Cutting to the point, i will be transferring to a university and I was looking at the ed plan for my major and OH. MY. GOD. Organic chem, physics, biochemistry and SO MANY medical related classes. How do you guys do it? How do you balance work (I work at least 20hr/week) and school? I don’t have a social life so I don’t need to worry about that.
Time management is really important, no matter what course of study you are on. You want to strive to always be on top of your work, not falling behind- once you fall behind, it’s very hard to catch up.
- Go to every class. Missing STEM classes means you miss a ton of concepts.
- Do all the practice problems.
- Use a planner and plan ahead.
Agree with above. I’d also suggest you develop a bit of a social life so you don’t explode. A well placed night out can help you to relax and refocus.
Sounds like you took all your gen eds at the community college and now when you transfer all you have left is straight science classes?
You don’t necessarily work 20 hours per week and take a full load of the types of classes you mentioned. You may have to adjust your coursework and paid work to fit your abilities. Especially if you are pre med and need a top GPA. Do everything suggested in post #1 and try your best, but think about backup plans, too.
You may need to swap work hours for more loans (if you aren’t taking all your federal student loans already) or spread out your schedule so it takes a little longer to finish but you stay sane. Taking a class or two in the summer (possibly at community college) might make your school year schedule a little easier, but don’t overload during the summer because the courses can be brutally fast paced.
Are you attending Pasadena City College and transferring to Cal Poly Pomona in microbiology?
Overall (but you should have covered some of the courses before transfer):
https://catalog.cpp.edu/preview_program.php?catoid=10&poid=2701&returnto=1199
Note that CPP is on the quarter system, so it looks like a lot of courses, but each course is “smaller” (a quarter is 10 weeks compared to a 15 week semester, so a 4 quarter unit course is 2/3 the “size” of a 4 semester unit course).
@ucbalumnus thanks for the last part! I have everything completed expect for the physics part. So you’re saying that the course load won’t be as much as the semester system? I thought you would have the same amount of material that you needed to learn but just less time to learn them.
Here is an example of how to understand the quarter versus semester system:
An academic year is 30 weeks of instruction, divided into two 15-week semesters or three 10-week quarters. Supposed there is a year long sequence of courses that are 4 units each term. Over the 30 weeks, you get the same instruction, but in the semester system, they are divided into two 4-semester-unit courses (= 8 semester units), but in the quarter system, they are divided into three 4-quarter-unit courses (= 12 quarter units). Since 1 semester unit = 1.5 quarter units, the amount of credit is the same, as should the instructional time and workload.
Basically, the same course content is divided into smaller “pieces”. Final exams will be more frequent, however (but each will primarily test less material).
If you take 15-16 units each quarter, the workload per week should be similar to taking 15-16 units each semester at a semester system school (assuming similar courses).