UC San Diego Freshman Class of 2026 Discussion

[lkg4answers]

There are a couple of recent threads discussing quarter vs semester. You might look here:

Quarter vs semester college system

what are the main differences between quarter and semester college systems? for example, are classes in the quarter system generally more fast-paced compared to semester classes, which leads to more stress?

and

Engineering at a Semester vs Trimester School

My student has been accepted to several engineering programs (and still waiting to hear from a few more) and is curious about the difference between attending a semester vs a trimester school for engineering. When he was looking at the suggested curriculum for two schools (Mines/Cal Poly), the total credits needed per trimester/semester was very similar (16/17). As one example, Calc I, II, III were 4 credits at each school and took place during one trimester or semester. This was similar for Chem/Physics. Most major classes seemed to be 3 credits and labs were 1 credit. The biggest difference was in general ed/elective credits which were worth 3 at the semester school and 4 at the trimester school (this seemed counter-intuitive to me). His older sister is EE/CS at Rice and generally takes 17-18 credits/semester, which is the equivalent of 5 classes (this is in part because she always takes a humanities class on top of her engineering requirements because she enjoys learning something ne…