This blogpost is the final part of the freshman FAQ series, and it will answer the following questions:
- “How can I pick a balanced course load?”
- “How can I choose classes while being considerate of my major and the liberal arts curriculum?”
Picking Balanced Courses: Workload
Before you select any course, read reviews either on layuplist.com or the course assessment portal. You can access the course assessment portal through Darthub, search “Course Assessment Portal,” click on it, and once you’re in, you can type the course or professor name into the keyword search. For example, “PSYC 11.”
The course assessment portal does not have reviews of every course nor every professor available, but it is worth checking out as it will give you less biased reviews. Layuplist is great in that it has every course/term, usually the medians, and for most courses, it has reviews for various professors. However, it tends to be biased. If you see terrible reviews for a professor, try to ask upperclassmen (trip leaders, UGA, teammates, etc) if they have taken a course with the professor or if they know someone who has. They can give you more information and help you figure out whether taking the course is worth it. I would take reviews from 20S-21X with a grain of salt because many professors teach much differently over zoom than in-person.
If you’re wondering where the name “layup list” comes from, at Dartmouth, a layup is considered to be an easy course. Layuplist.com has an option for students to upvote or downvote a course as a layup, but remember that just because a course is a layup for another student does not mean it will be a layup for you. Likewise, just because a course is a layup for you, it might not be a layup for another student.
I advise you to use the course assessment portal and layuplist.com to gauge the workload of a course and find three with varying degrees of workload or two lighter workload courses with one hefty workload. Some questions you can ask yourself while figuring out workload:
- How many essays will I have to write?
- How many words/pages are they?
- How many exams will I have to take?
- What is the format of the exam?
- How much time do I plan to spend studying?
- How many projects will I have to complete?
- How many homework assignments or problem sets will I have to do?
- How often are they due?
- How many pages of reading will I have to do per class or per week?
- Do I actually have to do the whole reading for little details, or can I succeed while skimming for the most important conceptual information?
- For language courses: How many times per week will I have drill?
- Note: Drill is an extra class, taught by a fluent student, that you take for language courses. For Asian Society, Culture, and Language courses, it is usually four times per week. For European languages, it is usually three times per week.
- Will my professor be using all x-hours? How many times per week will we meet?
Ultimately, the choice is yours, but please do not take three intense courses at once. Try to leave time for yourself.
Picking Balanced Courses: Subjects
When picking courses, it is important to balance the workload and types of work. I find that one reading-and-writing-intensive course, one STEM course, and one creative class (though I am a Studio Art Major, so this isn’t necessarily applicable for everyone) is a good combination. Try to balance your subjects so that you aren’t doing too much of one thing (for example, two reading intensive classes might have you doing 500 pages of reading per week). This should be easy regardless of your academic path because we are required to take distributive classes.
From personal experience, I find that the best way to transition to the academic rigor at Dartmouth would be to take two layups and one hard class. With this method, you’ll have a taste of what academic rigor really means here, but you won’t be overwhelmed by multiple classes at once.
For your freshman fall course load, you should have your Writing 2 or Writing 5 course, one easier class, and one harder class in a subject you are interested in exploring. The workload for humanities tends to be more intense than Writing 2 or Writing 5, as you have to read multiple novels, but regardless, I encourage you to take a course with a lighter workload and one course in a subject that you are interested in majoring in regardless of its workload.
Choosing Classes While Being Considerate of Major and Liberal Arts Curriculum
When planning courses, the most important thing to keep in mind is your goal after college. Are you going to medical school? Check out course requirements and suggestions for your med school of choice. Do you want to be an engineer? Meet with your dean, your academic advisor, or the department chair for help with planning your courses.
If you aren’t sure what you want to do yet, identify a few departments that you’re interested in and see how many requirements there are for the major, including prerequisites.
You will pick up distributive requirements as you explore departments, so you don’t have to take classes for the sake of getting distributives during your freshman year. If you do not have most of your distributives by your fifth term (in your sophomore year), then it’ll be time to worry about taking classes to get distributives.
- The bottom line is that your first priority should be your plans after college.
- Why are you here?
- Your second priority should be your major.
- What do you want to learn while you’re here?
- Your third priority should be the liberal arts curriculum requirements.
- Which courses do you need to graduate?
If you are worried about the liberal arts curriculum and picking a major that isn’t applicable to your goal after college, you can justify your studies to employers by saying that any major at Dartmouth teaches you how to think critically. For fields in which your undergraduate studies aren’t essential for your next steps, don’t worry about majoring in any particular department. Employers who hire Dartmouth students know that this is a liberal arts school. They want students who know how to think.
Have fun choosing classes, and have a great first year! If you have additional questions, feel free to DM our instagram account @dartmouthacademicskills.