What do you think of these choices for a first semester schedule?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Oberlin College
1

<p>Hi! So I've come up with these course selections for my first semester at Oberlin and would like to hear your opinion on whether I should take Italian, or leave it for next year? I really want to take Italian, and if I'm not doing it now, I'm certainly doing it sometime later. The question is only when :) I also don't want to overload my first semester with only HUmanities courses.</p>

<p>If I take Italian, my courses will be:</p>

<p>FYSP Ars Moriendi (4 credits Humanities)
ITAL 101 (5 credits Humanities)
ECON 101 Principles of Economics (3 credits Social Science)
RHET 105 Writing to Learn and Paricipate (3 credits Humanities)</p>

<p>For a total of 15 credits - is this too much for the first semester? Should I opt to drop one of the 3 credit courses, and take a smaller 2 credit course instead? (maybe an ExCo?)</p>

<p>If I don't take Italian, I project a schedule of:</p>

<p>FYSP Ars Moriendi (4 credits Humanities)
ECON 101 Principles of Economics (3 credits Social Science)
RHET 105 Writing to Learn and Paricipate (3 credits Humanities)
Intro to Anthropology (3 credits Social Science) OR
Medieval History (3 credits Humanities)</p>

<p>For a total of 13 credits.</p>

<p>Italian meets for an hour every weekday.</p>

<p>What do you guys think, if you were in this position? Take Italian, or not to take Italian?
I understand the decision is in the end about what I want to do, I really want to take Italian, but I fear not having a wide enough selection of classes on my first semester.</p>

<p>And meanwhile I'll need to think about satisfying my Maths and Sciences distribution requirements~!</p>

2

<p>I think that your schedule with Italian looks pretty reasonable - thinking about the work that each of those classes will require, your first-year seminar will be a lot of reading and writing, Italian will be a lot of memorization, quizzes, and drills, economics will be exams/problem sets/some reading, and rhetoric will be a lot of writing. I think that’s a good variety. Also, it looks like that rhetoric class is Pass/No Pass, which means that it will probably be fairly relaxed, and you won’t have to worry about your grades much as long as you put the work in. Yes, 15 credits is a lot - but the number of credits doesn’t always reflect the workload.</p>

<p>You could also visit Medieval History or Intro Anthro during Add/Drop, and if you decide you would rather take one of those, drop Italian.</p>

3

<p>I agree with dottified; I think the schedule with Italian looks fine. I also think it’s good to start a language when you first get to Oberlin because it’s always seemed easier to me to be able to fit in a language class earlier on in college. I would also lean to 4 academic classes in general for your first semester. The type of work does seem varied, and second semester you can always take fewer humanities courses. When it comes down to it, take what interests you! Yes, there are some requirements (which I would recommend getting out of the way earlier rather than later), but you still have lots of room to explore new subjects as well!</p>