Ok, so my senior year has just finished up and I took 3 AP classes, 2 JS (College Credit), and 2 regular HS classes I was also co-captain of academic team and participated greatly in 2 other clubs during my final semester.
For my first semester of College, I wanted to be very involved (I want to be the next “it” kid in terms of visibility/academics on campus). I’ll be attending a mid sized community college with the following schedule:
Honors Debate
Honors Literature
Honors Humanities
Macroeconomics
Interpersonal Communication
Lifelong Learning (Basically a freshman orientation class)
Debate Club
Traffic Court
Student Council/Gov’t
Gay-Straight Alliance
Plus a 20 hr week job
I know it seems like a lot but I do better under pressure (I want to be pushed to the limit but not broken)
Plus the Jump from HS to a CC with an ACT of 27 and GPA of 3.7 shouldn’t be that hard (maybe even easier?)
What is the culture of this particular community college? Oftentimes the campus culture of community colleges isn’t exactly conducive to the notion of an “it” student since a lot of CCs cater to students who are primarily (and exclusively) concerned with their classes and nothing else.
@preamble1776 While the CC traditionally fits your description, the college is receiving a large influx of student enrollment (Double previous freshman class) due to a free cc program beginning this year in Tennessee therefore the college is rolling out many new clubs, student involvement type stuff to go with the shift that is occurring.
With that said I am less concerned with that aspect than just surviving, so is the schedule itself looking ok or is it something you’d be against?
There aren’t really ECs at most CCs. They’re there to provide a low-cost education, that’s it.
Oh, that sounds really interesting.
I am unsure how challenging honors courses are; at my University, students only take one Honors course per semester and they’re specifically designed by the Honors College and are purely electives (not like General Biology II or Introduction to Psychology, etc) – so I don’t know how difficult your schedule is overall. But the classes themselves don’t seem too crazy so long as you like writing and reading.
My advice is to spend your first semester focused only on classes; then, if you know you can handle the rigor of a full schedule, you can pick up a couple of ECs. I spent my first semester doing just that, and once I realized I could handle the classes and manage my time well, I picked up some community service ECs plus involvement in student government. This semester (my second semester) I knew I could handle classes + on campus extracurriculars with time to spare, so next semester, I’m picking up a low-stress on-campus job tutoring. Just take things one step at a time.
@Vladenschlutte We have quite a few (20 plus) at ours and they are looking to addmore
@preamble1776 Thanks for the response
I am sure the University Honors is much tougher that CC (In fact I’ve heard Honors is as easy because of the close connection to the professors) and I do enjoy (or at least can definitely tolerate) a good deal of reading and writing (32 reading ACT). I think your advice is pretty good, My current plan is to maybe go from 18 credits first semester with less EC’s to 15 credits 2nd semester with more EC’s