Should I be taking more classes?

Colleges & Universities A-Z Cornell University
1

<p>As a CoE student, this is my schedule:</p>

<p>ENGRG 1050 (pre-enrolled by Advising Staff)
Math 1920
Chemistry
Introduction to Engineering
First-Year Writing Seminar (FWS)
Physical Education (PE)</p>

<p>This is the basic schedule for engineers first semester. All throughout high school, I've taken the most classes I could take and the hardest class offered. I know Cornell is different, and I can't do that to myself anymore, but it feels so weird taking the most basic schedule. Would I be normal to perhaps add a liberal arts class in there (to fulfill the liberal arts requirement)? Do many students take a liberal arts class during their first semester or is this enough?</p>

2

<p>That should be enough, but if you want, you can try enrolling in a liberal arts class, and then dropping it around 1st prelim times if it gets to be too much.</p>

<p>Depending on your ENGRI and FWS, this schedule can be either really not that bad to slightly more than you can handle.</p>

<p>Add another class and that continuum shifts to I can handle it to This is unbearable.</p>

3

<p>I would like to suggest the following,</p>

<p>If you have some liberal arts credits coming in due to AP classes then this is fine. Otherwise, add one liberal art class e.g. Psych 101.</p>

4

<p>I forgot, where is your required Programming class? Take the Matlab class, IMHO.</p>

5

<p>he prob is going to take that in the spring.
but 17 credit hours seems plenty.</p>

6

<p>I would try and plan out your potential schedule for all 4 years of college and see how many classes you’ll need to take each semester to graduation. This won’t be a hard and fast schedule, but something to see if you’ll be able to graduate on time without having to take over 20 credits/semester (which is usually about the limit for most people). If you want to double major (crazy) or do a minor (common), then you might want to take more classes early on in your college career so you can enjoy your senior year (I had two classes my last semester and thoroughly enjoyed my free time). </p>

<p>Also, if you need 100 level lib arts classes, then you should try and take those early on as others have said. Econ 101, psych 101, soc 101, and any other intro level class should be interesting, relaxing, and serve as a GPA and confidence booster. </p>

<p>Of course, only you know how much you can handle. I agree that you can add another class and see if you can handle it, and you can just drop it before the deadline if it becomes too much for you. You’ll want to enjoy your first semester of college and try and make new friends and adjust to being away from home. There will be lots of distractions and potential extracurricular activities that you can engage in to fill your time.</p>

7

<p>@Idftalk–should the writing seminar already be on your schedule? I know you pick which specific class you take later on, but I wasn’t sure if we were supposed to pre-enroll into something as a placeholder. If you are actually enrolled in it can you tell me how to? haha</p>

8

<p>My first semester as an engineer I took:
FWS
MATH 1920
CHEM 2090
CS 2110
CS 212 (2111 – was a project course, I think it’s gone now)
ENGRG 1050</p>

<p>This was sufficient for then but I already had a lot of background on the topics (i.e. I knew all the material in CS 2110). Anyway, I suggest you take a light semester at first, so you can transition into college. Second semester you can be more ambitious since you’ll know your own limits better.</p>