After last week, I’ve realized that I’ve really been trying to do a little too much in and out of school. All of last week I was up late doing homework, Thursday night I had a talent show/pageant/violin performance, Friday I had a tennis tournament all day, Saturday I had to help run an academic meet at the school (president of academic teams), and Sunday I had more tennis. In the midst of this was the end of one grading period, three to four tests in AP classes, club meetings, newspaper assignments, and more. I’m currently making up assignments from Friday that I missed. This kind of week isn’t overwhelming, but it’s been reoccurring more and more often as senior year has gone by.
So, I started to think about college, and whether or not the situation will get worse. I’m nervous about how tough classes really are at Columbia or just college in general and how the difficulty of academics plus the time taken to do work-study will affect my ability to do the things I love (violin, sketching, gaming, writing, tennis, etc.).
Any and all advice on the topic is welcome, but I post the discussion on Columbia’s forum because that’s where I’ll be going and where I expect to get the best advice from- current students and recent alumni. How much is really too much for a student in terms of classes and activities? Any tips and warnings?
There’s no magic formula. People who’ve been admitted into selective schools have been identified as being able to successfully juggle many competing things. Once you get to campus, you’ll find another world of interesting things to devote yourself to … frankly, you’ll have to drill down and focus (while keeping your eyes & ears open to new things that emerge). There’s so many draws on your time – especially socially. You’ll be around ppl you just want to hang around a lot, most likely. Things will drop from your list. Maybe academic teams will fall off. Maybe you’ll only do intramural or recreational tennis. Maybe you’ll accept someone’s invitation to be a stage hand for a new theatrical production. Maybe trips to and fro the city and other sites near you will be fantastic and a regular part of your college enjoyment. Maybe you take 4 tough classes and allow yourself an easy one some semesters. It’s all part of the excitement to come. But everyone around you is experiencing the same thing. Spk w/your freshman counselors if you find it too much to manage. You’ll be fine. Congrats and enjoy CU in the fall.
Work study is manageable - don’t worry! Most jobs have flexible schedules and many of them even allow you to do homework while you work. It’s OK - you will be okay. There is a learning curve in how you manage your time and you should expect that it will be tough at first. There is no universal “too much”. What is too much for me may be a regular workload for you. What is too much for you (from the sounds of your post) may have already killed me, LOL. I would recommend going for a max of 5 academic classes your first semester and see where it goes from there. I had 5 classes last semester and 5 this semester, but I dropped one class and picked up another. Workstudy bosses are usually flexible in terms of which hours you work as most of them know school comes first. Just make sure you give yourself time to learn and grow - there is plenty of time to join clubs later.
@T26E4 @mistanervous Thanks for the advice! My mindset’s been fluctuating in terms of confidence about whether or not I’ll be able to manage my time effectively, and I posted the discussion in the midst of a low confidence, high stress period. Your replies helped a ton, and my mind’s a little more at ease.
Depends on your major.
If you’re engineering you’ll probably get overwhelmed by the academics alone even without the EC’s, but it’s still definitely manageable.
If you’re not engineering it’s still a lot of work, but the pressure, at least academically, isn’t as high and you’ll be totally fine. Columbia’s a tough school but it’s nothing unreasonable, and you seem accustomed to working hard. I wouldn’t worry at all.
I think it’s smart to be thinking about this issue, as it is easy to get overwhelmed when you get to college. There will be probably be lots of extracurriculars that you’ll want to do, and the academics may not seem too intense at the start of the semester, but they pick up in intensity as you move along. I think you’d be well advised to err on the side of conservatism at the start, and see how much time the academics are taking up before you start committing to a lot of extracurriculars.
Also, there seems to be an ethic among some (maybe most) students that you’re “shirking” if you don’t take at least five academic courses per semester, and some take six. You shouldn’t feel this way. You actually don’t need to take that many to graduate (at least in the college - don’t know about engineering). You need to average 15.5 credits per semester and most academic courses are either 3 or 4 credits. In addition, you can pick up credits here and there from things like music, drama, dance, phys ed, AP credits, etc. If you take a couple of 4 credit courses and a couple of 3 credit courses and then scavenge a couple of credits each semester, you’ll have enough. My son, now a junior, has managed his schedule so that he has never taken more than four academic courses in a semester, which has freed up time for him to pursue some extracurriculars that he really cares about (and that I think are teaching him as much as or more than his academic courses).