Lessons Learned About Class Scheduling

Now it is summer break, and I feel as lethargic as I have ever felt before. It’s been a long time since my last blog update. Hello, this is Oraaaaaa, and today, I will talk about class scheduling in college.

First semester schedule

In the first semester, all first years have a class called Tutorial on Tuesday and Thursday. Since most classes I took were on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, Tutorial balanced my class schedule well. Also, because all of my classes were introductory course classes, they were not too demanding and felt like a review of high school classes. The fact that I saw Tutorial as the hardest class in my first schedule should be more than enough to show how simple the other introductory classes were.

However, in the second semester, there were no required classes, so I decided to take all my classes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Initially, I thought that class times would not have a large effect on my performance in them. Contrary to what I had expected, I now acknowledge how impactful class schedules are to how well I can do in classes.

Second semester schedule

This was my schedule for the second semester. Compared to my first semester schedule, it is evident that almost all my classes are on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The only class that I had on Tuesday and Thursday was my Physics lab on Thursday afternoon. I have to admit that part of my failure in the second semester is due to the classes did get harder. Some classes like chemistry were hard because it took me a long time to be able to do the problems efficiently. Other classes, such as English, were hard because it took me some time to understand the class material itself. Although there were minute struggles in every class, I have to say that my largest flaw was to have two consecutive classes of science, physics and chemistry. The problem was not that I could not switch gears between the classes; rather, it was more of a problem of not being able to remember two subject’s worth of material for the exams. Since most science classes have exams on the same day, all exams except for the final exam overlapped for the two science classes. Having two science exams in a row was a challenge that I could not fully accomplish; however, the slight feeling of liberation after finishing the exams is something that I want to feel again.

Next semester schedule

Luckily, I was able to balance my classes for my next semester better than I did for the second semester of my first year. Although this schedule looks more like that of my second semester than that of my first semester, there was nothing I could do about that. Since most science classes are on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I feel lucky to have been able to put my chemistry class on Tuesday and Thursday. I plan to continue chemistry, physics, and possible math. I plan for my last one class to be something unrelated to the core sciences that take up most of my schedule.

Although this may sound like me whining, I wish this will help you think about balancing your class schedule. As a final word of advice about class scheduling, I think it is not a fatal mistake to play around with class schedules in the first year. Every person has different tendencies on how they want their classes planned out. It’s better to mess up in than in the other three years when all the classes are much more challenging. Thank you for reading this, and see you next time.