Hello I I’m about to finish my first semester of community college. I decided to start making my schedule for spring, I visited a advisor and told me I had to take 6 classes. Im really scared and terrified, 6 classes is too much right? Anyway he wants me to take chemistry, chemistry lab, developing psychology, English, bio lab(I didn’t take it this year) and a clinical prep class. The labs and clinical are 3 hours long. And with all these I barely meet the 12 credits to be full time. Should I go talk to the advisor again?
I don’t consider this schedule to constitute 6 classes. The Chemistry and Chemistry Lab are just two parts of the same class. The lab only meets once per week for 3 hours, and it is a co-requisite of the Chemistry ‘lecture’ section, right? I presume that together, those two sections are only worth 4 semester credits (a ‘full’ semester course is typical 3 credits). Likewise, I presume that the Bio Lab class and the Clinical Prep class are only 1 semester credit each?
As you note, your schedule probably adds to 12 credits [Chem (3) + Chem Lab (1) + Dev Psych (3) + English (3) + Bio Lab (1) + Clinical Prep (1)]. A full semester course load commonly consists of five 3-credit courses, for a total of 15 credits. My view is that you are actually taking a little LESS than a full semester load. Still, three lab courses plus three lecture courses ought to keep you plenty busy! I think that your advisor gave you good advice, presuming that you are headed toward a natural science-type major.
Keep in mind that the lab classes are primarily hands-on experiential work, as opposed to lectures and the accompanying readings. Other than writing lab reports, you should not expect for there to be a lot of out-of-class work in the lab classes.
Your advisor is spot on. All you really need to do for labs is show up and participate. I do not think it will be too much work. 12 units is a good amount of credit hours in my opinion.