through it fine though.

7

Also, languages at Cornell tend to be very difficult.

8

Languages tend to be a lot of work. If you take one of more obscure languages then there would be less difficult. If you take Mandarin then you could have a lot of native speaking Chinese in your class. My kids have told me Mandarin is one of the hardest language to get good grades in.

9

YMMV on the Mandarin, maybe; this is DD’s favorite class and she earned her best grades there (and no, we have no Chinese speakers in our family :slight_smile: ) . But it is a 6 credit course and the course load reflects that.