<p>I'm trying to decide whether or not it is a good idea to take easy classes to boost GPA.
In high school, I was always encouraged to take AP, IB, classes and challenge myself.
But I'm not too sure if it is a good idea to take harder, but interesting course, or just to take easy but not very interesting course for GPA.</p>
<p>It all comes down to what you want from college. Do you want to challenge yourself, or do you want to have a pretty number to put on your resume and show to grad school? It should be noted that those two things are not mutually exclusive either...</p>
<p>Ahhhh Why can't we learn for just learning sake? not for resume...</p>
<p>If you're seeking admittance to graduate school, taking some easy classes won't hurt. I know of someone who graduated with a 3.7 as a communications (not dissing comm majors but it is an easy one at my uni) major and got into Harvard Law. That's not to say this person wasn't qualified in other areas (internships, leadership on campus, etc.) Taking easy courses to get A's is not going to hurt you in the admissions process because I doubt that every admissions counselor is going to look at your transcript and give a hoot about undergraduate course difficulty. It's a numbers game in some cases.</p>
<p>Depends on your major and the GPA requirements for graduate schools. I'm on the Pre-Health Professions track for Kinesiology, and for most grad schools to be admitted in the doctor of physical therapy program I will need at least a 3.0 science GPA, 3.0 kinesiology GPA, and 3.0 cumulative GPA. So if I dobad (below 3.0) in science or kinesiology I will have to take one of those classes over again because they count the heaviest towards my GPA. But if I have a good science or kinesiology GPA and wanted to boost my cumulative GPA I can take any class, easy or hard.</p>
<p>I think that's a question that everyone has to answer for themselves. Some students do just fine with a heavy course load, while others might get more out of college by focusing on a smaller number of classes.</p>
<p>In my first year of college I noticed that I can only really pay attention to three classes at a time. Of course I have to take more classes than that, but I will frequently skip them, neglect to do the reading and generally invest just the minimum amount of work to get by. Just being aware of that helped me build a more appropriate schedule for my third semester. I picked 3 interesting classes for my major and filled the rest of my schedule with easy classes that I didn't have to put a lot of effort in. That schedule resulted in a less stressful semester and better grades. And I learned more because I actually had time to invest myself into the classes I cared about.</p>