Hello,

I'd like some feed back on this course timetable I spent about an hour creating. I haven't visited McMaster yet and I don't have a clue about it's geography. I tried my best to put half an hour between classes. I would like to know whether I will have enough time to transition between the classes in this timetable for courses that are back to back.

It's based on the following courses; I am planning on pursuing honours biochemistry specialization so it contains all of the recommended courses as well.

Term1:
MATH 1A03
CHEM 1A03
PSYCH 1X03
BIOLOGY 1M03
PHYSICS 1B03

Term2:
MATH 1AA3
MATH 1B03
CHEM 1AA3
BIOLOGY 1A03
PHYSICS 1BB3

Also, if you have course arrangement suggestions as well I would very much appreciate that you share them. Thank you!

EDIT: Is 27 hours a bad course load for Term 2!?

Don't worry about if you have time to transition between classes, you definitely will. This is because McMaster's campus is tiny and you could literally walk from one end to the other end in 15 minutes. Classes are rarely from one end of campus to the other so 10 minutes should be more than enough.
I would try to minimize the 1 hour breaks between classes because those are very inefficient. It's too much time to stand there and wait for your next class to begin but too little time to study or sleep.
27 hours is pretty heavy for a Life Science student, but Engineers have like 30 hours of class so I wouldn't say it's a "bad' course load.

Just a question, why are you taking all 3 maths(difficult ones too)? I've actually never seen a Life Science students take so many math courses, especially someone who's planning to pursue a Biochemistry specialization.

The recommended courses are pointless.

kate is right, try to reduce the one hour breaks they're really pointless, you only need 10 minutes max to get from one class to the next, even if you're late 2-3 minutes it's not a big deal! and yeah i would suggest getting rid of both the maths and take math 1ls3 instead, believe me all those courses you're taking are going to take up A LOT of your time, you need room to breathe and that's what electives are for so you should take easy ones! and if you love math then you can take 1a03 and 1b03 in your upper years too.

as a first year there isn't much you can do to change your timetable around and eventually you will learn whether you're a morning person or an evening person. you should be able to handle this timetable (minus the maths or physics in my opinion) as long as you manage your time efficiently. good luck

Hmm, any way you could minimize those gaps? The shorter the gap, the worse it is, if you can, avoid multiple 1-2 hour gaps in a day, they're not really helpful (unless you need a break in your day to grab a meal, then it's good).

Maybe you could move your Psych core, if possible move your Physics lab to Thursday morning, and your other chem lab to Thursday afternoon, 5 hours of class in a row seems a little hectic (but it can be done).

I think your second term looks really good, but 27 hours is a lot! If you really need all those classes, take them, but it looks great!

This is just my opinion, whatever works for you is fine, best of luck!

instead of the third math id tell you to consider taking psych 1xx3 instead. you dont need the math and you can always take it as an elective second year