YA(College)T: Upper division by 2nd half of Sophomore year

[Toastedlightly]

Is this a good idea? Anybody have any experience w/ either of these scenarios? I'm deciding which classes to register for, and would appreciate any input!

 

[Injury]

Talk to an academic advisor about the schedule and possibility.

Some colleges won't let you take over 16 credit hours without AA approval and up the price per term for taking more than a certain amount.

Also, if you plan on taking on a great load of classes, then you better be prepared for having less free time, more stress, and not being able to work a steady job.

The job part is key. If the bills are accounted for and you don't have to worry about those, give it a shot for a quater/semester. Worst case scenerio, you take one class less for two of your remaining terms if it doesn't work out.

Just remember that failing a class can throw it all off.

edit: Also, if you are taking an especially challenging major, I would take your time and do it right.

 

[jmcoreymv]

You'll be fine! At my school you only need approval for more than 22 units.

 

[iamwiz82]

I took 20 credit hours for 4 years. Never failed a class but my grades could have been better. I never put in 100% of my effort, though.

 

[TuxDave]

Pffft... i took my upper division humanities requirements the 2nd half of my freshman year.

It really depends on what classes you're planning. Like how many majors, how many chump classes.. etc...

 

[Toastedlightly]

Well, at University of Minnesota doing ChemEng. Taking to advisors, but the more opinions the better. Classes would be: English Comp 1011 (easy), Organic Chemistry 2, Organic Chemistry Lab, Physics II, Calc 4.

 

[MrBond]

Originally posted by: Toastedlightly
Well, at University of Minnesota doing ChemEng. Taking to advisors, but the more opinions the better. Classes would be: English Comp 1011 (easy), Organic Chemistry 2, Organic Chemistry Lab, Physics II, Calc 4.

You're taking O-Chem1 now, right? How are you doing in the class?

I graduated undergrad in ChemE. That course load right there would have killed me probably. Here, physics was a ton of work, the class met 5 days a week for either lecture, lab, or quizzes. We had homework due every week. Is Calc 4 where they teach you Differential Equations at your school? They're not too hard, but it's the most useful calc class for ChemE's in my opinion, so you'll want to make sure you know it.

Throw in OChem2 and the lab on top of all of that and I would have failed at least one of those classes I think. That's a ton of work.

If you can, delay on taking Physics 2 until a different semester.

 

[BigJ]

Originally posted by: Toastedlightly
Well, at University of Minnesota doing ChemEng. Taking to advisors, but the more opinions the better. Classes would be: English Comp 1011 (easy), Organic Chemistry 2, Organic Chemistry Lab, Physics II, Calc 4.

You are fvcking nuts if you plan to take that schedule and actually do well in all of those classes.

 

[dullard]

What is the rush? You have 45 years of work to look forward to. Why rush to make it 45.3?

I don't know about your university, but when I did my ChemE BS degree, what you posted was maybe 14 credits and an easy semester. It is junior level ChemE courses where you really want to keep your schedule easier. You'll find the difference between Junior level and Sophmore level ChemE classes to be like night and day.

 

[MrBond]

Originally posted by: dullard
What is the rush? You have 45 years of work to look forward to. Why rush to make it 45.3?

I don't know about your university, but when I did my ChemE BS degree, what you posted was maybe 14 credits and an easy semester. It is junior level ChemE courses where you really want to keep your schedule easier. You'll find the difference between Junior level and Sophmore level ChemE classes to be like night and day.

14 credits isn't always an easy semester (maybe it was for you, I get the definite impression that you're quite intelligent). The worst semester of college for me was second semester of my Sophomore year, when I took Calc 4, Thermodynamics 2, Separation Processes, OChem 2 and OChem lab 2. I was working all the damn time and still didn't pull great grades. That was only 13 credit hours.

I actually did more work later in my college career with the same amount of credit hours, but since it was ChemE classes, it was far more tolerable.

 

[dullard]

Originally posted by: MrBond
14 credits isn't always an easy semester (maybe it was for you, I get the definite impression that you're quite intelligent). The worst semester of college for me was second semester of my Sophomore year, when I took Calc 4, Thermodynamics 2, Separation Processes, OChem 2 and OChem lab 2. I was working all the damn time and still didn't pull great grades. That was only 13 credit hours.

I actually did more work later in my college career with the same amount of credit hours, but since it was ChemE classes, it was far more tolerable.

Thanks for the compliment. I didn't want to imply that 14 credits is always easy. But from that list many classes won't be too bad. English should be easy, lab should be time-consuming but easy, physics II is mostly easy, calc 4 can be tough depending on the professor, and organic chem II can be tough depending on the professor. So, overall he can plan on just two classes involving a lot of stress. that didn't appear like it was an overwhelming amount of work. Of course, if he knows ahead of time that his professors will turn those into difficult courses, then that will change my answer.

Thermo was a junior level course for me. And it was then that I had my most difficult schedule. I see it just moved to your sophmore year because you took thermo earlier than I did.

 

[MrBond]

Originally posted by: dullard
Thanks for the compliment. I didn't want to imply that 14 credits is always easy. But from that list many classes won't be too bad. English should be easy, lab should be time-consuming but easy, physics II is mostly easy, calc 4 can be tough depending on the professor, and organic chem II can be tough depending on the professor. So, overall he can plan on just two classes involving a lot of stress. that didn't appear like it was an overwhelming amount of work. Of course, if he knows ahead of time that his professors will turn those into difficult courses, then that will change my answer.

Thermo was a junior level course for me. And it was then that I had my most difficult schedule. I see it just moved to your sophomore year because you took thermo earlier than I did.

The standard ChemE classes were weird for us because we're one of the few mandatory co-op schools around. The class is split up into two groups, with one group starting work during their second semester of their sophomore year and the other group goes the summer after their sophomore year. Depending on when you co-op, you take classes differently.

So some of my classmates took Thermo in their third year, and the rest of us took it in our second.

It really plays hell with the scheduling of certain classes. I lucked out, but when I was TA'ing for our Senior Unit Operations lab last spring, there were some kids who hadn't taken a heat transfer class yet (and they needed to know how to do heat transfer stuff for the lab).

There's some talk of making it a 5 year program (it's 4.5 now and we graduate in December), which I think is a good idea. The students would be more prepared for later classes and it makes them easier to teach.

 

[Toastedlightly]

My goal with this was the seperate the P-chems and the o-chems. I've heard those are the hardest of the chem classes, and this schedule effectively gets rid of their overlap. But fall of year 2 is gonna be 20ish credits of purely Lib-ed (so I can get 'em out of the way).

 

[Toastedlightly]

Originally posted by: BigJ

Originally posted by: Toastedlightly
Well, at University of Minnesota doing ChemEng. Taking to advisors, but the more opinions the better. Classes would be: English Comp 1011 (easy), Organic Chemistry 2, Organic Chemistry Lab, Physics II, Calc 4.

You are fvcking nuts if you plan to take that schedule and actually do well in all of those classes.

I'm taking an easier load right now and have no problem w/ As... OChem1, Phys1, Calc II, and some literature class.

 

[DrPizza]

It depends on the school... The level of difficulty varies like night and day between different schools, and sometimes, between different profs. Since I teach Calc I and II in high school, I've spent 20 or 30 hours gathering final exams for Calc I and Calc II from a large variety of schools. My students actually said they'd be insulted (but happy) if I gave them a few of the sample exams that I had. They varied from "you've gotta be kidding me... this exam is a joke it's so easy" to "you've gotta be kidding me, how do you expect someone to pass THAT?!"

 

[cmv]

After some time playing this game I think the best way to get through college fast is to have tons and tons of AP transfer credit. I went to private schools that didn't have college credit on offer so it was not an option for me. But if it's an option for you...

Edit: And I mean the theoretical you not the OP (as I'm guessing its too late to consider the above option).

 

[Wreckem]

Originally posted by: cmv
After some time playing this game I think the best way to get through college fast is to have tons and tons of AP transfer credit. I went to private schools that didn't have college credit on offer so it was not an option for me. But if it's an option for you...

Edit: And I mean the theoretical you not the OP (as I'm guessing its too late to consider the above option).

Most colleges will let you CLEP classes while enrolled as long as you dont enroll in the courses you want to CLEP. Im seriously thinking about talking my Dean into letting me CLEP 6 hours of English Lit because I have no interest in sitting through two semesters of that crap. I also dont want to take 16 hours over next summer(Spanish I&II, and Two Lits)

As for the OP, at my University what you are taking is only 15hrs. Still misleading though because science labs are time consuming. Honestly, theres a reason why most places have ~45 hours of core requirements. So you can lighten your load.

If I was you I would drop one of the science/math classes and pick up one of your humanities/liberal arts/core req classes.

Theres a reason why a lot of seniors take ~2 freshmen/sophmore classes their final year.

IMHO its stupid to just take one semester of all easier classes, then load up the rest of your semesters with difficult classes. Its better to spread out the easy classes with the hard ones. Honestly my senior year is going to have 4 freshmen/sophmore classes and 8 junior/senior classes.