I'll have a lot of empty space in my schedule, what should I schedule?

College Majors Engineering Majors
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<p>I'm currently a freshman in college, working on planning out my schedule for next semester as well as for later down the road. I didn't come in as an engineering major (am currently switching) so when I take certain courses is obviously impacted and I graduate one semester late (9 semesters instead of 8). I was making my schedule with my adviser and we both noticed that I will have a lot of space in my schedule especially later on. I came in with a lot of AP and IB credit, so I only need two more general ed courses (a visual/performing arts and an ethics class). My adviser suggested I take up a minor, which I had wanted to do anyways, to fill in the gaps. I went through my personalized course curriculum that my adviser made with me and even after filling in the core courses, technical electives, and minor courses (I will be minoring in Spanish and starting those courses next semester as I completed all the prereqs and the entrance exam this year), I will have a few semesters where I'm only taking like 13 or 14 hours.</p>

<p>I was wondering if I should take some small 2 or 3 credit hour classes outside of these required classes and gen eds. Is that a good idea? I've pretty much spread out my more difficult courses so I don't have a semester with a ton of hard courses all at once (except maybe next semester, we'll see :P ). Is it better to take a 13 credit hour semester (I still count as a full-time student) or take a 16 credit hour semester with classes like thermodynamics, transport phenomena, a technical elective, a minor course and a random class? If I take a random class not in a minor/major/GE, is this even allowed? What classes are good to take? Do a second minor or just take random classes that might be of interest to me? I'm really confused lol.</p>

<p>I'm in ChemE by the way.</p>

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<p>Yes, if you have space in your schedule that is not needed for required courses for your major or breadth requirements, you can fill it with anything you want that you see as being interesting.</p>

<p>Additional social studies courses like economics, sociology, and psychology are often good general knowledge to have (to understand why people behave the way they do), as is statistics if it is not already required for your major.</p>

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<p>Taking a statistics course is always useful. Depending on your major or grad school intentions, additional math courses may be useful (like you may want to take complex analysis or partial differential equations, but talk it over with advisors in your department first). If you are not a CS student, then fit in some computer science classes. More programming skills: greater employability.</p>

<p>I am almost unhinged in the degree to which I recommend studying economics, but I don’t recommend taking economics classes unless you are an econ major or minor, simply because the intro classes are taught very badly. They overemphasize math and way underemphasize concepts, so people wind up not understanding. I suggest Basic Economics by Sowell or Economics for Dummies by…Flynn I think. Or Economics in One Lesson by Hazlitt, or New Ideas from Dead Economists by Bucholz (although it perpetuates some myths about Marx). I better stop now and get back to engineering.</p>

<p>Anyway, stats, higher math, and CS classes are all good to take.</p>