<p>I'd like more information about the typical undergraduate courseload at WUSTL. Am I correct that it is 5 courses, not the more standard 4? And if so, how does that feel for current students? Does anyone have experience balancing work or athletics with that course load and can you share something about how it all works out?</p>
<p>WUSTL is my S's first choice school, and it seems like we'd get our money's worth of academics, but I'm hoping he has time for a well rounded life too.</p>
<p>Four or five classes is pretty typical, but it all depends on how many credit hours you have. Foreign languages meet five days a week and are therefore five credits. The number of credits depends on the number of hours you spend in the classroom per week. The recommended course load is 13-16 credits, which means most students spend close to the same amount of time in class each week. Lecture classes like physics, math, etc. have labs or subsections which require a little extra time each week as well. In general, students here enjoy their free time and fill it with sports and other activities. I know that a large percentage of students play intramural sports throughout the year. I can’t speak of club and varsity teams, which travel more, but I wouldn’t say the course load is overwhelming by any means.</p>
<p>On Fridays and weekends, the campus quads are full of people throwing frisbees and having fun.</p>
<p>P.S. For any one week this year, the most I will spend in class is 22 hours while the least I will spend in class is 19.5 hours. That’s about 4 hours per day, which leaves me with plenty of free time. In fact, I’m done with classes at 4pm on four days out of five. That leaves me with the rest of the day to do homework and relax.</p>
<p>Normal load is 15 credits per semester, with maximum of 21 credits allowed. You need 120 credits to graduate, so unless you have AP credits, or plan to take classes in the summer, you need an average of at least 15 units/semester to finish in 4 years.</p>
<p>Most classes are 3 credits, so 5 classes/semester is typical. Some classes are 5 credits (foreign lang, for example), others may have a 1 credit lab in addition to 3 credit class, etc. There are some 4 credit classes as well.</p>
<p>Really depends on what the student wants to do. My daughter started off slow with 11 credit hours her first semester. Students really need to take 15 credits per semester to graduate in 4 years. She picked up 12 the 2nd semester and 10 during the summer. She’s taking 19 this semester (6 classes). Her class times are between the hours of 10 AM-2 PM and one day a week she has a class from 6-9 PM. She still has time to have plenty of fun and be on color guard (flag team), academic team (forget the name of this group) and do a work study. Even though she started with fewer than the recommended credits, she’s considering graduating early.</p>
<p>Your daughter could not have started with 11 if she was a full time student. I’d guess she probably had a 1 credit seminar there (most are ridiculously easy).</p>
<p>If considering summer school, take into account that it is extra cost (about $900 per credit, so ~$2,700 per class). And I don’t think you can live in the dorms in the summer.</p>
<p>You can take summer classes at your local community college for much less, and have them counted as long as you get them pre-approved (they will not be calculated into GPA, and I don’t think they can be classes in your major).</p>
<p>^I know you can live in the dorms during the summer, at least if you’re doing research.</p>
<p>Or you can sublet from someone.</p>
<p>Another point of note- if you want to stay in StL (for whatever reason) and take summer classes, you don’t have to take them at WashU where the price would be insane (provided it’s a class you can transfer in, that isn’t true major req). There are plenty of options- SLU, UMSL, STLCC, etc. Heh, just checked the pre-approve database for engineers- you can also take summer classes at Fontbonne.</p>
<p>I took a course at Wash U durng the summer before my freshmen year and stayed in the dorm. No idea why you’d think you can’t (you get charged for it of course).</p>
<p>Not that this is related to the OP’s questions but students taking summer classes this past summer were housed in Nemerov. D did it this past summer.</p>
<p>Then you should have clarified that, as that is so far from the norm at WashU. Also, that does not even fall under the op’s original question.</p>
<p>While I do not know your/your daughters situation, in most cases, a student cannot afford to be a part-time student if they do not wish to lose dependency coverage (health insurance, car insurance, other benefits, etc). I know I couldn’t- I had a medical issue crop up that without insurance would have cost me an arm and a leg without insurance.</p>
<p>I just realized that my last post seems a bit harsh.
I did not intend for it to be interpreted as hostile, so please don’t!.
I’m actually in a really happy mood today- not sure why it came out like that.</p>
<p>@Johnson181: No problem and no offense taken. As I’ve learned, there are exceptions to every rule. The OP was asking about balancing school work and work study/extra curriculars so I posted about my daughter’s courseload, work study and extra curriculars to show that they can be balanced. Maybe it wasn’t well worded, but I think it answered some of the questions from the OP.</p>
<p>As far as full-time/part-time and medical coverage (which is off topic), my husband is retired military so she’s covered under his medical insurance until she’s 21 whether or not she’s a student at all. She’ll continue to be covered from ages 21-23 if she is a full time student at that time.</p>
<p>I’m not as familiar with WashU’s insurance, but I know I paid for it and since I did, I’d expect she’d be able to get treatment using it, regardless of whether she’s full or part time.</p>