<p>Hello, I am new to this site. I am needing some opinions on my schooling, and some corrections because I feel as though I might be wrong. I don't know if this gives any insight, but I had a 4.0 GPA in high school. I was planning on attending a 4 year university in my local area (over an hour away), but I am having some severe anxiety about being that far away of home. I guess my main question is can I get an associates in science in a year ( this fall, next spring, next summer, fall 2015 4 year university) at a community college, then move on to a 4 year university, and get a bachelors in biology in a year and a half? I'm sorry if that's hard to understand I'm pretty distraught right now. I don't have much of a use for my time besides school, it's the only thing I really truly enjoy. I plan on taking 20 credit hours a semester, I know it's possible for me to do it, I'm just worried that the college won't let me. Thanks for any replies, and if anyone needs clarification just ask. </p>
<p>You would have to speak to an advisor at the community college. But usually there aren’t classes just scheduled anytime you want that all work together without conflict. Classes need prerequisites, they often fill up and you can’t take any semester and all that headache at oversubscribed CCs. Summer particularly usually has reduced offerings.</p>
<p>About taking excess credits–if it is too much, you don’t usually know during the drop period when everything is easy early on. It is when midterms and finals hit that things get hard. W’s on your record don’t look good and you have to pay for the class. Keeping high grades are more important. I’d caution against it considering the many people that come here with their transcripts in disarray and on academic probation.</p>
<p>It is clear that you’d rather jump through hoops to do a workaround that fix the real issue. Why? An hour is so close it indicates a serious problem and I wish you luck with working that out sooner rather than later.</p>
<p>@Bunny556 Have you spoken to any counselors about your anxiety? On a brief glance, you seem to choose a very imbalanced courseload vs. doing things in a more moderate pace. Is there a reason for this? Do you have what you’d consider a healthy social life? Work a job? Hobbies and pleasure activities?</p>
<p>If you were to come to me after college and show me your resume and say you powered out your degree in a little over two years at the expense of everything and everyone else, I would have serious concerns about how you’d fit in my workplace/lab/educational department. Obviously, I don’t know much at all about you. But you hint at some areas that counseling may be of assistance.</p>
<p>I have a healthy social life, it’s part of my reason for not wanting to leave! Me and my friend go out a couple nights a week, and we talk at least every other night. I guess I just mean that school is challenging and I like to be challenged I do truly love school and that’s about all I like to do. I’m not particularly “sacrificing” my time with friends I see on a bi weekly bases and talk to at least every other day, and I would hope the state government would not discriminate against me in that fashion, or have presumptions as such.</p>
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<p>Then plan on taking a few summer courses and not overload during the year. </p>
<p>Other than family, perhaps the number one way to self-sabotage your college experience is to put too much emphasis on what your HS friends are doing and trying to keep that HS thing going. It’s a good way to wind up an insurance salesman in Bakersfield. (Cue the ending to American Graffiti…)</p>
<p>Don’t sacrifice your education to hang out with your friends who aren’t going anywhere. Be yourself and get the education you deserve. Going to school about an hour away is still ridiculously close to home. You could be a commuter student. And I hate to burst your bubble, but the likelihood that you have the same HS friends even 5 years from now is very slim.</p>
<p>I’m not wanting to stay close for the first bit because of my friend, it’s just a bonus, anyways most of them are leaving some are comuting, and others I don’t know. I just had some questions on the technical aspect of all of it, and would greatly appreciate it if someone could help me with that. Thanks! </p>
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<p>I’m not sure I understand what you’re getting at here. If you register for classes, your professors will expect you to show up. They won’t care if it conflicts with a standing dinner date with friends. If you want to pass, you have to attend your classes. If you take extra credits every semester (including over break), you’re not likely to have much time to see your friends anyway.</p>
<p>Since you’re so anxious about leaving home, maybe you need to take a gap year and work so you have time to mature a little more before you go away.</p>
<p>For the practical aspects, and I don’t think what you are planning will work out in your time frame, you need to do your homework. Look up your intended major. Read the graduation requirements, how many total units you must have and how many must be taken at the institution you will graduate from (they will often require 60 units), how many general eds you need and the major requirements. Note prerequisites for classes in your major.</p>
<p>Now go to the CC and find out which classes you can take there to satisfy the lower division requirements. See if there is a transfer agreement that maps out a program where all your units will be accepted and applied toward graduation and your major. Look up the course catalogue online and put together what a schedule would look like for the first semester and each semester after that from the classes on offer. </p>
<p>Return to the 4 year and look up in the catalogue and plan out each semester schedule. What I think you will find is issues of prerequisites, class time conflicts and that is not even counting if your CC or the 4 year fills up and you can’t take a class you want. You have a better chance of graduating early if you start at the 4 year–you won’t risk classes not transferring. But like I suggested in the first post, why don’t you see if you can make an appointment with the CC advisor to discuss?</p>
<p>Since you asked about the “technical” aspects to your plan, here are two potential issues: 1. Majoring in a subject like biology is going to make it a little harder to fit in all the classes in a shorter period of time. A large number of your classes after the first semester will be lab sciences, which often meet 6 or more hours a week each due to the labs. It can become very challenging to put together a schedule, particularly if you are going to try to take five or six classes a semester. 2. A lot of the sciences are sequences, so you can not always “double up” in a semester. And chemistry classes (at least a few are required for Bio majors) are often dependent on your math level, so that can complicate things depending on your strength in math. I’m not saying what you want to do can’t be done, but anticipate challenges.</p>
<p>I’m not sure what you mean by the “state government” discriminating against you. If you mean that the college will not let you take as many credits as you want each semester, each school has their own policy, and you will need an advisor to sign off on more than 18 credits. Usually the advisor will look at whether you are likely to be successful in taking an overload. There is, after all, little benefit in getting in over your head and failing or getting a low GPA in an attempt to get through college quicker. That could backfire on you, both time-wise and financially. </p>