The argument for units.

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Berkeley
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<p>So I'm going to be a freshman next year, and looking through the threads here and asking around; I see that a lot of freshmen are taking over 13 units their first semester--I've even seen some aiming for 20 which is near the maximum. </p>

<p>So I'm just curious, what are the advantages of taking so many units? Cal advisers will usually tell you to stick with 13 fall freshman year, because one could just up the units next semester/next year and still graduate in four years. </p>

<p>Does unit amount somehow help you look more impressive to internships/jobs/grad schools? If anyone could give me an argument for taking many units, I would greatly appreciate it because I've only been hearing the other "go for the minimum 13" stance. Thanks!</p>

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<p>No prospective employer cares how quick you graduate, most dont even care your GPA. You will probably do better taking as few classes as you can and getting some early success under your belt.</p>

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<p>You are paying a fixed amount of tuition and living expenses per semester. The more courses you take (that you can handle), the more you learn for your money.</p>

<p>Also, if you graduate in 8 or fewer semesters from freshman entrance, or 4 or fewer semesters from transfer entrance, you are less likely to encounter unit cap issues (e.g. [Office</a> of Undergraduate Advising: Unit Ceiling](<a href=“http://ls-advise.berkeley.edu/registration/unitceiling.html]Office”>http://ls-advise.berkeley.edu/registration/unitceiling.html) ).</p>

<p>On the other hand, it does no good to take more courses / units than you can handle, since you can do poorly in them. As a first semester student, you may not know as well as continuing students how much you can really handle.</p>

<p>In any case, be aware that units may not be an accurate measure of workload in a course. Courses with labs, computer programming, large term projects, art studio, and music performance may be significantly higher workload per unit than courses that are lecture and discussion only. 13 units of all lab/etc. courses is probably more work than 20 units of non-lab/etc. courses.</p>

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<p>A lot of students also want to take graduate level courses in their 4th (or maybe even 3rd) year. The only way to do that is to complete all the requirements for the major as quickly as possible.</p>

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<p>^^ caveat: actually, i dont think this applies to all majors necessarily. some grad seminars have no prior reqs so you dont have to even be done with your major reqs.</p>

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<p>There aren’t any. Also be advised unit count does not match class difficultly. When you start taking upper division courses, you’ll find yourself spending a good 20+ hours on a “3” unit class sometimes.</p>

<p>A lot of freshmen are eager bears (lame pun, I know) and want to load up on units because they took 7-8 classes in high school. I would advise against it; even having 13 units is pretty hefty if all you’re taking are technical classes.</p>

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<p>Upper division math, CS theory, and economics courses are not that much work. But upper division CS courses with programming projects can be a lot of work, even though they may have the same unit value as the lesser work courses.</p>

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<p>Depends on which courses. A schedule of math courses won’t be anywhere near as much work as the same number of units of chemistry, biology, CS with programming, etc…</p>

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<p>Sorry, I was referring to upper division chemistry and chemical engineering courses. Mostly pchem =P</p>

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<p>Yeah, agreed, although I would argue some math courses take the same amount of, if not more, work than other courses like chemistry, biology, etc.</p>

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<p>More classes mean better telebears times and more prerequisites done for other classes, making scheduling easier later.
Also you might as well develop good time management from the start; a lot of people have regretted an easy first semester where they had not much to do.
Advisers seem to be wrong about everything that they could possibly be wrong about.</p>

<p>How time consuming math is depends on a lot of things: the material, your ability, and the professor’s problem set difficulty.</p>

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<p>What about humanities courses? I’m probably going to major in English or Philosophy. I’ve heard both that they take up a lot of time with reading and writing papers and also that they are nowhere near as rigorous as the math/science courses. How heavy are humanities courses generally? Would 12 out of 16 units of humanities classes make for a heavy total workload?</p>