Course Load

[tc13]

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Last semester I took Gen Chem and Bio at state school while I worked. It was fairly easy to earn high A's in each class. This fall I am thinking of taking Bio, Org Chem 1, and Physics 1 (alg based). I have some flexibility with work since I own a small company, but more time away from work equals less income. An advisor at school said she always tells her students to avoid taking three sciences with labs especially if working. In terms of the time commitment to earn A's, is adding Physics to OChem and Bio a bad choice for us working non-trads?
Thanks

 

[smsansoucie]

Last semester I took Gen Chem and Bio at state school while I worked. It was fairly easy to earn high A's in each class. This fall I am thinking of taking Bio, Org Chem 1, and Physics 1 (alg based). I have some flexibility with work since I own a small company, but more time away from work equals less income. An advisor at school said she always tells her students to avoid taking three sciences with labs especially if working. In terms of the time commitment to earn A's, is adding Physics to OChem and Bio a bad choice for us working non-trads?
Thanks

I have taken a minimum of 3 labs each semester while working part-time and have had no problem at all keeping up thus far. However this fall, like you, I will be taking Org Chem/Phys together with a couple of bio courses (Ecology/senior sem research). I have heard that the Org Chem/Physics combo is particularly rough. I have chosen take Physics/Org Chem/Bios together this fall and will plan to work no more than 15 hours per week. I have a gut feeling working full-time would be difficult if not impossible with this schedule.

SDNers:
Have any of you taken this course combo? Is it as rough as I have heard? Did you work while taking this combo? If so, how much?

Stephanie

 

[MollyMalone]

Well, everyone is different so it's hard to say what would be the right choice for you. Organic chemistry required a lot of time for me in the beginning until I finally wrapped my head around how to think about it (sometime near the end of first semester). Even after that, it was by far the most time consuming of my prereq classes. I found physics tedious but it wouldn't have been too time consuming except for the inordinate amount of web-based homework that my prof. required. Bio's always been an easy A for me, but there was a large group project that needed mucho out of class time. Might be a good idea to get in touch with the professors and find out how much out of class work is required.

Good luck!

 

[njbmd]

Last semester I took Gen Chem and Bio at state school while I worked. It was fairly easy to earn high A's in each class. This fall I am thinking of taking Bio, Org Chem 1, and Physics 1 (alg based). I have some flexibility with work since I own a small company, but more time away from work equals less income. An advisor at school said she always tells her students to avoid taking three sciences with labs especially if working. In terms of the time commitment to earn A's, is adding Physics to OChem and Bio a bad choice for us working non-trads?
Thanks

Hi there,
First of all, what is your hurry? Can you afford to take the risk of not doing well in one of these courses? If not, then you may want to back down a bit. Only you can really answer this question. If you find that you are getting things done efficiently and making the grades, then double up on the classes but dropping courses can send red flags to admissions committees. You also have to master the information in addition to getting the grades. If you believe that you can get all of this done, take your classes. If not, is it worth the risk and the loss of income at the same time? Good luck!
njbmd 🙂