I am starting next year as a freshman in engineering at Purdue and recently talked with my advisor about scheduling classes. So far, it’s looking like I’ll be taking 17 credit hours. Is this too much? Any tips on how I should manage my time?
Here’s my schedule:
MA 16200 - Calc 2 (5 credit hours)
ENGR 13300 + VIPS - Transforming Ideas to Innovation and VIPS (3 credits)
CHEM 11500 - Chemistry (4 credits)
ENGR 19400 - Women in engineering seminar (1 credit)
JPNS 10100 - Japanese 1 (4 credits)
That’s pretty typical at Purdue for engineering. My D is a junior and typically takes between 16-18 credit hours/semester. Her first semester was similarly structured (slightly different courses because she’s in honors) but with oral communications instead of Japanese.
FWIW, my D took the 5 credit Calc II course and found the extra recitation very helpful.
Have you met your oral communication requirement with AP or placement out?
In terms of managing your time - my advice to all in coming freshmen is to not over commit to clubs and activities first semester. Pick one, but it can be overwhelming with how much Purdue has to offer because there is a lot going on all the time, and the tendency is to think that you can do the same number of ECs that you did in HS. Pro tip - that’s not possible ; ).
For every hour of class time, the rule of thumb is to plan for 2 hours of study time. The exception is 13300 where you will have significantly more work with your project team.
Go to office hours and study sessions even if you don’t think you need to. It will help you solidify concepts and help with studying. Join a study group early on. If you like your project team in 13300 that can be a ready made study group. I’d also encourage you to use SWE as a resource.
Hope you have a wonderful first semester! Boiler up!!!
I appreciate your reply! I have dual credits for pretty much all of my gen ed requirements. I am in the Goss Scholars program and can choose between ENGR 13300 and ENGR 16100 and thought that the project aspect of 13300 would be super interesting.
My D is in honors college and took 16100 as a freshman and it was also all project based. She said it was the most intensive, but also best course she took that year :). 13300 should be the same! (Lots of her friends did EPICS and loved it!).
If you have credit for ENGL and COM, this looks fine. My D had the same, except for ENGL106 rather than Japanese.
Take advantage of SI sessions, office hours, etc. There are many, many resources available to help FYE students succeed. My D observed that many of those who struggled believed they didn’t need the “extra help”. College is different than high school.
This.
1 credit is supposed to mean 3 hours of work per week, including in-class and out-of-class time. So 17 credits is supposed to mean 51 hours of work per week on your classes.
However, courses do vary in amount of work per credit. Courses with labs or projects are often more work per credit than many other courses.
Purdue MechE publishes a more granular set of hours/week expectations, based on history I assume, with recommendations as to the number of hours to commit to based on past academic success/GPA.
https://engineering.purdue.edu/ME/Undergraduate/Files/PlanOfStudy2021.xlsx
42-48 hours per week (14-16 credits) spent on everything doesn’t align with what I experienced or what I observed as a real engineering student’s total time commitment.
The estimated workload and credits suggests that the ME department is deflating credits (4-6 hours of work per week per credit) while they expect all other departments to be inflating credits (2 hours of work per week per credit for GE courses), when compared to the norm of 3 hours of work per week per credit.