IS my college workload too much?
It looks like a lot to me but that is me.-I'm not good at the sciences. You need to decide if you have the time and discipline to do the work. You are the only one that can answer that. How are your grades this quarter? You obviously know that doing poorly in a class will effect your gpa-no brainer there. Do you have to have a job to support yourself, and if so, how flexible can it be if you need some extra study time? If you take a class and then need to drop it, how will that affect any financial aid you are getting (dropping a 5 credit class would take you below full time status)? Are you involved in any extracurricular activities that can or can not be dropped or modified if you need the extra study time? Most importantly, are you ready and willing to do the work? It is an aggressive schedule but that doesn't mean it can't be done but you have to be willing to put in a lot of time and work on your studies and may be sacrificing time for other things. When other people tell you it is too much, they mean they wouldn't want to work that hard, not that you can't.
Choosing a college?
Go with the smaller one. I wouldn't say that's the only thing to base it on, but I got accepted into a small private university and it made ALL the difference. It was the only one I applied to, but it's size was the reason. The smaller the school, the better the classes, professors, and overall education will be. Would you rather be known by your name, or your student number? You want your professors to remember your name, you want them to know who you are, what you want to "be when you grow up" and you want them to want to help you. In bigger schools, there are sometimes over 60 people in a classroom at once! The most in any of mine, was 15. Also look at whether or not the professors do research, what sorts of availability they have for weekday office hours, go for a visit, do an overnight stay if possible, and talk to people who go there, not the ones who work in the admissions office! Join the Facebook networks for them and message people who go there. Ask what they *HATE* about the school, not what they love. Look at the clubs - is there a club you'd like to be in, that one school doesn't have? YOU can start a group at the school that doesn't have one, and become something there, or join a club at the other and maybe work your way up. To me, these would be the deciding factors if I was picking between two. Hope that helps!
I need advice on choosing a college major. I have listed various topics below that I enjoy, what major would best suit my areas of interests?
Matriculating at a four year college in today’s economy is a risky business.Not everyone agrees with me, but I look at a post-secondary education decision as a financial investment decision. For many families their kid’s post-secondary education is their second biggest investment decision—after their house. (I can make an argument that college is not an investment BUT a speculation, but we’ll leave that to another day.)College in America doesn’t work the way it used to. Fifty years ago any degree would qualify you for a good job—only seven percent went to college. Today every Tom, Dick, and Harriet feel compelled to rush off to the ivied halls. Graduates with bachelor’s degrees are “a dime a dozen.”In the US today only one in four who matriculate at a four year college graduate and get a good job.A liberal arts degree from a second or third tier school isn’t likely to lead to a good job. A bachelor’s degree in something like Psychology isn’t exactly “useless” but to get a job in the field you’re going to have to tack on a master’s, and you still probably won’t be making all that much money. Put together a financial plan for six or seven years of college. Consider opportunity cost. This isn’t likely to be a good use of your time and your parent’s money. A bachelor’s degree in something like creative writing is unlikely to get you anywhere in today’s job market. It’s very common for young people, upon figuring this out, to go back to school for an MBA. That wasted four years on the front end does serious damage to the return on investment. Art history is a hobby not a marketable degree. (Unless you are Kate Middleton, please don’t comment on that last statement.)After the Great Recession of 2008 there just aren’t that many suitable jobs. Employers have thousands of potential candidates to choose from. They want the smartest and the most motivated. They are likely going to toss the resumes of international relations majors into the trash.About one third of 18–34 year olds are living at home with their parents. Approximately one quarter of all minimum wage jobs are held by college graduates.My advice is to choose a marketable major for your bachelor’s degree. If you can earn that degree you always have a marketable skill and a credential to fall back on. (This eliminates philosophy, psychology, and linguistics.) I’m seeing mixed reports on physics here on Quora???Computer Science is strong. Robotics is a growth field.
I would like advice on choosing a college major. What would complement my interests below, math, computer science, or something else entirely?
I have some advice, and I have to say that I disagree with Henry Fordney’s answer on some points. Not putting him down or anything like that, I’m just going to provide a different perspective.First of all, there is no one major that fits everything that you’re interested in. And that’s fine. Everybody has interests that they pursue outside academics and work and your major doesn’t take away any opportunities. Major in what you like but can also get ahead with.I think that computer science and mathematics would both be great majors for you. computer science ≠ programming. Computer science definitely requires a fair amount of programming, but getting a computer science degree is not at all equivalent to self-learning programming. Computer science is about algorithms and data structures and the transfer/transformation of information through computers. It requires a lot of math and logic and is very employable in most areas. Overall a good but difficult major.Math is also a very good major. It isn’t about crunching numbers or doing computations. It is all about logic and theory, understanding equations and how they connect and even nature. It just so happens that all of that math applies VERY widely in many fields. There are a lot of job opportunities here as well.Overall I think that STEM sounds good for you, and I believe that many STEM people have interests in philosophy, writing, etc.. However, only you know you for real, and if you want to major in something completely random, by all means go for it. Be mindful but don’t overthink it.
How does choosing college classes work?
Courses in college may meet one, two, three, four, or five days a week, depending on the subject (low level foreign language classes often meet every day) and how advanced it is. It is possible, particularly for those in the last two years of college, to set up course schedules so that they have no classes on one day of the week, or maybe just one class. Many go to great efforts not to have morning classes. In some subjects, the class may meet for three hours a week, but only meet twice because the classes run for 90 minutes. Then there are labs, which often will meet for three hours at a time, but only once a week. In a large university there may be a choice between ten different combinations of class meeting times for the introductory classes in a subject such as English.
College/university workload?
The standard expectation when designing a course is that (cumulative) for every 1 hour of classroom time, a student will need to conduct 3-4 hours of independent/guided learning. That means that if the course meets 3 hours per week, you should devote 9-12 hours on homework. That includes reading, preparing, assignments, test study, reviewing notes, private tutoring, study groups, and office hours with professor. The major does not effect the equation very much. The methods for preparing for a humanities course (reading, research, analysis) is different than preparation for math/sciences (work problems, work problems, work problems). That is why 12 hours is "full time": 12h in class 36h out of class 48 hours total
Which should I choose, college or work?
I see my kids who are teens struggling with similar questions. They are already calling BS on the educational system, wondering what they're really preparing for.We tell them that geometry doesn't just teach cosigns, it also teaches rigorous thinking. And I imagine that's true to some extent. I have the impression, though, that educational system is running around a hen yard and hasn't realized where it's head is. There are a lot of earnest people putting out lots of energy teaching topics that won't get my kids jobs that pay enough to pay off the student loans they'll likely incur in college.I recommend that you look at Cal Newports work. He's doing lots of research into deep work, and deep thinking. His main thrust is this: work on solving something that is a problem for lots of people or a few people who have a big interestdifficult to solveamenable to a set of skills you can develop.I think that's the next step in being accountable for your own future. Railing at the system is a step. But the best it can get you is votes on Quora. It doesn't pay the rent. What pays the rent is finding or creating a set of skills that people value, and you would enjoy employing.Best of luck.
Average College Workload?
Usually, 4 courses per semester if full time, with most students taking and average of five courses (better to have one extra, so you can maintain full time status if you need to drop a course at some point). At my university, night courses met once a week for 3 hours. Monday/Wednesday/Friday courses met those three days for 90 minutes a day, and Tuesday/Thursday courses met for about 2 hours on each of those days. Summer or winter courses usually meet every day for several hours, with Winter break having time for one such course, and summer being split into two such courses, if you choose to take them. As far as homework goes, if varies greatly, but most of the time you should plan to spend at least the same amount of time outside of class (studying and homework), as you do in class. Realisticcly, most of the time you will not spend this much time studying or working on homework, but you need to plan that much time, so that you do have ti when you need it (mid terms, finals, or when major projects are due)
What are some tips to deal with the workload in college this fall?
First off, I'm assuming you're in hs and going to be a freshman in college... As a college junior, the hardest part of the college workload for me is really trying to balance it with everything else in my life. A standard college workload of 15 credits is not hard to handle, but if you decide to get a job, join some clubs, join some intermural sports, then it becomes a challenge. I would possibly try taking 12 credits while you get adjusted the first semester; you can always take a winter or summer class later on to get caught up. Biggest shock from hs to college is that in HS, everything is done in class with little out of class work; in college, there is so much more out of class work than in class work you must do. I would try this trick- try to stay on campus during the day. It's really hard to do homework once you leave campus and go back to your dorm/house. Also, consider taking less than 15 credits if you plan on working a lot (more than 15 or 20 hours).