Have you had a similar workload?

[Jeremiah Givens]

Hello forum members,

As I've begun the second semester of my third year in undergraduate, I've found myself in a very overwhelming circumstance. I'm taking an incredibly large course load, and I'm quite worried I will not be able to pull this off. I'm taking Electricity and Magnetism, Differential Equations, Physical Chemistry/Quantum Mechanics(and the corequisite lab), and Instrumental Chemistry(and the correquisite lab). I'm also working as a lab technician 16 hours every weekend, as a T.A. for chemistry and Physics 12 hours a week, and I tutor 2 hours a week. Is this even possible to make it through with good grades, and more importantly a good understanding of my coursework? I'm beginning to get very worried that I can not do this. Has anyone ever taken such a load or worse and made it through unscathed? Please tell me your story, and help motivate me to accomplish this motherload of a task.

Thanks,
Jeremiah Givens

 

[Choppy]

Everyone works at a different pace so it's hard to say whether you'll be able to pull this off or not. But statistically speaking, something's going to give.

It looks like you only have four courses to deal with, but that's about the end of the good news. According to what you've posted, you're working 30 hours per week. That's a lot of time to not be studying. Maybe there are a few opportunities for multi-tasking. Sometimes if everything is quiet while you're TAing a lab, you can do the marking for another section, or get some of your own homework done, but I wouldn't count on this. And in general, you want to be fully engaged in any task you're doing.

This is the kind of schedule, where, if you write it out as a time budget, it may actually work. But in my experience just about every STEM course has a certain unpredictability to it in terms of assignments, labs and other problems that get thrown at you. When you're in a course that's mostly reading and writing, you can budget your time a lot better - you know how long it takes you to read a chapter or to write every thousand words. But with problem-based learning you can get stuck on one problem for hours. And in fact that kind of long-term wrestling with a problem is where a lot of learning happens. The down-side is that you can easily get caught up with one problem while the deadlines for other ones approach. All of a sudden you'll find yourself in a panic because you have three assignments due tomorrow and you're stuck tutoring for the evening...

The other thing to consider is how much time you're taking for yourself. Where are you exercising in this schedule? Socializing? Sleeping?

Just about everyone who's graduated from university has a "semester from hell" story. And it's easy to look at those stories and think - hey if that person was successful, I will be too. But doesn't mean attempting something similar is a good idea.

All of this said, I would recommend a plan for a phased backing off of your working commitments if you start to feel overwhelmed. I know that's hard once you've made a commitment, but you'd be surprised at how understanding people can be, particularly when you deal with something before it becomes a real problem. So come up with a plan. Where will you cut first if you're feeling pressed for time?

 

[Dishsoap]

Like Choppy said, most people have one of those semesters. It's terrible, but it's 100x worse if you don't budget your time carefully and start falling behind. Is there a chance you can change the number of hours that you TA in physics? Perhaps dropping a section or being a grader only would help. Also, talk to your fellow TAs, perhaps some of them would like a few more TA hours some weeks, so when things really ramp up you can give them some of your sections (depending on how classes are structured, etc.).

Just don't. fall. behind.