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Course registration closes on Nov. 19. Before you hit “enroll,” take a breath — and consider deleting one course from your cart.

Though four courses is the standard, many students are tempted to take five, whether to fulfill concentration requirements or to take advantage of Harvard’s impressive course catalog. But next semester, if you can help it, don’t take more than four. Not because you can’t handle five — but because you shouldn’t have to. A fifth class wrecks any chance at work-life balance, feeds Harvard’s toxic culture of optimization, and, with grading likely about to get tougher, might even hurt your GPA.

We all know the prospect of achieving a stable work-life balance at Harvard is shaky at best. A typical four-credit course is designed to require 12 hours of work per week. That’s 48 hours total for four classes — more than a typical full time job. Reality isn’t far off: Students report spending about 45 hours per week on academics, per a 2025 Office of Undergraduate Education survey.

But the life of a Harvard student isn’t just schoolwork. We also spend a great deal of time on our extracurricular activities — an additional 10-15 hours per week, according to the OUE survey.

Adding a fifth class stretches an already overbooked schedule past its breaking point. Unfortunately, sleep, meals, and social life are often first on the chopping block.

If taking four classes leaves you sprinting between the Yard, Lamont, and your club meeting, five can make every week feel like reading period. Sure, you can “handle” it — until you’re eating dinner at 11 p.m. while rewatching lecture videos at 2x speed. At some point, the line between ambition and insanity blurs.

And the irony is that even with all this work, you might end up with a worse GPA. Last month, a report on grading decried recent grade inflation at the College. The report urged faculty to calibrate sections more consistently, consider returning to seated exams, and perhaps consider grading more rigorously. In plain terms: fewer easy A’s. If you’re used to cruising through five classes with a near-perfect GPA, next semester could be a wake-up call.

A fifth class means the potential for five midterms, five papers, five final exams — and still only 24 hours in a day. Something has to give. Maybe it’s your focus, maybe your enthusiasm, maybe your sleep. The culture here makes constant motion feel like success, but that doesn’t mean you have to keep running.

As a student currently enrolled in five courses, I understand the pull — I chose to take more classes not because my concentration demands it, but rather because I was genuinely excited about all of them. But at some point in the semester, I realized I was living in Mather library, held hostage by my Google calendar, with no time left for spontaneity or socializing. I had become imprisoned by my fifth class.

This drive to optimize every minute of our college experience is an epidemic. We measure success by volume — of commitments, credits, and accolades — rather than by depth or meaning. When we cram too much into our schedules, we neglect true engagement with coursework and hollow out our own education.

Of course, there are valid exceptions. Some students take five classes out of necessity — to fulfill requirements for a double concentration or a concurrent masters. Others may be motivated by a desire for intellectual exploration. But those goals can be met strategically over eight semesters, not stuffed into one. The question isn’t whether you can handle a fifth class, but whether doing so actually helps you learn, grow, or rest — all essential parts of education.

Before registration closes on Nov. 19, it might be tempting to add that fifth class. Don’t. Use that moment to rethink what a “full” semester really means. Maybe four classes — done well, with time to breathe and have fun — are more than enough.

Claire V. Miller ’28, a Crimson Editorial editor, is an English concentrator in Mather House.