Senioritis? Never Heard of Her
Planning out your courses during undergrad is one of those things that seems unnecessary at the time, but can have a big payoff by the time you’re ready to graduate. Through mapping out my classes, making sure I followed up a heavy semester with a lighter semester, and taking a couple summer classes, I was able to round out my senior year with a 13-credit fall semester and 12-credit spring semester (and even fit in study abroad)!
My advisor was kind enough to provide me with a spreadsheet of the “typical” course map of a scientific illustration student and had another page documenting my progress and what else I needed to take. Scientific illustration is in a unique position where we have an unusual workload of both art studios and science courses with labs, and not to mention AUC (Arcadia Undergraduate Curriculum) classes too.
One of the best decisions I made was to take my required chemistry 101 course online in the summer through community college– not only was the teaching clearer, but after I had completed the first class, I decided to go ahead and take the chemistry 102 class in the second half of the summer. Taking chemistry by itself allowed me to sit down and focus on just that material, and I actually found that I enjoyed it enough to take the second course with that same professor. Science courses can take up a good chunk of time in scientific illustration, and knocking out two of them in the summer set me up to be able to only have to take one science course per semester.
Another important decision I made was to load up my sophomore and junior years with credits, but I did so sparingly– if I had a heavy fall semester, I made absolutely sure that the next semester was going to be lighter so that I didn’t burn myself out. At the very least, I would plan (if the class schedules allowed) to have as few early morning classes as possible.
And of course, did you really attend Arcadia if you didn’t study abroad? Spring semester of my junior year, I was trying to put the pieces together as to how I could get my last AUCs taken care of and also meet some art department requirements. Luckily enough, the Baroque Art History GFS (Global Field Study) class with travel to Rome provided me with the research writing and art history credits I needed and was one of the best experiences of my college career.
My fall semester ended with one biology course, two senior courses, and one studio art course, and my spring semester now is just two studios and two senior courses. No one will plan the perfect schedule, but it absolutely pays off to be proactive in thinking ahead to the payoff.
