On Course Load and Learning: Why Less is More

If you're like many smart, motivated students, you stack a heavy course load, add extracurriculars, and end up overwhelmed—still feeling you haven't done enough. Your semester can feel like chasing a train that never stops long enough to board. The intent is to make the most of your undergraduate years; the result is burnout, superficial learning, and missed opportunities for genuine intellectual growth.

My advice is simple: take fewer courses. Focus on depth over breadth. Choose challenge over convenience. For most undergraduates, fewer courses done thoroughly is the wiser default.

Graduating early: Taking more courses can let you finish in three years and save on tuition and housing. If you face serious financial constraints, consider this path. For most students who can afford the standard four years, the depth and time for advanced work outweigh the cost savings; graduating early often means sacrificing depth of learning—the real value of your undergraduate education.

If you can afford the full four years (for example, because you're on a full scholarship), you may still feel pressure to overload on courses and extracurriculars. There is a pervasive belief that more is better—that piling on courses, majors, and activities will lead to a richer experience and more opportunities after graduation. After all, whether you take 12 credits or 21+ credits, you still pay the same tuition. Why not get the most out of it? Course registration can start to resemble an all‑you‑can‑eat buffet. That's where the logic falters. Here's the case for less being more.

The Math Doesn't Work

Let's start with basic arithmetic. The federal definition of a credit hour is this: one hour of classroom instruction plus a minimum of two hours of out-of-class work per week equals one credit hour. That's three hours total per credit, per week (in a typical semester), as a minimum. So, for example, if you're taking a 3-credit course, you should expect to spend at least 9 hours per week on that course (3 hours in class + 6 hours studying at home). There are exceptions, of course! For example, a lab course may require much less outside work, while a project-based course may require much more. But as a general rule of thumb, this is the standard.

A full-time student is one whose primary occupation is studying. Full-time employment is typically considered to be around 40 hours per week. Therefore, a full-time student should be dedicating approximately 40 hours per week to their studies. At 12 credits (the minimum for full-time status at Hopkins), that's 36 hours per week. At 15 credits (a typical course load of 3–4 courses), you're at 45 hours—already above the 40-hour mark.

If you take 18–21 credits, that's 54–63 hours per week just for coursework. Now add in extracurriculars (research projects, student clubs, applying for internships, etc.), personal responsibilities, and perhaps a part-time job. It becomes unsustainable. Something has to give, and what gives is depth of learning.

While it's true that some courses require less work, that's usually at the expense of rigor and depth. An easy or superficial course can help you check a box, satisfy a requirement, or boost your GPA, but it won't grow you intellectually the way a hard one will. And that growth is the point of an undergraduate education, especially in engineering. Paying tuition for an easy A that amounts to busywork, while skipping the advanced courses that demand real effort (the ones you're unlikely to study on your own, outside the scaffolding of a class), is a poor trade when time is zero-sum. I'd take the B+ in a rigorous course over the easy A.

The credit-hour math is a minimum. In practice, most technical courses routinely exceed it, so you'll likely spend more time than that. And even if you push well past 50–60 hours a week, there's a ceiling on how much a person can absorb: the brain has finite attention and processing capacity, and piling on more courses past that point just lowers the quality of what you learn.

The Multiple Major Trap

It's common to see students major in two or more fields, often adding a minor or two for good measure. In principle, in fields with shared cores (e.g., CS + Applied Math), a second major or minor can formalize complementary depth and perhaps open doors for interdisciplinary work. In practice, however, when you commit to multiple majors within a fixed timeframe (typically four years and within a fixed credit cap), each additional major forces you to optimize for breadth over depth. Your learning becomes a series of requirements to satisfy rather than a coherent intellectual journey. You take the courses you must take, not necessarily the ones you should take.

What's worse is that many programs have adjusted their requirements to make double majors feasible. As multiple majors become common, the marginal signaling value of an additional major declines. What stands out beyond credential inflation is actual evidence of mastery: a thesis, research paper, open-source contributions, or performance in advanced electives—outcomes that require slack in the schedule.

The Extracurricular Paradox

On top of an overloaded course schedule or multiple majors, you may try to maintain research positions in labs, participate in independent studies, lead clubs, and engage in various other activities—all simultaneously. The intent is admirable. The execution is often superficial.

When you spread yourself this thin, you can't give any single activity the attention it deserves. You do the bare minimum to put a checkmark next to each item on your resume. You're present, but you're not really engaged. You're participating, but you're not making meaningful contributions. Concentrated effort on fewer, harder things yields artifacts, references, and real competence.

A Better Path

Here's what I recommend instead.

Take three or four courses a semester, and make them count. This fits both the federal credit-hour definition and the reality of deep learning. It gives you time to actually understand the material, to struggle with hard concepts, to go past the minimum.

Commit to a single major. Take the advanced courses. Take the ones that scare you a little. Build real expertise in your field. You can always take electives outside your major to explore other interests, without the pressure of satisfying a second major's requirements. No one ever got hired because they had two majors; they got hired because they were good at what they did.

Use summers for extracurriculars. If you want to do research, an independent study, or anything else, do it over the summer when you're not taking courses. Give each one the attention it deserves instead of spreading yourself thin. Take on one or two meaningful things across your whole degree, and stick with them rather than dabbling in many.

Choose challenge over convenience. Take the courses you wouldn't study on your own, where you'll learn from the professor's expertise and your classmates' perspectives. Take the ones that matter for the field you care about and genuinely challenge you. Avoid the "easy A" that doesn't stretch you. The goal is to grow, not to collect a good grade.

Plan for four years. Unless you have serious financial constraints, there's no prize for finishing early, especially if finishing early means you learned less. Many students who rush through in three years end up adding a master's year anyway. Slow down, take your time, and make it count.

The Real Value

The value of higher education isn't in the number of degrees you collect, the majors and minors you accumulate, the courses you cram into each semester, or the activities you juggle. It's in the transformation that happens when you engage deeply with challenging material—when you have time to think, question, and connect ideas across domains. That transformation, not the transcript, is what will serve you for the next forty years of your career.

That's what I want for my students. Not more courses, more majors, more activities—but deeper learning, genuine challenge, and the time and space to become truly competent in your field.

Sometimes less really is more.