Because I want to finish my undergraduate degree within one year, I would like to take over 20 units every semester.
Is it possible???
http://registrar.berkeley.edu/courseloadregs.html indicates that you need approval from your division or department to take more than the maximum number of units (19.5 or 20.5 for undergraduates). For L&S students, see http://ls-advise.berkeley.edu/registration/schedule.html .
This is something that you’d have to discuss with an adviser at UCB. In general though, I doubt this would be possible. As I recall, transfer students are required to complete at least 60 units on the UCB campus anyway. I may be remembering wrong.
Keeping your grades up is very very important. 20 credits makes that less likely.
I managed to finish a 20 credit semester on a good note (4 4.0s and waiting on one grade, which should be 3.8+), but I’d be lying if I told you it was easy and that I didn’t sacrifice my social life for it.
It all depends on you. You really should start lower, though, so you get an idea of what you can handle. You won’t know how it works at a new school, so you want to give yourself a chance to learn the ropes and adjust.
And if you do indeed need 60 credits at Berkley, this is impossible because you can’t take 20+ credits over the summer. Those classes are generally already condensed and super hard.
So, my advice is to use the first semester as a teaching tool. If anything, you might be able to pick it up after that and graduate a semester early.
I took two 21 credit semesters in a row last year, and I would never do it again. It was a heavy workload.