<p>I was wondering, what are some easy, less stressful courses to take for freshman year when the workload is lighter? I say this so I can boost my GPA before moving into the hard courses related to my major.</p>
<p>Some “easier” courses would be like your social science and humanity classes such as art or psychology. Although, you should know that many departments will only factor in your department courses gpa. Meaning they wouldn’t include those easier classes, but they definitely take both into consideration. It would be wiser to take 1 or 2 hard classes with one easier class such as art to keep a balanced load. You will need these humanities and social sciences for graduation requirements anyways. This is my personal opinion and how I form my schedule. Good luck!</p>
<p>agreed. take an easy class, and one or two hard classes. Your GPA is important, but so is demonstrating that you can handle a hard class. Also, don’t put yourself in a situation where you need to retake classes because you bit off more than you can chew.</p>
<p>The best thing I can recommend is talk to your advisor. Specifically address that you want to have a balanced class load. </p>
<p>I went through both years at my community college organizing my schedule without talking to an advisor, and although I did very well and got all my pre-reqs done in a timely manner, by far my worst quarter was one that could have been a bit better had I asked for help in a balanced workload. Taking a foreign language, calculus, and economics was definitely a heavy duty load, especially while I was working full time.</p>
<p>I don’t have experience with the advisors at UW yet, but I’m sure if you talk to them about it they can at least help guide you with options.</p>
<p>Look at Rate My Professor. One time I took an intro-level psychology course at my community college that I thought was going to be totally easy but it turned out to be the hardest class I took because the professor was so anal about everything. A lot of courses that seem “hard” can be “easy A’s” if you have the right professor.</p>
<p>Yeah who the teacher is, is often almost more important than what the class is.</p>
<p>Also a class is an easy gpa booster if you’re genuinely interested in it vs. taking something “easy” that you could care less about.</p>
<p>Beware of intro classes and anything with “survey” in the title. Those seem like they will be easy, but almost always cover a huge amount of information and get very specific with tests so the grades will self-normalize.</p>