Workload Woes

[EffEmDoubleyou]

My first thought is please don't don't DON'T drop the class and forfeit the money. I'm still paying for grad school, and $2000/year now can turn into a lot more later if you make up the difference with loans. You're clearly making grades that argue against dropping a class based on workload. If I am doing the math right and 12 credits = 4 classes x 6 hours = 24 hrs/week of work outside of class...then my honest advice is suck it up and try to start doing your work earlier in the evening.

If anything, I'd suggest that maybe you ease off a little on the pressure you apply to yourself. With a 3.9, you have some wiggle room. I know that right now it seems GPA is the be-all, end-all. But honestly, after you are out of college nobody will ever ask or care what your GPA was (unless you want to pursue graduate school.) It's all about who you are and what you can do. I'm not saying it doesn't matter what kind of grades you get, but I'm saying that in my opinion it's more important to hold on to your scholarship. There can't be much more than a month left in the semester...just bear down and get through it. I know you can

 

[Recoleta]

FM gave you some great advice...and he's right, don't forfeit the money that you already payed for the class, because you'll just have to pay to sit through it all over again (especially since you're still in your core classes). And then you'll really be kicking yourself because at this point in the semester you basically know all the material that's been covered in the class. Your grades are good, so just don't put so much pressure on yourself.

Truthfully, in your core classes, you likely don't even have to read the textbooks much. At least in my experience, most of my professors taught what they wanted and rarely used the book. The book was like a supplement to their lectures, so I only read if there was a concept that wasn't clear or if I wanted to know more information. Basically, if you go to every class and take good notes, you don't need to do much independent work (Of course, this advice does not apply to literature classes and the like). But for stuff like Basic Bio, Psychology, Sociology, Foreign Lang, and Math I think I hardly cracked open those books to read because it simply wasn't worth the effort.

Plus, don't worry so much about GPA...what's important is that you get a degree. I graduated with a 3.6, and had no trouble getting into the grad school of my choice. Grad schools really look at your GRE scores anyway...and IMO the math section was just like the SAT's, but the verbal section was pretty difficult.