^^
This is all highly dependent on school, year, and type of class.
In general, a “typical” load is 5 3-credit classes. Aka 15 credits - this keeps you on track to have 120 credits over 8 semesters, what you need to graduate (note: some majors require more than 120 credits, such as chemical engineering)
But I also usually had at least one class that was 4 credits because of lab sections (I was an engineer). I also had a handful of 18 credit semesters, and my lowest was 14.
21 is the max (although you can technically get a waiver on that, I only know one person who has), and 12 is the minimum if you want to be considered full time.
Did you ever get an opinion from talking with friends or from other sources how your workload compared to students at Ivy League schools or good LACs that typically require 32 courses to graduate which means that the students only have to take four courses at a time rather than the five courses at a time at WashU? If any other WashU student has an opinion or comments, that would be great as well.
I can’t really make any comparison, because as an engineer, our requirements were governed by ABET for the most part.
I’m positive that those schools you’re thinking of that require only 32 courses require more from their engineers. Just pulled up my degree requirements, and there are 38 classes that are >= 3 credits… and this does not include required 1 or 2 credit seminars/labs.
My son is in a school where he needs 32 credits to graduate. Each class is a credit. Lab is 1/2 credit. But when we tried to figure out the number of hours his classes take per week to try to convert it to “regular” credit hours, his 4 classes and one lab converted to 19 credits.
@momworried - just an fyi, you can’t count lab hours the same as class hours. Chem lab at washu for me was 5 hours a week for only 2 credits (I took chem lab back when it was every week).
Regardless, I’m sure that the schools know how to set appropriate schedules for their students. Just as I know 15 credits/semester at washu is fine, I’m sure a “32 credit school” is challenging in the same way. I wouldn’t want to compare those directly, just as I would not want to compare courseloads between semester-based systems and quarter-based systems (and I have experienced both).
Just with engineering it gets a bit hairy in how you meet ABET. To be fair, most LAC’s aren’t going to have engineering anyway.