<p>I am currently working on my four year plan and I was wondering what is the maximum number of credits one should take each semester in order to ensure a good balance between work and play?</p>
<p>Depends on the courses you’re taking at the time. Generally, 15 to 17 hrs per semester is good.</p>
<p>To graduate, you need 120 credits.
If you want to accomplish this in four years, you have to take 15 credits per semester. that’s 5 classes. Some classes are 4 credits so maybe four classes per semester.</p>
<p>It depends on the courses, it depends on the student. Decades ago, when I was in college, I had no problems taking six courses some semesters, and a couple, I even took seven (not sure that’s even allowed anymore most places), with one of them at four credits, for a total of 22 credits.</p>
<p>People try not to take more than four technical courses a semester. I’m taking 4 400-level math courses and computer science course, and I really wish I didn’t. </p>
<p>I have no idea about non-technical.</p>
<p>Eddie, agree re Technical classes. D1 was always able to balance each semester with a German class (which were all very easy for her), but the work for the rest of her math/physics/astronomy classes sometimes was overwhelming.</p>
<p>For D2, going the nontechnical route, what she finds is that all of her classes require LOADS of reading and lots of written papers. She’s an environmental policy and Spanish Lit double major (actually, will get double degrees). It’s much different than spending hours upon hours trying to figure out one problem set in a physics class, but there are only so many hours a day your mind can focus on reading, too.</p>
<p>There are people at UMD who take 19-21 hours. I can’t imagine they can effectively also work or have many other extracurricular activities.</p>