All right, here's the deal: I'm currently signed up for 18 hours next semester, and I want to add two one hour classes. However, when I try to add one, it says that adding it would exceed the maximum number of hours allowed. Six of these hours consist of independent study (actually three OURE and three IS), so I don't think they should really count toward the maximum total. After all, I just want to add weight training and journalism - not exactly classes that will 'break me.'

So, any idea how I can overcome this?

i think your advisor has to approve more than 18 hours

There's a form you can pick up from the registrar's office. As devil said, you'll need your advisor's approval. May also need approval from the chair of your department, I can't recall. All in all, it's usually pretty painless.

They'll look at your gpa to see if you can handle it, but generally they won't restrict you.

Maybe I'm just lazy, but perhaps I could change my declared number of hours for independent study on Joe'SS from three to one to trick the system into letting me take them without additional approval. Do you think that would cause any problems in getting me the three hours of credit at the end of the semester?

Thanks a lot for the help, guys.

I would assume that if you only register for one hour of independent study, then you would only get one hour of credit. I think you'd have a lot more trouble trying to get it increased to three hours later on, than printing out a form and having it signed.

Yeah it'd prolly just be easier to fill out the form now than to go back and get those extra two credit hours later

Just wondering, how much time will OURE and IS classes take up per week? I'm hardly taking 14 hours because observing for 60 hours next semester will be a bitch on top of much more than that.

I honestly don't know yet. I work/learn quickly on my own, so I'm not worried about it at all. Heck, I could probably learn more by taking nothing but independent study than by taking classes with UMR's [mostly] crappy professors.