As if I wasn't nervous enough about this whole "take on a full course load" thing, the week I was most worried about was week 7. For weeks 1-6 I had "only" three courses I was taking simultaneously. On week 7 I would be adding in a fourth course, and the fourth course was a super-fast double speed course that was only 6 weeks long. So I envisioned complete destruction of my brain cells during week 7 and onward.
Not only that, but the BellaOnline Chicago Gathering fell on top of week 7, meaning I wouldn't even be home to start working on my classes until late Tuesday night. I'd lose almost half the week to the trip, so I would be even harder pressed to stay on top of things!
Luckily, none of my fears materialized. By this week I had my schedule down to a science - everything documented, a system for tracking exactly what I had to read, view, and do for each class. I updated my class weekly report to include the new Human Computer Interaction course. The only "assignment" for the first week was to fill out a simple background questionnaire. There was also reading, lectures, and forum posts, but all of those are activities I've already become used to doing and it was easy to add them into the mix.
The other classes continued to have their written assignments, forum post assignments, reading, etc. so I kept on working through those.
I imagine it will get "worse" as this new class ramps up - but so far the work load is quite manageable! I think a key part of it is that I document the week very thoroughly and then check off each item as I do them. That ensures everything gets done in a timely fashion.
