What are the most time-consuming subjects in college?

[MacLaddy]

I am currently attending a local community college, trying to knock out some generals and electives before moving onto a four year university for a bachelors in electrical engineering.

As I am going to school part time and working full time I am trying to clear out some of the more intense subjects that require mass-homework and hours of study. However, I realized that I don't really know what those subjects are. I can fulfill most of my math requirements, and I had assumed that these may be some of the more intense subjects, but I now realized that I don't really have a clue as to what I am in for.

If anyone could offer up some advice on what some of the more intense courses are, I would be greatly appreciative.

Of course this is probably subjective by school and individual, but a general notion would point me in the right direction.

Thanks much.

 

[Phyisab****]

They usually only offer lower level technical courses at a CC. You should be able to take pretty much all of them. Calc 1-3 and intro to differential equations, intro physics sequence, and a circuit analysis sequence.

 

[lisab]

The first thing that comes to mind is programming classes. They always were major time sinks for me.

Next might be lab classes, especially lower division chemistry (for me, at least).

Foreign language classes suck up time too - lots of memorizing and listening to recordings.

 

[Angry Citizen]

The biggest time sink for me is the intro physics sequence.

 

[flemmyd]

i've found anything with heavy lab components to be time sinks (aka chem). physics labs tend not to have long writes ups in my experience.
and calc 3 (vector calculus) in particular to be pretty bad/time consuming. If you really want to understand it.

 

[MacLaddy]

Great suggestions, thanks everyone.

What's even better is that all the suggested classes should transfer over smoothly, except the foreign language; luckily that is not a requirement.

I'm trying to knock out enough credits so that I can still work full time and be able to handle the four year curriculum. So much for my thirties.

 

[Dembadon]

I think it also depends on the professor. The most time-consuming course for me so far has been a humanities course in which the professor assigned massive amounts of reading. I've no problems producing 'A' papers, but the amount of reading that was required of us took up a huge chunk of my time.

 

[jtpope2]

I was in your exact same boat, I transferred from CC to four-year for electrical. I don't know what you've done, but you definently want to get your calc's and physics out of the way before they'll admit you into EE. your toughest classes at CC will be calc II/III, diff eq and physics II (which is really important for EE). some people think physics I is hard, but i thought it was pretty easy. you're probably going to find that a full-time job will be impossible with your course load. I would recommend getting a part-time job if you can.

 

[symbolipoint]

I was in your exact same boat, I transferred from CC to four-year for electrical. I don't know what you've done, but you definently want to get your calc's and physics out of the way before they'll admit you into EE. your toughest classes at CC will be calc II/III, diff eq and physics II (which is really important for EE). some people think physics I is hard, but i thought it was pretty easy. you're probably going to find that a full-time job will be impossible with your course load. I would recommend getting a part-time job if you can.

The reason that Physics 1 is hard is because most of the students have not seriously learned to think analytically and use Algebra and basic Trigonometry for many application-like problems/exercises. Students here often have not had enough experience following precise instructions. One must learn to analyze and to "trust your algebra". One should find (if were needed) that upon course repeat, that Physics 1 could be easy. Even so, still an effort.

 

[MacLaddy]

This is actually an older thread.

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=647029

This link references a thread that I started today, that references back to this one. Perhaps the mods can combine them and lock one?

As for physics, I am taking that now and so far it is my favorite class that I have done.

 

[clope023]

Anything having to do with partial differential equations or using pertubation techniques to solve differential equations, that and scientific programming either for research or a class.