It is required for all engineering majors, but I don't know about other science or lib-arts majors.
As far as class load, that depends entirely on your instructor. If you get one that is comfortable with the diminished role his class's educational value holds, you'll have weekly papers of various formats due, and likely a semester-long report project. If your instructor has the inferiority complex so commonplace among that department, you can look forward to a semester of difficult projects with inconsistent grading, obvious favoritism to lib-arts majors, and maybe a B if you can kiss ass enough.
Good luck, I hated the H-SS department, with the exception of a few professors. Still, nothing else there produces any response even close to the hatred I had for the Math department. You kids today don't know how lucky you have it. And that phrase alone makes me feel old.
