School Achievement

People often comment on course load and subsequent grades. The normal course load is 5 classes per semester; the overachiever will do 6, maybe 7; and then someone who needs the extra time will do 3, maybe 4. There's also the philosophy that, by only doing 4 courses instead of 5, you can devote all that extra time to the 4 courses you have. I mean, why do average on 5 courses, if you can do excellent on 4 right? I will admit, you do have a lot more time to study when you only have 4 courses. But do you actually use that time for studying? Or do you spend the same amount of time on each subject as you would have before, and then use that extra time to do whatever you want?

I finally got all my grades back for this semester. This semester I did the full 5 courses, while in some past semesters I've done only 4. I was browsing my grades from previous semesters and here's what I noticed. In one semester while doing only 4, I received my first A. But! The other 3 were only B's and B-'s. In one semester while doing the full 5, I received two A-'s, but the rest were B's and B+'s. This semester, despite panicking from the stress load, and freaking out thinking I wasn't going to get high enough marks, I studied my butt off! And apparently my hard work paid off: 1 A-, 3B+, and 1B. Anyways, the trend I have noticed is that it is better to do the full 5, and actually use all that time for studying. I seem to do better when I have the full 5 courses. However, with the full 5, I may have my best semester, but I also have my worst. But hey, your very first semester at University never goes as good as you'd hoped...right?