<p>Hello! I'm a high school student (sorry to intrude on your college life forum), but I have a question aimed towards college students. How many classes do you generally take per year/ semester? I always thought the average was 10 classes per year/ 5 per semester. Can anyone verify this? Also, if I take 7 classes at a time now, would it be reasonable to assume I can keep that pace (and graduate more quickly), or will the workload be too much?</p>
<p>To be a full time student you need 12 hours a semester which is around 4 classes a semester. 5 classes is pretty manageable (for people double majoring or in engineering, this is quite common). 6 is pushing it though and your social life/health/grades probably will suffer.</p>
<p>7 a year is probably impossible unless you have an IQ of 300, the workload for that many core classes would be immense since there are no electives like those in high school since the electives in college are still pretty challenging. </p>
<p>15 hours/semester is a pretty typical requirement for students on merit scholarship. Also, 120+ hrs is a pretty typical graduation requirement. That actually adds up to 15 hours/semester and a little more (unless you come in with AP credit).</p>
<p>A STEM major might go insane taking more than that, because labs can take a lot of non-negotiable time. A humanities major might also go insane, because you could end up reading a fat Victorian novel at the same time you’re reading a difficult philosophical text by Kant or someone.</p>
<p>The best survival strategy is to spread your generals over 4 years as much as possible, so you don’t end up with a full load of 400-level courses in your senior year. And I say that still assuming a 15-hour maximum.</p>
<p>Depends on the school. At some colleges 5 classes per semester is the expected load. At others it’s 4. Usually it’s worded in terms of credit hours per semester, and credit hours can vary by course. If you take a lab science, the lab will look like an extra course on your schedule.</p>
<p>Checking the requirements at D’s school, you must complete at least 40 3 or 4 credit hour courses. At the school where H teaches, the requirement is 132 credit hours (16.5 credits/semester, but he’s at a school with a winter term where students often pick up a few extra credits). A minimum of 12 hours qualifies you as a full time student, but you won’t graduate in 4 years if that’s all you take each semester.</p>
<p>Ok, so 5 classes a semester is typical? If social life doesn’t matter (I’ve never had one), and I can stay up late every night and be fine (even after a week, week and a half of straight all-nighters I can function just fine) would 19 credits a semester be doable? I intend to be a STEM major.</p>
<p>While 5 courses may seem light compared to the seven you are currently taking, realize that in most cases the work load will be far heavier than what you have in high school, especially if you are a STEM major. If your goal is to graduate early, you’re better off focusing on taking additional courses in the summer (but you will have to pay for them). Some colleges will charge you extra for credit hours above a certain amount each semester anyway, so there may not be a cost savings when you overload your courses. I wouldn’t recommend signing up for more courses than average, at least at first, and then you can see if you can manage more. You usually need to get special permission to go over a certain number of hours (number will vary by school).</p>
<p>Your school may have specific guidelines that limit the number of hours students can take depending on their GPA etc. Remember also that college classes move along faster than high school classes, even AP ones. Why are you trying to overload so many credits?</p>
<p>First of all, you cannot stay up all night for a week. It isn’t physically possible. And if you exhaust yourself too much, then you’ll be too brain-dead to function well in your schoolwork. </p>
<p>Many of the AP classes cover only a semester’s worth of college material and most high school classes aren’t even up to that standard. So just because you can take 7 classes in high school doesn’t mean you can handle that in college. You’d have to be in something like 6-7 APs including some of the APs which reflect a full year’s work, like BC calculus, to approximate a normal college workload. And the reading and writing for the humanities/social science classes is much more time consuming in college. Do you write 20 page term papers? Are you expect to read 2 or 3 Shakespeare plays in a single week for English? Do you really think you can do significantly more than that? And why would you want to waste your college years exhausting yourself by studying 24/7 and having no social life and not taking advantage of all the other opportunities available in college?</p>
<p>I have to wonder why you are saying these things. Do you feel you will need to graduate more quickly because you cannot afford 4 years in school? If you’re a good enough student to consider overloading so much, you should be able to get a good scholarship somewhere. </p>
<p>I would like to graduate in three years (if possible) so if I have to spend more time in graduate school, I don’t feel like I’m behind. Also, it would be cheaper to graduate in three years, which is nice. Plus, there is no extra cost associated with taking more credit hours at the university I will likely attend; however, I guess it does sound like a better idea to take courses over the summer, unless I have a research internship I would rather go to. Thanks for that suggestion.</p>
<p>Mathyone, I have stayed up for a whole week. It’s not impossible.</p>
<p>STEM classes will also require regular labs which will take up hours in your schedule without giving you any additional credits.</p>
<p>Given the fact that you are a HS junior and have yet to set foot onto a college campus as an accepted student, you are obsessing over this WAY to soon.</p>
<p>Many colleges cap the number of credits you can take a semester, or require approval for over a certain number of courses. </p>
<p>In most instances, the new student pack will tell you what the limit on courses is for the first semester/ e.g. Harvard and Princeton is 4.</p>
<p>So in all likelihood the college will limit you the first semester to allow you to actually judge firsthand the academic rigor of the program. Until such time, don’t even think about it</p>
<p>At my university, pretty much all of our courses are 4 units, so mostly everyone takes 4 classes a semester. That leaves us with 32 units a year. </p>
<p>While you have a lot of classes in high school, it’s not really the same. In high school, you have class every day and sometimes get work done in class. In college, you spend less time in the classroom (which is mainly lecturing and instruction) and you do most of your work at home/outside of class, which can take quite awhile. </p>
<p>Just starting out, take the regular amount. You’ll be better able to judge what you can do after you have a semester under your belt. </p>
<p>I would caution you to overload on your courses every semester, not necessarily because I don’t think it is possible (many students take a higher number of credits than would be considered typical at some point during college, if not necessarily every semester) but because you’ll likely have to sacrifice other experiences. I don’t really care if you don’t care about having a social life or sleeping or whatever, but you’re also sacrificing the opportunity to have internships, work, do research, volunteer, network, etc. College isn’t just about school. It’s also about getting experiences that will set you up to get a good job or go to a good graduate school.</p>
<p>You mentioned graduate school above. If you’re interested in a research-based PhD or masters program, then your research experience is going to be one of the most important components of your application. Taking 19 credits each semester might not give you enough time to get quality research experience because you just won’t physically have enough time to be in the lab, forget about having the mental energy to do it.</p>
<p>I’m not saying it’s impossible to take 19 credits a semester, nor am I saying it’s unreasonable to want to graduate in three years. But don’t do it because you think you’ll be behind if you spend more time in graduate school (because you won’t). The only real reason to graduate early is financial, and that’s a fine reason to graduate early. But if you can swing it, there are benefits to taking less classes each semester and spending that extra time on research or internships, which may be easier to get as a college student than as a college graduate. You could also take graduate level courses as an undergraduate, and going taking the typical number of credits, rather than overloading every semester, may also help you keep your GPA up, while doing other activities to strengthen your CV.</p>
<p>I would not recommend that you assume and plan to take 7 courses (or 21 units, if each course is three units; 28 units if each course is four units) every term because it’s unrealistic. There will be some terms when you’ll want to take less courses because the ones you are taking are more work-intensive or require more time in labs, or you want to get work or research experience and don’t have the time to keep your grades up in those courses AND devote your time to other activities. Take a normal courseload in your first semester, and then adjust from there.</p>