Happy Friday and welcome back to The SK Way! I hope you all had a wonderful week and are looking forward to a relaxing weekend 🙂 Today, I am so excited to announce a new 3-part series on the blog in collaboration with TastefullyTaryn! Taryn was one of my first blogger friends and she is always so sweet and supportive! Be sure to check out her blog and Instagram for some great life and style posts!
Through this College Advice series, we are hoping to provide you with tips & tricks regarding different areas of college life. This week’s topic is our best tips for choosing classes!
Course registration is always a stressful time of year for all students! I am going into my senior year and still feel overwhelmed at times! However, there are few key practices that I try to keep in mind when building my schedule:
- Don’t Be Afraid to Challenge Yourself: One of the best parts about a college schedule is the flexibility to choose the majority of your electives. Whether these courses are within your major, or are general academic requirements, my best piece of advice is to not shy away from classes that truly interest you because you have heard that it’s “really hard”. If you are excited about a certain topic and you think your schedule can allow for it, give it a shot! You never know what could happen – here’s an example:
- Last semester, I took an elective course for my major called “Receptors & Channels”. It is a crossover between molecular Neuroscience and Biochemistry. So many students told me it was “the hardest class in the major” and “the homework assignments take forever“. I did consider their advice, but at the end of the day, everyone’s experience is different and I was really interested in learning more about it (plus it was being taught by one of my favorite professors). I can honestly say that I am so glad that I took it as it was one of my favorite classes!
If you are interested in taking a class but are worried about what it may entail, feel free to reach out to the professor and express your concerns! They may be able to give you a better idea of what the class will look like as well as their expectations. This can help clarify any outstanding questions to help you solidify your decision either way!
- Balance is Key: As a disclaimer to the first tip, I am not advocating that you fill your entire schedule with difficult courses “just because”. If you are in a tougher major where you are taking harder classes to begin with, staggering your schedule with something lighter helps to ease some stress. If you choose something that fulfills a general education requirement, that’s a bonus! My fall semester of sophomore year was pretty busy with Biology, Organic Chemistry, and a core Neuroscience class, so I decided to fulfill my foreign language requirement by taking Spanish. It was something different and was a fun way to break up my day! This made my tough schedule much more manageable while allowing me to complete some graduation requirements in the process.
- Keep an Open Mind: Stepping outside of your comfort zone is such an important part of your academic experience. There are so many interesting classes in college that you may never have the opportunity to take again! By keeping an open mind and trying new things, you may learn something about yourself! For example:
- My freshman year, I was in the last group for course registration and there were not many classes that fit in my schedule (I go to a smaller school so there are only one or two sections of every course). Due to the structure of my schedule at the time, the only options that would work were Art History II and Principles of Microeconomics. I had never taken courses in either of these areas before so no matter what I chose, it would have been something brand new to me. I ultimately decided on Economics…little did I know, it would eventually become my minor! Although it is not directly related to Neuroscience, I was able to discover a new subject area that I never knew I liked!
I hope you found these course selection tips to be helpful whether you are a freshman, a senior, or a high school student looking ahead! Don’t forget to read Taryn’s post for additional tips and tricks! I am so excited to be working on this mini-series together 🙂 Stay tuned for next Friday’s post all about extracurricular activities!
Thank you for reading!
