pettifogging academic details

[theladyrose]

I find it amusing yet mildly freaky that my cousin is nicer to me on Facebook than face to face. And now, on to the point of this entry:

Someone please reassure me that I'm not going to die taking five classes next year. Three of them are honors classes, but I figure that if I really like the subject matter and the professors are good, why shouldn't I take up on a once in a lifetime opportunity? Some students have taken three of the honors courses first semester and did well even if the student advisor said that she had a hard time. I might regret this later, but I decided to sign up for one more class-a 2 unit one, mind you-just a minute ago; it's "The Process of Paraprofessional Counseling for Young Adults." (I had to go for at least one class with a pretentious title!) I don't really know what branch of psychology I want to go into, so it seems like a good idea to explore the different branches early on while I'm taking intro to psych. Right? Right. At least I have all of Friday off except for a discussion session.

Right now I'm debating about whether or not I should get transfer credit for the behaviorism seminar I took last summer. I talked briefly to one of the undergrad psych advisors when I accidentally went to the wrong registration session during orientation, and she said that I pretty much have psych elective credit that can be used to satisfy the "additional upper or lower division level psych elective" requirement for the major. So far so good, right? I've been reading some of the fine print, though, and it turns out that if the transfer+in-house credit GPA is lower than the in-house credit GPA alone, the transfer+in-house GPA will be what's considered for honors programs. And I should be getting roughly a 3.3 for my psych elective transfer credit, which isn't too bad on the whole but will be pretty much shooting my freshman GPA in the foot if I'm trying to get into honors programs and the like. If I do well enough and manage to get into the psych honors route, I'll already have to take a course that will satisfy the "additional upper or lower division level psych elective" requirement so the point is moot. However, having the transfer credit is a nice safety cushion just in case I want to do more than one minor, which is highly possible. (Sadly enough, I actually planned all of this out with my mother the other day, assuming that I can get all of my classes when I want them.) So should I get transfer credit or not? I don't really need to figure this out until August when I actually meet with an academic advisor, but still. I'd like to plan out as much as possible because I'm weird and obsessive that way.

eyepiece_simile and I discovered that we are really good at rationalizing; this is probably more of a boon for me as I'm supposed to be the one poking at people's neuroses. It looks like I will be refining this skill for years to come...

Comments

[theladyrose.livejournal.com]

Thanks for your sage advice! I figure that it's better to be taking all the classes that I'm really interested in rather than a few just to fulfill requirements that I'm not so eager to take.