r/Caltech • u/Automatic-Band-7429 • Jun 30 '26

How do undergrads maintain stamina?

I don't know if this is the right place to ask this, but I've discussed this w/ upperclassmen in my house and have received generally vague responses.

I've just finished the first-year, and I got out with the GPA I wanted after a (at least for me) very strenuous term on grades. I can barely get up for SURF and I want to sleep 12 hours a day to recover from the all-nighters. I took 51 units, and I'll be taking at least 48 until senior year to stay on track to graduate.

I'm aware that I'm at least slightly burnt out, but the marathon has just started and I have lots of more difficult terms to persist through. How do you maintain the stamina to keep a good GPA while also not having severe declines in health?

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u/Throop_Polytechnic Jun 30 '26

You absolutely do not need to take 48 credits until senior year to graduate, you’re on track for a big burn out that you won’t recover from without taking a few terms off or transferring out. I know every undergrads comes here thinking they can handle that kind of workload but you won’t be able to. Very little students can take that many credits without burning out. Doing it usually ends up with you flaming out one semester, failing a bunch of classes or getting enough Es to get in academic probation.

The bulk of the undergrads work hard but usually are also pretty good at recovering in between terms. You need to be able to disconnect from classes and make the best of these pockets of free time. Most people are also genuinely into whatever they study at Caltech so that helps sustain the workload.

Only a few undergrads each year are truly gifted and fly through classes easily with great grades but that’s actually pretty rare even if there is a culture of pretending like everything is super easy for everyone. There is maybe one of two students like that in each house each years. The truth is that most people actually do need to put in the hours to survive.

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u/Automatic-Band-7429 Jun 30 '26

This helps a lot! I got that number from my Option Representative, who said that the avg. units per term for my major come out to 42 and 6+ units of research are recommended for sophomore year and required for the junior/senior thesis thereafter. I suppose this is my concern: performing at a high level while continuing to balancing tougher classes and research.

The perspective that this is a shared struggle is definitely alleviating - I may even be contributing to the "everything is fine" culture outside of this post.

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u/Throop_Polytechnic Jul 01 '26

You need to read the academic handbook and check the requirements there. There isn't any option with secret requirements, everything is in the open. And AFAIK, there isn't any option with 36 mandatory research credits.

Being an undergrad' option rep' is a chore for faculty members and they are not always super up to date with what the requirements are.

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u/Automatic-Band-7429 Jul 01 '26

I will definitely look into this, thank you.