<p>Sorry if I sound naive, but (as the suggested by the title) I've never been in college before and don't really understand this. My situation is this - there are 12 credits worth of courses that I know I am going to take. However, I would also like to continue studying Spanish (of which I've taken six years - four in high school) and begin learning Chinese; if I took the relevant courses in those languages, I would be dealing with 18 credits. Would anyone recommend that? I do have a good ear for languages, and I really want to study both. Can I do that, or should I choose one? Any honest opinions would be welcome!</p>
<p>Some information:
- will be attending SLU in the fall
- 4.0 GPA
- 36 ACT</p>
<p>18 credits is an awfully lot for your first semester. You can probably sign up for all of them, and then if you need feel overwhelmed, drop when you can.</p>
<p>What are the classes that make up the other 12 credits? If they’re all lab classes, that might be hard…I’m considering an overload too first semester, maybe you saw my thread (I’m not doing any lab classes though).</p>
<p>I have 17 credits, but 2 of them are intro exploration courses that aren’t legit and 3 are in an easy class. I have 12 legit credits - math, chem, physics.</p>
<p>I thought about switching the easy 3 credit gen ed course for a 4 credit CS class but that seemed like way too much lol.</p>
<p>@emaytay213: I had those stats, and I took more courses my first semester, against the advice of my adviser, and I did quite well. However, I haven’t heard the greatest comments about the Chinese profs at SLU, so that might be more difficult than it should be.</p>
<p>@freecell: I think your schedule is fine, whether or not you swap the gen ed for CS, as long as you are good at math and science. If not, then I would save the CS for another semester, unless you know you have a knack for programming. If you don’t think math/sci courses are relatively easy, it will be hard to learn how to think like a programmer on top of all your other work.</p>
<p>Chinese (Mandarin for you I assume) is a heavy time commitment. Good instructors only make it easier, though. As you’ll see Mandarin is very different from English and other western languages. In a few regards it will be easier than those languages (nouns, verbs), but in most others it will be trickier (pronunciations, tones, grammatical structures).</p>
<p>Characters really aren’t bad if you can remember things and draw well.</p>
<p>@iluvpiano They’re definitely not labs, thankfully! I have three 3 credit courses (politics of the developing world, intro to forensic science, and honors crossroads) a 2 credit course (intro to law) and a 1 credit course (u101, which i’ve heard is not challenging at all).</p>
<p>@everyone else - Thanks for your comments! If anyone has any other thoughts I’d love to hear them.</p>
<p>@OP: If you have a 36 ACT and are attending SLU, you would be fine with taking six courses. I’m sure it is a wonderful school, but it’s not going to be as rigorous as some other institutions. I’m sure you’ll be one of the top students in your class even with a slight overload like that.</p>
<p>Chinese might take over your life. Be wary of that, and keep an eye on the drop without a W-deadline.</p>
alright *******, since you’re smarter than all of us except tetraoxygen I’m sure you’re the best person to help you, if you ask any non-academic adviser. if you think you can handle it, you definitely can handle it without a doubt. anything below the max credits is handle-able.</p>
<p>@Tetraoxygen: I’m good at math and science and have some programming background, but I’m not taking three lab courses in my first semester lol. Have to get those liberal ed requirements out of the way anyhow.</p>