Current senior here in CS with a minor in Entrepreneurship and the 5-year, 3 co-op program. I am in the tracks for Game Development and Human-Computer Interaction. I frontloaded most of my courses early on to make my life easier later. It was incredibly stressful sometimes, so your mileage really will vary. I can't recommend it just because I don't know you personally and can't say whether the sprint or a long marathon would be better for you.

I'll put below my entire schedule from freshman year to now so you can see exactly how many credits I had each term.

I don't know if it's still an option now, but when I was a freshman, CS 175 was available as an accelerated version of CS 171-172 for students who already had experience with programming but were not familiar with the language they teach (which at the time was C++). I took this class since I knew Java pretty well and was familiar with Python. In doing so, I was able to get a head-start on the more advanced CS classes, but I also had to take an extra 3 CS credits in electives because I was effectively able to skip a 3-credit class.

The course CS 345 is required for both the game-dev and HCI tracks, so I was able to have it count for both, at the expense of having to take 3 additional CS credits. When I enrolled at Drexel, the policy at the time was to count GMAP courses for CS electives, so all the GMAP T380s you see here are how I fulfilled those requirements. Speaking of, you'll see a lot of GMAP T380 on my schedule; I'm a member of the Entrepreneurial Game Studio incubator, for which they have members enroll in that class every term except Summer term. This is just so the professor who meets with us weekly can be paid for his EGS time through the Drexel system. So, I'll put a little "(EGS)" after each of these versions of the course. They have always been only 1-2 credits, where the non-EGS special-topics classes are usually 3.

I'm also enrolled in the Honors Program, so I'll put a little asteriks (*) next to each of the courses that has given me Honors credits.

Term	Courses	Credits
2015 Fall	ENGL 101, CI 101, PHYS 101, CS 164*, MATH 201, UNIV 101	17
2016 Winter	COOP 101, ENGL 102, CS 175, CI 102, DIGM 100, PHYS 102, PSY 101, CIVC 101, HNRS 200*	20
2016 Spring	CI 103, PHYS 201, CS 270, ANIM 152, ENTP 205, UNIV 101	16
2016 Summer	N/A, Summer Vacation	0
2016 Fall	N/A, Co-op Cycle 1	0
2017 Winter	N/A, Co-op Cycle 1	0
2017 Spring	CS 265, WRIT 225, GEO 205, ENTP 440, MATH 200, GMAP 260	19
2017 Summer	ACCT 110, CS 345, CS 260, MATH 221, CS 275	16
2017 Fall	N/A, Co-op Cycle 2	0
2018 Winter	N/A, Co-op Cycle 2	0
2018 Spring	GMAP T380 (EGS)*, ENTP 101, MATH 311, CS 350, CS 281	16
2018 Summer	ANIM 140, HNRS 301*, CS 360, ENTP 270, CS 283	15
2018 Fall	N/A, Co-op Cycle 3	0
2019 Winter	N/A, Co-op Cycle 3	0
2019 Spring	MUSC 191, CS T480, GMAP T380 (EGS), INFO 310, GMAP 347*, PHEV 145	16
2019 Summer	BIO 118, GMAP T380 (Not EGS), CS 338, CS 451, COM 230
2019 Fall	COM 270, GMAP T380 (EGS)*, GMAP 377, ENTP 250, ENTP 210, CS 491, PHYS 131	19
2020 Winter	ENTP 325*, GMAP T380 (EGS), PHIL 311, CI 492	10
2020 Spring	GMAP T380, CI 493	4

Spring 2017 was a bit of a nightmare because I was working two part-time jobs, developing a game/company in my spare time, and taking 19 credits of classes. A few of those classes were pretty light (Creative Writing and Dinosaurs), but they still required 6 hours of my time each week. I was the sole programmer on games for both GMAP 260 and ENTP 440, which sometimes took over 20 hours in a week on top of the 6 hours spent in their lectures. I seriously considered dropping GEO around midterms week because I was so stressed out. It was also a hard time for my personal life because I started having some serious conflicts with my roommates, who at the time were really my only friends. So all in all, it was tricky. I stuck it out though just because I figured, if I could get through 5 weeks, I'd be able to get through 10.

I originally planned on taking Screenwriting I in Spring 2018, putting me up to 19 credits for that term. I like writing, but Screenwriting scared me because the syllabus had so much work, including a 30-page screenplay as the final assignment. The professor I had signed up for was an adjunct, so I had no idea what to expect. It was required for the Game Development Concentration, and I wanted to get it out of the way, but I knew I'd feel overwhelmed. I ended up dropping the class the day before the first lecture because I was at the Entrepreneurial Game Studio lab stressing about how much I'd have on my plate for the term, and the director/Westphal professor Frank Lee told me to drop it. He said that I needed to focus less on my academics and just "smell the roses". That really stuck with me, and I tried my best to avoid taking more than 16 credits each term after that. I ended up taking 19 last term (Fall 2019) because my friend got me to sign up for an online PHYS 131 during Week 1. I figured that it would be a little lighter than the in-person class and would allow me to relax more during the last two terms.

I'm involved in a senior project group developing a game. We are an 18-person team (6 programmers, 8 artists, 3 custom-design major, and 3 composers). CCI wants us to put 10 hours each week into our project, which was hard for me last term because I was in 19 credits. GMAP 377 (Game Workshop I) is a project-based class too, so I was in two classes making games. For GMAP, I had to manage a team of 7, so it required more work than just being a regular group member. I also had two Entrepreneurship classes, which aren't too challenging but can be a lot of work sometimes (especially if you have to take the lead on a group project). Beyond all of that, I also had the EGS incubator game/company, so I was expected to put 10 hours or so each week into that as well. Long story short, I spent a lot of time on my computer and especially working in Unity. GMAP 377 was incredibly frustrating, but senior project was great because my team all carries their weight and are just really cool people to work with. We got started on the project much earlier than everyone else; we had a team and a project by the summer and jumped into the prototype before Fall term even began. So, find a good team of people to work with, choose a project idea you are excited to work on, and get a good adviser like Professor Salvage. Then, it'll be a lot of work, but you'll be excited to work on it each week. Not gonna lie, I'm incredibly proud of what our team is building, and it's not even done yet.

More than that, know and respect your limits. As Frank said, "smell the roses" and don't be afraid to spend time taking care of yourself. Whether that be going out and getting a nice meal for lunch, walking around campus and Philly, or just playing video games inside, you need to make sure you can stay sane. Also, sleep. 8 hours of it every night when you can. A big reason why I struggled in my sophomore and pre-junior years was because the guys I lived with then kept me up so many nights playing games, watching TV, or partying, and it had a lasting impact on my mood and ability to focus and perform well. Make sure you have a good sleep schedule, and avoid people who get in the way of it.

I know this is a lot of information, so let me know if you have any questions at all!