<p>Does the quarter "D-plan" system increase the volume of work by a ridiculous amount. Do you have to speed read to keep up?</p>
<p>The classes are paced more quickly than at schools on a semester system, but you only take 3 classes/quarter. My friend who is a transfer student from a school with a semester system says it's a comparable workload, it's just distributed differently.</p>
<p>It is definitely a large workload, and it is true that courses move realitivily class. Already I've noticed this in US history courses (where you compress the things you would take a year to learn in AP into 10 weeks, while still managing to go in far more depth), as well as sciences (learning from the fire hose?). I too have also heard that the workload is comparable to a traditional semester school, of course if you are taking some heavy courses i.e engineering, pre-health it can be very demanding. Coming here requires good time management because once you are behind...its hard to get back.</p>
<p>It really depends on what courses you are taking. When you take intro classes with internationally-defined standard curriculums for, say, Calculus I, it can be difficult at times. When you get to upper level courses which have no such strict curriculum, the courses are much more efficiently paced.</p>
<p>Going from taking 7 academic classes at a time in High School, I definitely would say that I prefer to have a much more increased focus spanning less total classes.</p>
<p>Overall, I would also say that I have less 'total' work to do each day, but the quality of the work required of me is much, much higher.</p>
<p>Also know the second (winter) term is nine weeks, not ten. I just completed it and took Chem 5. It moved very fast, and we covered a lot of ground in-depth. You can’t afford to fall behind. In that course alone, 30% of the class (in a big class) dropped out after the second exam. This is a pretty serious decision for a Dartmouth student to make since it means you get credit for only two courses in the term. In the fall, I took Bio 11 (required to advance in the major) and Multivariable Calculus and was very suprised by the pace and amount of work required. It’s all doable but you have got to be ready to step up your game considerably, especially if you take math and science courses. Discipline and time-management are essential.</p>
<p>If you don’t have at least semi-efficient study habits, don’t expect to both do well and have a lot of free time, unless you’re a genius/already know the material in your classes. Math/Sci/Engg classes <em>can</em> take a lot of time, but they definitely don’t have to…you can definitely get away with cramming all your weekly work into a semi-allnighter/alldayer (ie, 1-8 hours, depending on the class and how well you and your partners understand the material) the day before your problem set is due (or lab/exam, etc).</p>
<p>Also, to be completely honest, I feel I spend a lot more time on my non-sci/engg classes (hi distribs!) because of all the reading - I get distracted really easily. Maybe I need to do a much better job of studying for my major classes, or I need to find much easier distribs…oh well.</p>
<p>It’s true that each individual class is probably more intensive than a comparable class at a school on the semester system, but considering that you only take three classes each term, I doubt the total workload is significantly greater.</p>
<p>I like the quarter system because I’m not very good at multitasking, and I like having fewer courses to divide my attention at any one time. Health problems are difficult to recover from (physically and academically!) because terms are so short, but in my experience most professors are willing to give extensions or incompletes should you get pneumonia halfway through term and spend two weeks in bed, to use a totally hypothetical example. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>I was looking some part of dartmouth’s website and saw that you can only take 4 classes for like 3 quarters and have to take 3 for the others (you can take 4 but have to pay like an extra $2000). it seems kind of weird to limit your classes so much, so is it true?</p>
<p>If you’re extremely smart you will find it limiting, but most people find 4 classes so stressful that 3 times is more than enough.</p>
<p>i will be 100% fine with three :)</p>