One course at a time would be so much better

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Does anyone else here think that college would be dramatically easier if we only had to take one course at a time? I have a lot of trouble remembering things to begin with, but I'm not stupid- my normal style of learning is to saturate myself in something 14 hours a day until I understand it on a deep level. But it seems like with college every day I'm being asked to learn tiny fragments of 4 completely unrelated topics, and then commit them immediately to memory without really understanding them. Is this easy for the rest of you? It's so disconcerting to be studying chemistry at 9, then shifting to coulomb's law at 10, then calculus at 11, then public communication (the worst by far!) at 12. It's like each time I walk into the next classroom I have to decompress and slowly reset my mind to the new context. Then each night you repeat the process, since you have homework in all 4 classes. Or worse, there might be a gap of a few days which gives you even greater opportunity to forget what was said in the last class. It's incredibly draining and I feel like I'm forgetting the material as quick as I learn it, since I can't immerse myself in something long enough to explore all the corners. Switching context constantly and memorizing things is exactly what I'm worst at. The only reason I even know which classes to go to is because I carry the list of what classes are on what days around with me. I'm *terrible* at memorizing dry facts like that. I have to go through each night and plan when and where I'm going to do the assigned homework for the next few days on paper, and then I carry that plan around with me and check it often, because there's no way I'll remember what my assignments are from memory. Am I just too stupid for college? The only way I really get things is to keep working on it, so it's in my mind all the time, and slowly it soaks in, and once that happens I usually can be really creative and I actually remember it better and can apply it better than most people, I think. The school system is just really not geared towards space cadets like myself.

Yes, yes, and yes. I keep getting bombarded with tests in the same week. How annoying. They're not hard, it's just way too much information to take in all at once.

they have courses that last 14 hours, they're called 'boot camps'. IT has them for network certifications, and they just pound knowledge in you until you cry Uncle (and don't stop then...

Part of what you're doing in college you likely did in High school (if you're from the US), just more intense and difficult. There is something to be said for being able to discover synergies between different disciplines, which is a lot easier to do during your college years.

They have seminars, reatreats, conferences, that more narrowly focus on a discipline, but still the subject matter changes a bit. Most NTs don't have the concentration to sit through a DVD movie, so I guess they just can't do as we do...

Before I returned to college full time, I went to night school for a year and only did 2 classes- the two hardest in my program. Ended up getting 90's in both, and one of them I had failed badly when I was taking in day school with 6 other courses. I think this was a good approach in the end as now I have an easier course load this semester, with mostly history and geography related courses as opposed to the two economics courses I had no real interest in...

Yeah! I can NOT work on more than one subject at the same time. And I need to work in long concentrated bursts as opposed to short ones. College makes this really hard, because we always get a couple of assignments at once, and everyone expects you to switch between them, and if you don;t (which i obviously dont) you end up finishing one, and then you've got only one or two days before the next one is due and you haven't even started because you were working on the first one!! Gah! lol

So I always end up with one really good assignment, then one sh***y one.

And I'm ALWAYS forgetting really important and basic stuff that you would NOT think you'd forget such as i'd finish an assignment a couple of days early, then 2 hours before it's due check it and sit it ready on my desk to hand in as soon as i go to uni, think really really hard about handing it in, and go; 'there's no way in HELL i'm going to forget to hand this in, i'll go to the toilet, then go back to my room and pick it up and take it to uni with me.' So i'll go to the toilet, then to uni, then half an hour AFTER the closing time while im at a class in uni i'll realize it's still sitting on my desk in my room.

I'm not stupid either, I'm on the dean's list for Arts . I think it's just an aspie thing. I was worse in school though, i'd used to forget to go to class and really basic stuff like that (how you can forget to go to class when you're standing around in a school is really beyond me). It's been a while since I last forgot to attend a class, though I had a close call yesterday when I forgot it was Wednesday.

I have the same problem... I haven't done badly in any of my classes yet, but I have this weird procrastination habit where if I have something due the next day I can't do ANYTHING else productive that day. And because I'm a natural procrastinator I often take 8 hours to do a half hour assignment...I allocate as much time to doing a half hour reading as making a 20 minute presentation...(such as 1 due tmw).....This semester is the worst ever because I'm in an ivy league grad school and taking 5 classes..., 1 of which has twice the work of all the other courses combined (seriously)....On that note, my best work was done at a school with a trimester schedule (3 classes a trimester), which was much easier to get organized around. It in particular worked best when1 class i was interested in had all the work and I could get away with less effort for the other ones (relatively easy to figure out now that we have sites like ratemyprofessor). To other aspies out there, I recommend going to a trimester or 1 class at 1 time school (e.g. Colorado college). It also doesnt hurt to do undergard at a place without too many prereqs, because you're more likely to focus on something if you're interested in it. For instance, its still hard to balance 5 courses at once...but it makes it way easier because I'm a graduate student and thus only studying what I'm interested in.

What you might be looking for is something along the lines of Cornell College. Their program actually is called "One-course-at-a-time" and is more or less what you described as being ideal.

Well, have fun spending 20 years earning a degree...

Same, I need one course at a time - I just failed one this summer because I was doing another alongside it. No can do.

I also need long stretches of time just doing one thing.

Also, if I have to go out to the shops for a while, that is really disruptive so on study days, I do only that and nothing else.

I am with you 100%!

Two maximum.

I like having around 13-14 credits at a time. That keeps things manageable for me. I'd get totally bored with just a course.

I also kinda want to have an income while going to school as well.

Cornell College, which I linked to, still allows a degree to be completed in the normal timeframe with one course at a time.

Yeah, I do as well. I just applied for a part-time position, you should too if you really want to. A lot of students do it, so I really don't think it will negatively impact my academic performance.

Last year I took five courses at a time for both semesters, this semester it's only four courses but two have labs and two have mandatory "recitation" periods. It's rather demanding, but I don't know how I would feel about one course at a time. If you love it, then great, but if it's a course you dislike then you're in for one crappy semester. I figure in one four-course semester there are one or two that I really enjoy, one or two that I don't really care about, and one that really sucks and screws me over. Taking only one course kinda feels like a gamble. By taking a full course load I can at least dilute the courses that I dislike with ones that I enjoy.

I know another aspie at UQ who does one course at a time. I get it now!

I'm managing 4, but that's with no other work/extra-curricular commitments

Right now I'm in 5 academic courses (one includes lab), 2 music groups (one of which is marching band and thus eats as much as 12 hours/week) and I have a part-time job. Needless to say, sleep deprivation is a way of life for me.