Normal Load = Finish On Time Vs. Less Load = More Time

[DaVibe]

Which is better?

On one hand, you can take your regular full amount of courses and finish your program but have the struggles of trying to continue and succeed with a full load.

On the other hand, you can take less of a load to do better in your courses (typically) but then you'll be in the program longer.

Just throwing that out there, wondering what the opinions are on the 2 sides.

[M@rk]

OR you can just go with the full course load and stop having a life for a couple of years. It'll be worth it!

[Chandler]

I find that less course load doesnt actually equal more time since you become less motivated to do work.

[poorwingman]

depends where you go to school.

it seems like ppl that go to commuter schools (UT, York, UTM, UT scarb) prefer to take less courses. i think it's a valid choice to enhance your overall performance because:

if you live at home, you don't have to pay rent (or significant rent anyways)
the commute affects your lifestyle negatively since it's common to commute 2 hours daily in the gta (depending on how far you live from school of course)
it's easier to balance a part time job with less courses


most kids that go out of town (queen's/uwo/mac) simply put, can't afford to spend extra time there. you can flip all the above reasons around

rent adds up fast. out of town landlords also commonly require 12 month leases
the commute is short anyways. it really helps
it's also easier to focus on studying when there's sooo many other ppl around you studying too


i went out of town for undergrad and a full course load it certainly wasn't a struggly. ppl that did the "victory lap" were mostly science students improving their marks for med/dentistry school

basically it comes down to the lifestyle that you want and what your academic goals are. you might want to try taking a full course load just to see if you can handle it and decrease it on 3/4 yrs to make sure you get good grades if you're planning to apply to grad school.

most schools only look at the last couple years anyways so it's doubtful if you will be penalized for not doing well in your experimental full course load phase early in uni. however, it's best to look at grad school applications to see how many years of uni they count.

you should also look at the applications or contact the admissions dept to see if they discount your grades if you take less than a full course load. it wouldn't surprise me if they did. but you can show a well balanced application if you worked part time to justify not taking a full course load. (of course all things being equal, they may prefer someone with a full course load that worked as well)

[don242]

You are there to go to school. Take the full course load and put in the effort. Taking less courses does not necessarily mean better grades. I had an easy term one year with a lower course load. I just spent my extra time working instead of doing school work.

Personally, I would take a higher course load and be done even sooner.

[tharsan]

If you're in a program with set program fees, then becoming a part-time student also cuts the cost of your education immensely (almost in half), but will take you more than twice as long to finish.

I prefer finishing my education as soon as possible, so I don't have to worry about school anymore. Man, I'm going to miss school.

[koft]

First of all, full course load doesn't necessary equate to no social life and no time to have fun.. I personally finished a four year honour degree at Queen's in just 3 years + a summer. I managed to take that extra year to travel with couple of close friends. It is all about time-management. Good luck.... The financial benefit of finishing earlier than expect.. I saved about 2% of my overall tuition (approx. $500, not a lot, but it can buy you lots of alcohol j/k) + 1 year less on rent (a down payment for a car or which i took to pay for my trip)

[Tofu Drift Shinji]

Sometimes, it's not a matter of you wanting to do less courses over more time. If you apply to professional or grad school, certain schools will look at your course load. If you do not have a full course load (or very close) or if you don't have, what they consider, a challenging course load, they will rank you lower among the applicants. This is not saying that you will definitely not get in, but you need every advantage you can get when the odds are 1/10 or less.

If you plan on going to professional or grad school, it's probably not worth it to try to circumvent "the system;" just take a full course load.

[gq_fuzion]

i think it depends on the individual courses

some courses are a lot heavier and require a lot more study time and preperation

some courses are easier and don't even truly require reading... or even going to class

[poorwingman]

First of all, full course load doesn't necessary equate to no social life and no time to have fun.. I personally finished a four year honour degree at Queen's in just 3 years + a summer. I managed to take that extra year to travel with couple of close friends. It is all about time-management. Good luck.... The financial benefit of finishing earlier than expect.. I saved about 2% of my overall tuition (approx. $500, not a lot, but it can buy you lots of alcohol j/k) + 1 year less on rent (a down payment for a car or which i took to pay for my trip)

why the rush to get out of queen's i've heard it's tons of fun there.

[how]

if you can afford it, sure less load is good but if you're like everyone else well full load....but when you start applying to jobs they might ask you why it took you so long you better have a good answer

[Punky]

Depends on if you can afford it or on how good you want to do, etc. Really depends on the person. I know people who take more than a full load or more and their goal is just to pass and get out of there asap. For those who do take more than a full load a year, full load in summer, still have a lot of social life, and still maintain at least a B+ GPA, I salute you. I personally haven't met anyone like that yet.

Personally I am no rush to graduate. But I still plan on graduating in four years because I hate it. I may be the select few who will not miss school once they get out.

I know a friend who studied for 3 and half yrs at UTSC, absolutely no life, but finished early so she can get a full-time job. She's got great marks because she studied constantly. Therefore, she may go back to grad school someday.

[keltorak]

I believe in taking an extra semester or two to pick up actual in the field experience to put on my CV.

I either take a full load (5 classes) or cut one out past the midterms and keep a part time job that will actually be useful in the future. Every job out there is looking for people with job experience, why not use all that free time in uni to pull that off. Not to mention that the money is very nice.

Please note that burger flipper jobs and the such should be avoided, they don't look serious at all and won't help you to land a "real" job. I have friends who went with the "it pays better" approach to finding a job last summer, they made a buck or two over what I did, but this summer, I'm making 2 to 3 times what they are, cause I stuck with interesting jobs that teach you actual skills instead of focusing on the money.

Besides, an extra semester is easily explained through the old "I had to pay for everything on my own" clause. If I add another one, it'll be to take classes I actually find interesting, also easily explainable.

Getting a part time job in my field also helped tremendously with my GPA, since I 'get' what use the things they teach us have. I went from a B- average in my first year to an A average last year, yielding a nice overall B+. I'm hoping to bump that up to an A- or so this year, which is more than I ever wanted. A B average is enough to get you in the graduate programs, if you've got stellar experience and recommendations, everything else is gravy (that is valid for my school alone).

[Rehan]

Shouldn't the poll question be for post-secondary school? :confused:

[DaVibe]

Some interesting points ...

And yes, it should be "Post-Secondary" but I can't fix the poll (not an option is it? That's your department! ;))

[Sgt_Strider]

Like what some people said, I think it depends on what kind of courses you're taking. I tend to spend less time on my history and political science courses than I do with Chinese class. I have to review on a daily basis or I'll start to fall behind.

[cloneman]

I think the main issue with a reduced course load is falling out of phase with your buddies, definitely not cool.

On the other hand, it depends what your taking. Some of the tougher (e.g. science / engineering / medicine) oriented programs may be tougher to handle on a full load than other courses (especially true for CEGEP in Quebec). If your "full load" is 32 hours vs another student's 24 then there's certainly a difference there to be considered. The key is discipline. Both loads can work, depending what kind of person you are.

The way I see two things can happen, if things go wrong:

Full course load: Lower grades, possibly combined with reduced sleep and impact on health.

Reduced Load: Grades generally similar, but lots of time wasted and loss of interest in school.

And when things go well:

Full load: Quick advancement towards carrer, reasonbly balanced lifesyle with stable and healthy routine.

Reduced load: Possibly higher grades and more time for own endeavours.

My 2c. Basically it's all been said already in this thread. It depends on the person.

One thing I don't agree with, though is fear that a reduced load will not be looked upon well by employers or institutions of higher education. I'm not in charge of admissions anywhere (far from it!), but a little wit when those questions come goes a long way. It's silly to dawn on very minor complications like that when theres a lot more at stake (your grades and well-being for 4 years). Well-being doesn't I'm promoting a reduced load. Some people will be uncomfortable with it, for reasons mentioned already (feeling lazy, behind, or getting out of phase with friends).

Think it though, talk about it.

[jljdaigl]

I prefer taking the normal full load, I am in a pretty tough program with labs and some tough courses, CompEng at UW, and I still manager to see alot of my friends and have a really good social life. Like previously mentioned its all about time management and you have to balance. Plus I don't know if I would want to spend the extra money on rent, etc.. to stay in my program longer haha

But everyone is different...this is just my opinion.

[thephenom]

Even if you graduate at 23 rather than 22 (at least in Ontario), that still leaves you 37-42 to work in your life time assuming you retire between 60-65. (You can dream about retiring at 40 or even 30, but reality is, it's not happening for majority of us, for those who could afford to retire at 30 or 40, those are workoholics that love work too much to retire)

So as I was saying, working 37-42 years, spending that extra year or two in university isn't going to put you too much worst off. At least that's how I think of it. Enjoy school while you can, at work, you don't get the 4 months holiday in the summer.

Oh yeah, of course I don't mean slack off purposely, I mean if you feel a full course load it hindering your learning, then take it slowly. As much as people say university is useless, there will be little things you learn from every course, add them up, and you got yourself some knowledge.

[glacier76]

If you think can handle a full course load, do it. If you don't think you can, don't do it. Most employers will not care that you got a degree in 4 years or 7 years, as long as you got it.

[Sgt_Strider]

Even if you graduate at 23 rather than 22 (at least in Ontario), that still leaves you 37-42 to work in your life time assuming you retire between 60-65. (You can dream about retiring at 40 or even 30, but reality is, it's not happening for majority of us, for those who could afford to retire at 30 or 40, those are workoholics that love work too much to retire)

So as I was saying, working 37-42 years, spending that extra year or two in university isn't going to put you too much worst off. At least that's how I think of it. Enjoy school while you can, at work, you don't get the 4 months holiday in the summer.

Oh yeah, of course I don't mean slack off purposely, I mean if you feel a full course load it hindering your learning, then take it slowly. As much as people say university is useless, there will be little things you learn from every course, add them up, and you got yourself some knowledge.

I have been feeling that urgency for such a long time. However, I seem to have grown out of that phase. There are people that are in their mid to late 20's in my classes. I think in the end it's not going to be so bad.