EmmEeeGee

Alright, I'm not a graduate student, but I am a potential graduate student. I am working for a Communication Studies degree and I was referred to this website in order to seek advice and to hear different view points from people who have 'already accomplished' what I am doing as of right now. I attend a California Community College, where I will be returning as a College Sophomore this Fall. My first semester went great! I took 3 classes, which I all passed with an A. My second semester didn't go all too well. My professors were less than amazing and I had to drop my classes after missing 3 weeks after my father passed away. I can't wait to get back into school and I already have my registration date and different classes picked out. Now I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. First, I'm trying to figure out whether or not I should take 3 or 4 classes. My first semester I had taken 3 classes and it worked out great! My second semester I had taken 4 classes, and due to life events, I fell behind and eventually withdrew. This is going to be my third semester and I'm ready to go to school again. I work part time, I have flexible hours that are always changing (One week I will work 22 hours, the next week I will have 11 hours). In high school I was a straight A student, I graduated high school a year early through an independent study program, while I worked a part time job, so I know I am more than capable of keeping up with the work. I need some advice on what I should do. My next problem has to do with online classes versus campus classes. Reminiscing back to my first two semesters at the same college, I took all my classes on the campus and my first semester, being at school wasn't a burden. I loved going to class, I enjoyed my professors, etc etc. My second semester was a little more challenging. My professors were all confusing and I didn't feel as if my classes were worth my time. I left early and didn't show up a few times each class and once my dad passed away, I knew I was giving up on that semester with those professors. Now, the new semester is coming up and I weeded through the class catalog, figured out which courses I need to transfer to a California State University, and started charting down every class I was interested in and needed. Once I had a list of over 20 classes, I looked up every professor on the internet and seen their 'teaching ratings' and weeded out the ones with bad reviews (I should have done this when I picked out my classes for second semester. After the semester had already started, I found the professor rating website and looked my professors up and to no surprise, they all had low rankings). Now, I have 12 different classes to choose from (some classes are duplicates but different professors or some are online classes). I have never had an online class before and now I am choosing whether or not I want to switch my entire school schedule to online or just try one or two online classes out at first. My third question has to do with the courses that are mandatory that I take due to my major. I am majoring in Communications and there is a list of Communication courses I need in order to transfer with my A.A. in Communication Studies. I was wondering if I should evenly distribute my general education courses per semester with my mandatory Communication classes, or if I should finish all my General Education first or finish my Communication requirements first? I need some opinions on what I should do. Last but not least, I was wondering if anyone knew how overlapping classes work. What I mean by overlapping classes is, for example, a class like Sociology 101. Sociology 101 is offered as a 'psychology' requirement for a CSU transfer and offered as a 'Lifelong Learning' requirement as well. Specifically, I was wondering if I took one semester of a class, I will use Sociology 101 for an example, will it count for both a 'psychology' requirement and a 'Lifelong Learning' requirement, or will I need to choose which requirement that class fulfills? Hopefully I can get a lot of insight on my situation! I could need all the opinions and different view points that I can get!