Hi guys and gals!!!!!!

I'm pleased to be one of McMaster Marauders this coming fall and I'm starting at Business 1.

Can you guys and gals comment on my timetable below to observe the rate of my course load.
Your response by using suggestions and sharing experiences will be much appreciated.
Addition to, comment if a certain course other than the required courses (bold) will be helpful
for upper years in commerce.

TERM 1
STAT 1L03
PSYCH 1X03
GEOG 1HA3/ BIO 1P03 (not sure which one to choose)
ECON 1BB3
COMP SCI 1BA3

TERM 2
MATH 1M03
ECON 1B03
GEOG 1HB3
ENV SCI 1B03 /PSYCH 1XX3
COMMERCE 1E03

Let's break it down (by courses I took):
Geog 1HA3 - I got an 11 (A). You have some assignments, and the tests were fairly easy. You need to be a strong writer to excel in this course - greater weight allocated to assignments, etc.

Econ 1BB3 - Very good course, professor O'Shaugnessy is cool. Understand lecture material thoroughly (can be reinforced through her amazing podcasts), and you'll do well. I got a 10 (A-).

Comp Sci 1BA3 - Other people say this course was easy in the past, however, the year I had, it had been revamped. Do the readings, and understand the lecture material. Some of the MC questions are tricky. I got a 10 (A-)

Math 1M03 - If you are mathematically incline, you will do well (duh). A lot of my friends didn't do too well in this class. You do not need to practice every night - the calculus you learn (single/multivariable differentiation, integration, etc is at the most rudimentary level. All I did was study from the practice tests. I got an 11 (A)

Econ 1B03 - For some reason this course did not click for me. I could blame it on the professor (boring, just reading her lecture slides) - I did not do too well - got an 8 (B). Everyone says this is the easiest class, I don't see how, I did better in macro.

GEOG 1HB3 - I had it with the same professor for 1HA3 (Mercier). The professor is good, the format was identical to 1HA3 - heavy weight towards assignments, etc. If you understand the lecture notes well, you well do well on the tests - no need for textbooks in this class, or 1HA3. I got a 10 (A-)

COMMERCE 1E03 - A lot of people (not my group), got ripped on the report. A lot of turorial averages were failing grades. Anticipating this, I elected not to be in a group with my HS friends (who were even my rez room-mates). I was lucky, I got an excellent group. Overall, we got an 82 (including the presentation). Her tests are very easy, however, if you do not do well on the report, I do not see how you can get an A in this class - unless you get 90s on the test, which is possible. I got low to mid 80s on them. The exma was easy, too - got an 88. Final grade 11 (A). All my group members got this grade, too.

Cliffs:
Only buy textbooks for: Commerce 1E03. I made the mistake by spending ~500 on semester 1 textbooks...

PSYCH 1X03/1XX3 are both good courses in terms of material but require a fair bit of self-learning because the lectures are all online and it's easy to procrastinate. The tests are difficult (only at first) because they require you to actually know the material, memorization will not suffice.

For more information about these courses, check out the course reviews section. Here's a link: CLICK ME!

In terms of workload, I can't speak from personal experience but I have some close friends in the program so I can give you a second-hand opinion. I would say it's a fairly light-to-medium course load throughout the year. There weren't many times when my friends were completely swamped with work.

If you can take advantage of time, you'll do extremely well because the schedule is fairly empty. I don't think you'll have any labs (don't know about ENVIR SC or GEO) so you shouldn't be at school that long. Your second semester may require more hours because both COMMERCE 1E03 and PSYCH 1XX3 have group projects but even then, you can manage fairly easily.