17 credits too much for incoming freshman?

da6onet
Sat, 12 Jul 2014 02:09:48 +0000

Echoing the number of classes, I had 6 classes at 14 credits last fall and 4 classes at 15 in the spring. While the average weekly workload was about the same, come midterms and especially toward finals, a convergence of all those semester projects and last hw assignments happens that can be quite tasking even for the most organized person.

As @maryversity‌ alluded to, I have a conversion for credit hours to weekly workload budget.
For a regular 15 week semester, 1 cr = 3x1= 3 weekly hours
For a 5 week summer session, 1 cr = 3x3 = 9 weekly hours
For a 3 week winter session, 1 cr = 3x5 = 15 weekly hours

For example, if I were going to sign up for 17 credits, I would say I need to set aside 51 hours per week for school. For simplicity, let’s say 17 credits is made up from 5 classes, each with 3x1 hour lectures each week and maybe one of those classes has a 2x1 hour discussion each week; then time just sitting in a classroom is (5x3x1 + 1x2x1) = 17 hours out of the 51 hour budget. So 34 hours should be set aside outside of the classroom each week to handle reading, problem sets, projects, etc. That may seem like a lot, but if you treat school like a 9am-5pm job, you’ll generally find chunks of time before/between/after classes each day to find a quiet place to do your reading/problems/etc.

I should note that this formula was originally designed for an engineering/physics curriculum, works only for semester systems (sorry quarter/trimester/block programs people), and also does not count time in labs as counting toward overall budget. However, I have found that it works reasonably well for courses in the humanities, social sciences, and literature classes (art/music on the other hand…), you may just need to change the scaling factor from 3 to 2 or 2.5.

The following is unsolicited advice or anecdotal evidence with a sample size of 1.
I have noticed a pattern with the ebb and flow of workloads. The first 1-1.5 month(s) of classes each semester tends to be the breakneck pacing until you get to your first midterm exam and then it tends to fall into a more relaxed/predictable cadence, ramping up slightly for midterms/major project due dates. As the semester closes, the work converges as I stated earlier and you generally have a final push the week prior to final exams.

The general advice I give to incoming freshmen STEM majors*:
-Don’t take more than 15 credits
-Don’t take more than 3 STEM classes
-Don’t take more than 1 lab
*There are smartypants people that have no problem crushing heavier loads out of the gate, but they are the top 10% exception.

For econ/business majors I do not know enough about all the classes to make a good comparison.
I have taken ECON201 and COMM107 as part of my general education requirements.
-I found the economics class to average around 8 hours per week out of the 12 budgeted (4 in class, 4 out).
-The communications class had less formally assigned work, but I tended to put a lot of effort into my presentations, so on average it was probably 5 hours per week out of 9 budgeted (3 in class, 2 out).
-The lowest math course I can compare with MATH113 would be MATH141; I generally spent 12 hours per week out of 12 budgeted (5 in class, 7 out), more during test weeks.