Is 22 credit hours too much?

I’m going to be a college freshman next year in the honors program at my university double majoring in Aerospace Engineering and German. I’ll also be participating in AFROTC, which requires you to take some courses worth credit hours. I made a rough draft of my course selection and it came out to be 22 credit hours? Is that too much to handle? I broke it down below…

Engineering Foundations Honors (3 credits) M W F
German Intermediate Conversation Comp I (3 credits) M W F
Honors General Chem (4 credits) M W F
Calculus 1 (4 credits) M Tu W Th
Holocaust In Film & Lit (3 credits) M
Intro to Aerospace Engineering (1 credit) Tu
University Honors Connections (2 credits) Tu Th
AFROTC Air Force Studies (1 credit) W
AFROTC Leadership Labratory (1 credit) Th

Normal full time course load is 15-16 credits, although some engineering course plans may have 17-19 credits some semesters.

Remember that each credit is supposed to correspond to 3 hours of school work per week (including in-class and out-of-class time), so 22 credits should be expected to be 66 hours of school work per week.

4 Likes

ROTC will take time as well. PT is early and if you’re on scholarship you’ll be expected to lead and set the example.

1 Like

Yes, it’s too many.

8 Likes

Looks like you have a normal first semester engineering technical course load of 12 credits:
Calculus 1 (4 credits) M Tu W Th
Honors General Chem (4 credits) M W F
Engineering Foundations Honors (3 credits) M W F
Intro to Aerospace Engineering (1 credit) Tu

Plus a humanities / social studies breadth course for 3 credits:
Holocaust In Film & Lit (3 credits) M

Plus a course for a second major in German for 3 credits:
German Intermediate Conversation Comp I (3 credits) M W F

Plus an honors program course for 2 credits:
University Honors Connections (2 credits) Tu Th

Plus ROTC courses for 2 credits:
AFROTC Air Force Studies (1 credit) W
AFROTC Leadership Labratory (1 credit) Th

In other words, it looks like adding the course for the second major in German (3 credits) and the honors program course (2 credits) and the ROTC courses (2 credits) is what pushes your course load from 15 credits to 22 credits.

Also, have you been exempted by AP credit or some such from English composition courses? Do you not have AP credit for math or anything else?

1 Like

That’s way too much for the first semester when you are adjusting to college. Way too much even for a superstar. Drop the German and humanities classes and it is still a heavy caseload. Any college worth its salt will never let you sign up for that many classes without a waiver, which they will never give to a freshman first semester.

1 Like

I’m looking at the 5 clases on Mondays and Wednesdays and wondering if those courses overlap at all in classtimes? Or how much time it will take to get to classes if buiildings aren’t close.

Hey @user_657214

This was my 22 units semester in CC. Not a university like in your case, but might still be helpful. I am double majoring in Architecture and Economics, transferring next semester.

ARCHI 136 Digital Tools for Architecture 3.00 A
Grade Changed - 01/12/21
BUS 294 Business Law 3.00 A
BUSAC 186 Financial Accounting 4.00 B
CARER 110 Career and Life Planning 3.00 A
ECON 220 Principles of Macroeconomics 3.00 A
ECON 221 Principles of Microeconomics 3.00 A
SOCIO 120 Introduction to Sociology 3.00 A

What can I say, this was tough. Will never do this again unless there will be no other choice. This was online, had one professor for 2 econ classes (there were some overlaps with the material, less work to do), carefully chose every other professor (non-harsh graders, not much homework, non-proctored exams, either no zoom meetings or attendance doesn’t count towards the grade). Have DSS 1.5x extension for all my exams. Got F in one class, was allowed to resubmit work during the winter break, changed it to A (but there was a lot of negotiation with the professor, the chair and the DSS office). And I haven’t been working, just studying.

Do it if you have to. It’s possible. But be careful with choosing professors and classes.

1 Like

I received AP credit from my AP Lang score that exempted me from Freshman Comp I and II. I also have German AP credit that boosted me up to the 300-level in German. For math, I have dual credit from Calculus I this year that I’m using to check off pre-calculus and I could use it to go straight to Calc II, but everyone at the university says retake Calc I when you get there. I have some other AP credit that checks off some credit hours here and there, but nothing that fully checks off another requirement.

I could get rid of the Holocaust In Film & Lit Class, but the Honors program and AFROTC classes are mandatory so I’d still be at the higher end at 19 credit hours. Would that be more doable as a first semester freshman?

They don’t overlap. Three in the morning with at least 20 minutes between the 3 morning classes and two spread out in the afternoon.

Better to try the university’s old calculus 1 final exams to check your knowledge against the standards of the university math department. Because you are trying to cram a high volume major (aerospace engineering) and a second major (German) and ROTC courses into your schedule, you need to avoid wasting any schedule space if at all possible, so if you can do all of the old calculus 1 final exam problems easily, skip it.

1 Like

Okay, great. Thank you! I’ll try and do those.

The other thing you want to do is look up the complete major requirements for both aerospace engineering and German, any additional general education requirements, any honors program requirements, and ROTC requirements, and add them all together to figure out how many credits worth of courses you need to take if you do all of them. Divide by 8 to get the average number of credits per semester. Consider whether you will be able to use summers for general education courses or other lower level courses, if ROTC and work/internships do not prevent that.

If your goal with German is to get to a high level of language proficiency, it may be better to drop the idea of completing a full major and just take the courses needed to improve your proficiency.

4 Likes

My son did 18 credits for a few semesters. But that was his school’s limit. Do you know what your school will allow? He also worked and played some sports and was active on campus. Try to have some fun but of course this is probably your fun… Lol

I haven’t checked to see what they will allow. I’m mostly just doing this because the class requirements on my portal as an aerospace engineering major seem like they won’t all fit into 8 semesters.

Engineering majors commonly require slight overloading to finish in 8 semesters. However, if you have some English and math covered by AP credit, you may be able to overload less or not at all with a basic engineering major.

But adding the German major, ROTC, and honors program courses could add a lot more credits you need to take beyond the basic engineering major.

2 Likes

No engineering job is going to care that you have a German major. Why not do a minor and see what that looks like. You can also do private lessons if needed for higher language proficiency… Just a thought. Engineering classes are very tough and these are just beginning classes. See what they allow first. You can alway take 2 classes freshman summer to help achieve your goals.

5 Likes

Can you schedule that many classes with out an academic advisor approving it? I don’t think an academic advisor doing their job should/would approve that schedule for an incoming freshman.

Your gpa is important. Concentrate on doing well. Your engineering foundations class will probably have group work and peer assessments. You need the time to be available to your team and owe them your best work.

1 Like

Looks like the OP’s probable university has a limit of 18 credits per semester, or 21 credits per semester for a student who has enough credits (i.e. not a new frosh) with a 3.0 or higher college GPA.

Oh I’m not going to UMD if that forum post I did a while back is what you were going off of. I just checked my university’s policy and it says entering freshmen or transfer students are limited to 18 credit hours. So I have to cut another hour somehow unless they allow me to keep the 19 since the extra hour is for an AF leadership lab.