I ended up changing my major twice and now I’m sorta a year behind other than some general classes I had taken like ENG. To graduate on time I am going to take summer classes. However, i wish to also take two certificates by the time I graduate in my fourth year. As I am looking to be self employed by making books and games by time I graduate (possible since its creative major, can hop in a job if didn’t develop enough passive income salary by then), I’m sort of an over achiever, which is why I wish to take those two certificates which will likely help me. I took an 18 credit hour course last semester, and I did generally good, other than one class which I got a C in because I had the flu during midterm math exam so couldn’t focus 
Anyways I’m confident that I can do this. Only thing I am not sure of yet is exactly how different upper division will be with lower division. I’m not feeling overloaded with 18 last semester, however those were lower divisions like 100-299s. If upper division is a lot more than I am thinking about, I do not wish to plan my future class map and end up taking an extra semester or year in college because upper division was harder than I thought it’ll be, which if it is, I will need to, I will drop some or all of the four elective classes I also am planning to take.
The amount of credit hours I can take during my next three years including this summer will be around 146-148 credit hours (12 each summer, 18 each semester, and at least 2 overloads to 19 or 7 in summer due to science and one class thats 1 C [summer overloads at 9 for my school, but most classes are 3C so I am just assuming 6+6]).
If I do everything as planned (assuming I don’t fail anything, which is almost impossible because as long as I don’t ignore the class then basically guranteed a D, but most likely a C) I have 145 credit hours of classes I will take during this time. At least half of which is upper division. If it’s too much, then I’ll cut down 6C and look to take 7C one more time during a summer semester and overload to 19 one more time my next year. As I aiming at creative industry, I do not really care about my GPA as even if I do look to get employed, it is my portfolio and experience that matters a lot more than GPA. So it is okay if upper division affects my grades, however I just want to know if it possible, as in not failing classes, as that is what I really care about.
It wont let me edit my post so I’ll post this here just to give more info.
Do I have a job?
Yes and no. It is not a typical job as I just spend about an hour to two a day making stuff on my own time, so it is not enough to affect me with classes, as I can just skip some days when I am too busy and catch up on breaks. So basically I have no other responsibilities other than needing some spare time to hang out with some people. So it will not affect me needing to complete classes
What is your major? What are the certificates and why do you need them? Does your school have a credit limit? Many do.
It really depends on your major - if you were taking lots of STEM classes with labs or ART classes with studio time or ENG classes with tons of reading, then 18 credits could become overwhelming. But if you can include one or two classes with moderate workloads that also fill requirements, a motivated and hard-working student could probably keep up.
Upper division courses typically have more advanced material that requires knowledge of material learned in previous courses, but they may or may not be more difficult or time consuming.
As noted in reply #3, course features like labs, art studio or performance, huge amounts of reading, computer programming assignments/projects, or large term projects can increase the workload of a course relative to other courses of the same amount of credit. Try not to take too many of these high workload courses at the same time.
It depends on the type of student you are. This would be a normal workload for my engineering son.
Consider a few things. Don’t take a class to get a C in it. Your goals might change as they normally do and the GPA might be more important then you think. Also you can strive for the certificate but as long as it doesn’t affect you graduating could always drop class here and there. One last thing. If it’s just the knowledge your after discuss with your advisor about just auditing some classes . Think different schools might have different approaches but think you sit in on the class and take it pass /fail. This way you don’t have the extra pressure on you for those classes.
I’m attending ASU. My major is Art (Animation) and certificate is Computer Gaming, which I need the certificate for the knowledge / material while my other certificate I’m planning on taking is Writing (New College), which I am taking to just help out with my writing more. If I’m overloaded planning on dropping that as I can just hire editors as I’m already a good creative writer. I wish to be self employed so trying to learn a lot as my parents will pay for my first four years and I basically wasted my first year.
There are some studio classes for my major, which are on average about 3 hours. However my advisor told me that the workload is basically the same when I talked to him last week, it is only that more of the workload is in class instead of homework, which I hope is true, though sometimes they are wrong. Some of my non studio classes but core classes related to majors are 2 hours. Because of this I have been editing / researching my class schedule for the next 3 years ish to try and fit everything other than the exact time slots, and give some leeways on ones offered on fall/spring as some only offered one semester a year. Also after counting a couple more times, I found out that I had actually counted number of classes I will be taking wrong… It is actually 140 credits and not 145 which gives me about 6 credit hours of spare space while I can drop 6 more if need be and at worst can drop my writing certificate. If most of my day that I do not spend in class free, do you think its possible to do it as there are studio classes if I’m motivated enough? or you think way too much?
Talk to your advisors then some professors teaching these classes to gain insight. I honestly don’t know anything about your field but it sounds very cool ?.