In an Academic Dilemma
I will be a junior next fall, and I want to graduate a semester early (for some context though, I’m a neuroscience major philosophy minor so there’s not a lot of space to “mess” up), and I am pretty flexible to either do 19 credits, or 22 if I wanted to continue my summer research in the fall.
I genuinely believe that anything after orgo will be light (got A-s in both 1 and 2), so I’m overloading my STEM classes, and I don’t know if that’s the right thing to do. I’m trying to justify taking 4 (BIO 305, NRS 301, PSY 351, PMY 309, no extra labs though), because this is the first time I’m taking so many STEM courses at the same time, but also I think I can do it (especially cause I’ve already taken “harder” classes—for ex. the first 2 weeks of PGY 300 neuro unit is literally the coursework of the whole NRS 301 semester, I also took BIO 448 where I had fun memorizing the “pathways” of biochemical processes).
Honestly what I’m most worried about is PMY 309. It is a 4 credit lab class where we meet once a week. I asked for the syllabus beforehand, and 50% of the grade is the practical and final (which is…erg). I’m not used to lab credits being this high (bc usually they’re only 1 credit but have so much work associated with them) so ig it’s cool that this lab “reflects” that work but I lowkey don’t know if I want to take it. It was very competitive to get in (esp since there’s limited seats, not in honors college), and I already told the professor that I think it’s important to take her class cause I want wet lab experience, but this class is something I don’t *need* to do, I just want to do it while my classes are relatively easy (my spring sem is looking HARD) but I was wondering if anyone who had taken any of these classes have any insights. Any would be appreciated!