March 24, 2016

Day Classes Vs. Night Classes



When you’re in college, you have a lot of control over your class schedule. In high school, your guidance counselors figured out your schedule and did a lot of work for you right down to making sure classes didn’t conflict. Also while in high school, your classes were during a set time of the day. In college, you’ll have a lot more freedom with your schedules and the timing will be all over the place – you won’t be in classes from 7:30-2:30 every day like you were in high school. 

In college, you have the option to take day classes or night classes. These classes can start as early as 8:30 and go as late as 9:00, so if you’re more of a morning person or a night person, you’ll be able to find the perfect option for your schedule. If you don’t want to take the first or last class of the day, there will also be midday options that give you the best of both worlds. You get to sleep in a little bit and you also get to have time to yourself at night. Unfortunately, each side has their own pros and cons and there is no definitive answer which one is the best. The key is to choose what works best for you.

Yes, day classes start pretty early in the morning but not as early as what you were used to with high school. With taking day classes, you can have the evening to yourself for homework, studying, and hanging out with friends. The cons can be your lack of sleeping in so you need to evaluate exactly how early you can handle being in class. While you may only want to take night classes so you can sleep in and study during the day, you may not always have that luxury. Certain classes are only scheduled during certain times, requiring you to take a day class. Plus, during registration time, classes fill pretty quickly. That means you may not have your ideal choice of class time and by default may end up with the morning class. While you may think that you just won’t take the class if this happens, evaluate your options – if it is a special class that you’re really interested in as part of your electives, you may want to take it. That same class may not be available to take at a later time. While certain classes are only offered during certain times of the day, certain classes are also only available during certain semesters. If there’s a class you really want to take, you may have to take advantage of it and go without sleeping in on certain days of this semester. The same goes for night classes – there may be certain special classes that are only offered at night that you may need to take advantage of in order to take the class. There also may be certain night classes that have extended class times of a few hours and are only taken once a week. While night classes may seem more convenient because you get to sleep in, they aren’t without their cons. Your friends may end up taking morning classes because that is what they are used to taking because of high school. Nights are going to be the times they will want to meet up, which means you could lose out on some of your college experience which is hanging out with friends whether it’s at a coffee shop or just watching a movie.

You may find that the best option is to strike a balance, which will take more work when you’re planning your schedule but may be worth it in the end. Evaluate what classes you need or want to take during the current semester then find out what times they’re offered. Make your ideal schedule layout with a mixture of night and morning classes that will allow you to have some days to yourself that you get to sleep in and some nights that you get to hang out with friends.

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