I'm having a big dilemma over what courses I should take next semester. We are on a unit system (as opposed to a credit hours system), and a normal load is 4 units, although you can take 3.0-4.5 units without underloading or overloading.

Next semester I was originally signed up for:
--intro inorganic chemistry (1.0 units)
--statistical thermodynamics 1.0 units)
--metabolic biochemistry (0.5 units)
--biochemical methods (0.5 units)
--Johannes Sebastian Bach (1.0 units)

Bach is a musicology class to fulfill a distribution requirement with a professor I rather like, so it should be fun. This adds up to 4 units; a pretty normal schedule.

Well then I decided I didn't feel like taking i-chem lab. As a biochem major, it's not required. (I majoring in biochemistry & molecular biology, but at another school that had minors, I would probably be close to doing a minor in chemistry). In any case, I'm a little burnt out on lab classes. I love being in the lab doing research, but class labs are different. Everything isn't where you need it to be, they're short and hectic, and you can't do extended experiments because science doesn't work in once a week four block chunks. It's nice to be exposed to some lab techniques, but in reality I pick those up faster by doing research in a given field, and I'm kind of at a point where I understand generally how labs go and I'm not getting that much out of taking them anymore. Beyond biochem methods and analytical chemistry, both of which I need to graduate, I really don't intend on taking any more lab classes. Also next semester, then, will be the first time in college that I will only be taking one lab class (I'll probably still TA for organic, but whatever).

So the ramification of dropping inorganic lab is that I am taking 3.5 units. Still not technically an underload, but I started fishing around for half unit classes. This is dangerous, because in the sciences half units are classes that don't have lab components (it is pointed out frequently that all humanities classes meet with only a lecture component and you receive a full unit).

My first thought was a membrane-membrane interactions seminar. It's a 4oo level bio class where you meet for two hours a week to talk about molecular neuroscience papers. Seminars are pretty low key, generally, besides that one day when you have to stand up in front of ten or however many people are in the class and talk about a subject for an hour with our professor grilling you (and boy, does that prof know how to grill, he's a toughie). Otherwise, pretty mellow.

My second thought was advanced mechanistic organic chemistry. This might be a bit more work, but maybe not. It meets for three hours a week, and it's lecture only, so problem sets, articles to read. It's about MO theory in organic chemistry and it goes over the theory behind all those weird-ass concerted ring closings which would be nice to know about, even if my interests are ultimately more synthetically oriented (Woodward Hoffman rules, etc.) There's a lot of computer modelling. Also a small class, probably also mellow. With a number of my study buddies. It also may not be offered next year, whereas the biology seminar most definitely will.

My main fear is that if I take inorganic, advanced mechanistic organic, stat therm, metabolic, biochem methods, and a humanities class, I'm going to be drowning in work all the time even if it isn't technically an overload (I also might just maybe hate chemistry after taking all that at once...and will be taking no biology classes that semester). Especially since I am far from a p-chem-minded type and stat therm is going to be fucking hard for me. On the other hand I can always drop something (most likely advanced mechanistic or my humanities class) and I really shouldn't be afraid to do that. So, should I go for it, or is that crazy?

In other news, I am most likely going to doing labwork in Germany this summer in a chemical biology/biomolecular chemistry lab. More on that later.