Wednesday, August 1, 2018

Coursework Time Management Dilemma


I am doing an online course through a different university in Astrophysics because the PhD program I want to get in to requires you to have credits in Physics, Chemistry, and Biology. I have the Biology and Chemistry (Biology of Florida Plant and Animal Life, Introductory Chemistry, and General Chemistry 1 (+labs)), but the Physics course I took was only given as "Credit" under a Natural Science listing, so instead of taking a general Physics course, because they are boring, I am taking Astrophysics. To be honest, part of the reason is for the title (Astrophysics sounds way cooler) and part is for the PhD (it's a Planetary Science program).

However, I am now in the second week of the course and we have to complete 3 sections per week. Each section has around 8 video lectures and a question to complete for each lecture, worked examples, practice problems, and required homework....FOR EACH SECTION! At three sections a week, I'm struggling to do anything else and with my courses starting in September and the required field work where we will be away for several days every month, I'm concerned I'll fail the course simply due to a lack of time. It doesn't help that a bunch of the arithmetic is skipped or glossed over during the videos so I'm having to learn the math and the physics at the same time, but the sheer quantity of work is staggering.

I'm just not sure what to do. I want to complete the course, but I also do not want to sacrifice my actual required coursework for the credits...and I still need to study for Statistics.