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.
Take fewer, harder courses; learn deeper.
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 may require less work, this is often at the expense of rigor and depth. Courses that are easier or more superficial do not contribute to your intellectual growth in the same way that challenging courses do. They may help you check a box, satisfy a requirement, or boost your GPA, but they do not foster the kind of intellectual growth that undergraduate education should be about, especially if you’re an engineering student. Paying tuition for an easy A for what amounts to busywork while skipping the advanced courses that demand real effort—courses you’re unlikely to study on your own outside of the scaffolded environment of a class—is a poor trade, especially 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 will likely be spending more than the minimum required time on your coursework. Even if you push well beyond 50–60 hours per week on coursework, there’s a limit to how much cognitive load a person can manage effectively. The human brain has finite attention and processing capacity. Overloading it with too many courses leads to diminished returns in learning quality.
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 3–4 courses per semester and make them count! This aligns with both the federal credit hour definition and the reality of deep learning. It gives you time to actually understand the material, to struggle with difficult concepts, to go beyond the minimum requirements.
Commit to a single major. Focus on depth. Take the advanced courses. Take the courses that scare you a little. Build genuine expertise in your field. You can always take electives outside your major to explore other interests without the pressure of fulfilling another 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, independent study, or explore other interests, do it over the summer (when you are not taking courses). Give each activity the attention it deserves; don’t spread yourself thin. Take on one or two meaningful extracurriculars during your entire undergraduate program; stick with a few things rather than dabbling in many.
Choose challenge over convenience. Take courses that you know you wouldn’t study on your own. Take courses where you’ll learn from the professor’s expertise and your classmates’ perspectives. Take courses that contribute to your field of interest and genuinely challenge you. Avoid “easy A” courses that don’t push you intellectually. Your goal should be to grow, not just to get a good grade.
Plan for 4 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 the experience 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.