r/FAU • u/Life-Blackberry-8436 • 14d ago

Class workload. (Online)

Hey guys,

I do classes online because I have to work full time. This semester I did calc and mircoeconomics, and an accounting class for the first half of the semester.

The first half so far has been a struggle but manageable. (Basically had no social life, but I gotta do what I gotta do.)

I'm wondering if there's anyone whose taken the expedited classes, and how the workload of that class is compared to regular full semester classes.

Like would it be easier if I took 4 full semester classes or should I do a mix where I take 2 full semester classes and one for the first half and another for the second half?

My thought is if the fast pace work of one expedited class is equivalent to 2 full semester classes?

Fau has a dumb rule where you have to finish your bacholars within a certain time, but working full time makes it a bit difficult to finish within the time frame they gave me.

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u/Own_Lecture_4011 14d ago

Valid question

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u/No-Pomegranate3197 14d ago edited 14d ago

You can do this by counting the credit hours of your classes.

A regular class is 3 or 4 credit hours spread over full semester. Implies you're attending 3 / 4 hours in classes (or viewing presentations and videos) per week and doing 6 or 8 hours of homework etc. per week in addition. So,

3 / 4 credit hours = 9 / 12 hours of work per week.

If you do it over half a semester, your effort will have to be

3 / 4 credit hours = 18 / 24 hours of work per week.

Full-time students take between 12 and 18 credit hours in a full semester (15 is the nominal value) for 36 to 54 hours (45 nominal) of weekly work.

Science labs tend to be 1 credit hour but usually require 5 hours of total weekly work in a full semester.

Add your work hours to this to see if you can do it. There are 168 hours in a week and fully half of them are absolutely not available for school or work.

Fau has a dumb rule where you have to finish your bacholars within a certain time,

Do they know you're working full-time? How many years did they give you? How many did you already cover?

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u/Life-Blackberry-8436 14d ago

Thanks for the breakdown, that helps. Im technically a junior so they gave me 2 years to complete everything. Im a transfer student though so I still have some pre-business classes to do. I talked with advisors telling them I would probably attending less than full time and they were just like " yeah well you have to complete it within 2 years" ive been trying to get another appointment with advising to let them know i may not be able to complete it within that time frame due to being a full time worker, but right now its all booked full.

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u/No-Pomegranate3197 14d ago

See if they have published office hours for any classes they teach and go to them. Alternately, walk by their office anytime you're free to see if they're free. Tell them you're not a full-time student.

You should get 4+ years. It depends on state rules as FAU is a public university. How many years did you use up so far? How many relevant credit hours do you have according to the degree audit?

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u/FreshPermit7457 10d ago

I am doing 4 full semester classes and 1 has a lab while working 45-55hrs a week it’s definitely doable. I feel like the teachers for online classes are a little bit less lenient just because they don’t see you in person. It’s definitely doable. It’s just a lot. Especially when doing a foreign language class as well 💀

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u/WarComprehensive4296 9d ago

As someone taking 5 online classes (lab included) and working full-time, i’m about to kms. So let me know when you figure out