Is 16-17 credits too much for college?

It complete depends on how you learn things and how passionate and committed you are about your major.

Do yourself a favor, and don’t reduce it to quantified numbers like ’12 or 15 or 17 credits’, part of education isn’t just absorbing information, but learning to learn and your pace can and will quite likely be different than everyone else’s.

I myself started community college with 15 credit hours in 1988. With working part time, I was overwhelmed and did poorly, even with general curriculum classes and an undeclared major.

So in 1989, I started taking one night classes a semester, which continued until 1992, where I enrolled at ASU as a Computer Science Engineering Major.

The problem was (not a problem) – a fraternity – and I partied way too much, which wound up with me getting suspended for bad grades after failing (miserably) Calculus twice and Physics, three times, lol!

So from 1993 until 2005, I took one or two night classes a semester, including most summers, so by the time I finished my Bachelor’s Degree of Science in Marketing in 2007 – I had nearly 260 credit hours under my belt, and a 3.74 GPA from that University (I’d attended 10 different ones by then), which looked great for my MBA application – where I attended Thunderbird and obtained my MBA in 2009.

By the time I had decided on my majors – 2005 – I was passionate about them and committed.

So the long answer is –

I’ve done the 18 credit hour thing with no work, and it’s still hard, a lot of information is coming at you, at the same time you’ve got so many activities and new friends who will make it even tougher to stay on track.

15 is pushing it but doable, if you’re dealing with non analytical classwork.

But being honest, if you’re not working, 12 is better.

But words of wisdom: College and University is an experience, and one I highly suggest not trying to ‘finish as fast as possible’. i took 20 years to get done with it, and am glad I did. Chances are I will still return for a JD one of these days, or maybe pursue a doctorate in theoretical physics research (I came to love physics later).

If you focus on the numbers and the piece of paper. You’ll miss the ride.

15 credits for me is a normal semester. You can do it if you put your mind to it. Are you a self starter? if you haven’t taken any college classes, start off with 12 credits and see how your management is with school. Get a planner… this is so important and be diligent in checking what assignments are due and when. Problems come into play when you are overwhelmed and not organized.

Good Luck and if you want to take 17 credits, go for it.. just know the bleeding only last for a short time, about 3-4 months.

They claim that a college is a four year institution, but then they claim that 12 credits is full time, and that 16 credits is too much for a student to handle. That’s a lie. 16 credits is full time, and students can handle anything put in front of them. If you take 12 credits per semester for your entire college career, you will go years longer than the four they say you will go, and by then, your grants will have run out, and you will have to either get loans or pay out of pocket to finish. Whereas, if you take 16 credits from the beginning, you will finish in the four years that they claim the college will take, and you will have all the grants available for the entire time, without loans or your own money. It will just take a little more studying in a shorter amount of time. Students can do that. This 12 credit system, and claiming that 16 credits is too much is just a ploy to get more money out of us.

I think 16-17 credits is too much for a student to handle. But more credits better than less. If you are able to take, then take 17 credits.

I think it depends on the level of classes you’re taking, as well as the subject. The general guideline as I recall is that most classes are 3 credits, and it takes 12 credits to be considered a full-time student; so you’re talking about 5-6 classes per semester. If more than two of those classes are math, science, language, or art classes (all of which tend to take a lot of time) then I would say don’t take more than 12-15 credits. Similarly, if you are in your first year or so of school, you may be better off going easy at first. On the other hand, if you are close to graduating and have the freedom to take a few "easy" classes as opposed to "intro" classes that cover a lot of material and usually involve a lot of work, then you can probably afford to take on the extra effort.

It really depends on how diligent you are. If you can motivate yourself to get the work done, then there’s nothing wrong with taking 16-18 credits. In fact, I did MUCH BETTER in school when I started taking 6 classes a semester instead of 4…

It depends on what school of the college you are in for some universities. Where I went, the engineering school required a higher number of credits than the liberal arts school, for example. There, you needed to take 16 credits per semester to graduate in 4 years in the engineering school. I think it was more like 14 for some other schools. 12 was the bare minimum to be considered a full time student. Some students did the bare minimum and made up for it with summer courses.

My record (at the community college level) was 23. I had a 3.83 GPA when I graduated from CC. Now remember that everyone is different and the level of the education is a factor to consider. Also, you and I are two completely different persons that have different talents and abilities. I have a natural ability in school that you may or may not have. I never went past 18 credit hours in my last 60 credit hours of my BS. Now that I’m in grad school, I don’t take more than 6 credit hours every six weeks.

If you are young, I would recommend that you take no more than you have to take. Concentrate on your classes so that you can land higher grades. More so if you plan to go to any kind of grad school in the future.

Good luck!

Yes.

Find out how "full time student" is defined. If 12 is full-time, then do that.

College is not high school. For every credit, expect to put in 3 hours of work outside the class.

See how things go with 12 credits the first term. You can sign up for more next term, if you can do well in more classes at a time.

You need to be taking at least 15 credits if you plan to graduate in four years.

What kind of student are you? My daughter took 18 credits her frist semester and had no problems at all. She was a A student in HS and has great time management skills.

If you are not working or in a time consuming extra activity there is no reason why your shouldn’t be able to handle 16 credits.

To me, 16-17 credits is a lot, but then again, I don’t know your situation. I would only take 12 credits.