I’m currently a high school student taking Gen-Ed classes at a community college. I’ve been taking 15 credit hours per semester, but 6 of those credits are your easy humanities, social science, and communication/writing courses.
Now, I’m attending the University of Florida in the fall, and my friends there (who are in the major I am interested in) have told me that taking15 credit hours is ambitious for an engineering student. My friends suggested taking only 12 credit hours for the fall/spring terms and maybe only 6 credit hours for the summers.
Okay, so my friends at UF are alcoholic frat-boys. They are not the brightest humans I know, but they are the only MechE majors I know in UF right now. I hate to judge them, but let’s just say that I like to believe that I am far more productive than them. So what do you suggest? Is taking 15 credit hours too ambitious? How many credit hours do you suggest/take per semester?
http://www.mae.ufl.edu/sites/default/files/PDF/2017-2018%20ME-Curriculum.pdf suggests 18 credits per semester for the first four semesters if you want to graduate in 8 semesters and no summer sessions.
However, if you have college or AP credit that can replace some of the required courses, you may be able to rearrange the schedule to lower the workload. But if you want others to help you with this, you need to specify what college or AP credit you may enter UF with.
An 18 credit semester is more work than a typical full time 15-16 credit semester, so you need to be disciplined with time management and self-motivation. But if you have been taking college courses already, you have already gotten some practice.
Your “alcoholic frat-boy” friends will probably need 9+ semesters and a few summers to graduate if they take 12 credits per semester and 6 credits in the summer (instead of seeking work to earn money and gain experience that can help when looking for a job at graduation).
@ucbalumnus
As far as critical-tracking goes, I have
Chem 1 + lab
Chem 2 + lab (counts as a science elective)
Physics with Calc 1 + Lab
Physics with Calc 2 + Lab
Cal 1-3
Diff Eq
I’m graduating high school with an AA degree, so I have all of the Gen-Eds done.
So you have about 30 credits / 8 courses of lower level major requirements completed and 15 credits / 5 courses of general education completed, as well as exemption from the 3 credit IUF 1000 because you have an AA degree.
Looks like the remaining courses listed in the first 4 semesters of the UF ME course plan are:
1 EML 2920
3 EML 2023
3 ENC 3246
3 COP 2271
3 EGM 2511
2 EML 2322L (needs ENC 3246)
3 EMA 3010
3 EGM 3344 (needs COP 2271)
3 EGM 3520 (needs EGM 2511)
3 EML 3100
So it looks like you can take the first group above (13 credits) in first semester and the second group above (14 credits) in the second semester. Then you can follow the rest of the plan with 15 credit semesters to graduate in a total of 6 semesters if you want, or take additional in-major or out-of-major electives if you stay for a total of 7 or 8 semesters. If you are more ambitious, you can move EMA 3010 or EML 3100 to the first semester for a total of 16 credits, so that you can get even more elective space later.
Excellent recommendation by ucbalumnus. :-bd
13 credits is fine for your first semester. 14 is also fine for the next. Keep in mind that EML 2322L, Design & Manufacturing Lab, may only be 2 credits, but it’s a huge time sink.