Scheduling Tips
| 1. | Try to balance institutional requirements with major and minor requirements.
For 30 hour majors (most bachelor of arts majors), choose one course for your major each semester of your freshman through junior years; two courses for your major each semester of senior year (total 10 courses). For comprehensive majors (most bachelor of science majors), choose two courses for your major area each semester of your freshman through junior years; three courses each semester of your senior year. For minors, choose one course each semester of your sophomore through senior years (6 courses). For institutional requirements, choose two courses each semester (16
total) .
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| 2. | Balance out-of-class requirements such as reading demand, number of
papers, extent of projects, or number of problems (mathematics and accounting),
with your skills in each of these areas. For example, if you are not strong
in math, avoid taking a math course, and another quantitative course (economics,
accounting) the same semester. Literature and philosophy the same semester
will result in a lot of out-of- class readings and papers.
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| 3. | Avoid taking courses with similar themes during the same semester (unless
that is your major). It is possible to run into similar terms with slightly
different meanings (psychology 101 and sociology 111; western civilization
and early church history).
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| 4. | Balance the class times between MWF and TuTh - try to limit yourself
to no more than three courses each day.
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| 5. | Limit the number of courses that are back-to-back - use a one break
one break one, two break one, or a one break two sequence.
Examples:
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| 6. | Avoid scheduling early morning classes the day after an evening class.
Ex: Monday evening class and an 8:00 am Tues. class.
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| 7. | Consider distance between buildings when scheduling back-to-back classes.
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| 8. | Balance your degree of difficulty. Each person learns at a different
rate. If you need more study time for quantitative courses, don't unnecessarily
put them together during the same semester. Math, accounting, and economics
the same semester would require a lot more study time than some other combination.
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| 9. | Teaching certification courses are blocked - certain courses need to
be taken during the same semester.
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| 10. | Complete the language requirement during the freshman and sophomore
years - don't wait! Upper level courses in the major are much more demanding;
the junior and senior years don't need the extra demand of language practice.
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| 11. | Take at least 16 credits each semester - at a minimum, you need 128
credits to graduate. If you want to complete your degree in 4 years you
need to average 16 credits per semester
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| 12. | All courses are not offered every semester, they follow a rotation.
Some examples are: every other fall, every other spring, fall odd years,
spring even years, every fall, every semester.
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| 13. | Some courses only have one section. They are typically offered the
same times and days each semester they are offered. If two classes you
want conflict in time, one will have to wait until another semester.
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| 14. | Put your difficult classes on a MWF schedule if possible. That allows
for smaller doses with more repetition.
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| 15. | Recognize when your energy peeks are. Schedule your difficult classes
during those times if possible.
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