<p>How exactly is a college course structured???</p>
<p>I have heard from a friend that most classes have grades based on three things:</p>
<li>Midterms</li>
<li>Finals</li>
<li>Class Participation…</li>
</ol>
<p>Are there any other areas from where professors may derive your grades???</p>
<p>Do you frequently get homework…like we do in high school???</p>
<p>Or are all assignments for the marking period/semester???</p>
<p>Does this vary from class to class??</p>
<p>It depends on the class. Some classes it will only be a midterm and a final, or maybe two exams and a final. Other classes there will be class participation/attendance (usually done on days when not many people show up) added in. In some classes, such as world literature, you might have quizzes almost every day on the reading and 3-4 papers that make up most of your grade. Homework, not so much, but lots of reading. The only classes I had a fair amt of homework in was my math class (rarely taken up, but grade was recorded when it was taken up to make sure people were doing it) and also homework in my french classes that had to be submitted online. </p>
<p>I’ll give you an example. For me, I’m having my first exam of the semester tomorrow. The semester started Jan 8. My next exams are next week for midterms. I turned in my first paper for Lit last week. No matter where you go, you will always end up with most of your tests/papers spaced so they lump together at the same time. You can go weeks and weeks without anything to do except reading and quizzes/labs, and then BAM 4 tests and 2 papers in a week. Then more nothing, then 4 or 5 weeks later, BAM more tests and papers crammed into the same week.</p>
<p>Midterms and a final are the staple of nearly any course. However, many classes also include class participation (small liberal arts classes), homework sets (math, physics, engineering, etc), quizzes (lots of classes), projects, and/or labs (most sciences). It really depends on the class.</p>
<p>All mine have pretty much consisted of mostly tests/quizzes/midterm/final, labs (in science courses), the occasional essay/lab report (except in english–those have a lot of essay points), I had math problems for HW submitted/graded online, and some freshman classes do an attendence grade. Not all classes have a midterm, but of course they all have a final (my english final is an essay).</p>
<p>Most classes have no more than 1,000 points. One of my current classes has 425 points. The class structure really depends on what the teacher likes best.</p>
<p>My only class with actual written homework is Russian (aside from a couple of Math assignments, but most Math homework is done online anyhow…). For Russian, we had about 65% across 6 cumulative exams; the rest of the grade was homework and attendance. For Math classes, we generally have two midterms and a final… for my PoliSci classes, it’s a midterm, a final, and recitation grade. For Computer Science classes so far it’s a midterm, a final, ~20 labs, workshop attendance, ~10 quizzes, and ~4 projects… a lot of stuff for CS classes. Last term I took the required writing class… outside of that class I won’t have to have written even a single paper in my first year, though. I know someone who had a final worth 100% for a sociology class, though… and I know someone in a CS class who had an optional final. It varies a lot essentially.</p>
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<p>Well that’s all relative. My CS class last semester was out of 2890 points, but everything was weighted. Most of that was due to 23 labs each being worth 100 points…but one ended up being extra credit, and the others were only worth 0.91% of our grade.</p>
<p>mostly what you said.. either one or two midterms and then a final. i wouldnt say that we have homework at all like hs. most of the “homework” is just reading, reading, and more reading. for my econ classes we have problem sets that are due once a week, theyre graded but only optional and are only used to bump up your grade if youre on boarderline at the end of the semester or something. even my accounting calss where we have problems assigned every week, the professor doesnt care if we do them. she just goes over them in class and it really is to your benefit it you do them.</p>
<p>for example.. i havnt had anything to do all sememster. yet tomarrow i have a test, two midterms tuesday, and a paper due wednesday. so i pretty much wanna die right now.</p>
<p>big lectures rarely take attendence. in my genetics class (about 200 people)we answer questions throughout class with iclickers and she uses the answers as class participation and attendence. a real pain when you ALWYAS forget your stupid clicker in the dorm like me.</p>
<p>2 Major difference between high school and college: NO extra credit and your homework problems are rarely ever checked closely for any little missteps you might’ve taken (unless the problem sets are graded harshly by a TA). In high school, those things counted and put a curve on your final grade. </p>
<p>In college? All you have are exams and papers that come maybe once every 3-6 weeks. You’re responsible for preparing your readings for those things and your class discussions. Attendance policies vary professor by professor. I have some classes where attendance isn’t a factor so I usually skip them more often (especially if it’s a HUGE lecture or the subject material is so boring). If the class is largely discussion based or small, you’re going want to show up every class if you can.</p>
<p>College is a lot of independent studying driven by personal motivation (however you define it :)). But remember a B+ on your first essay or exam is NOT the end of the world unless it’s actually the only grade!</p>
<p>If you take a language class, you may be required to perform a spend a certain amount of hours per week in the language lab. Don’t do it, don’t expect credit in the course.</p>
<p>Online courses generally have a quiz per week, homework, and discussion sessions on the bulletin board before the final.</p>
<p>Theatre arts classes can require hours working on different performances in the scene shop or costume shop, attending campus performances and writing papers on them, or both. Performance classes are mostly participation with a few performance assignments serving as the midterms and finals. Design and analysis classes have many projects and papers, as well as midterms and finals.</p>
<p>I took a few history courses from one professor who had scheduled two midterms and a final. Both times we ended up having one midterm count for two grades. The midterm was not given until the Tuesday following Thanksgiving, which gave you two weeks until finals after that. If you bombed the midterm, you might as well not show up for the final.</p>
<p>One of my classes is graded on homework and two or three take-home exams.</p>
<p>One of my classes is graded purely on homework.</p>
<p>One of my classes is graded purely on an oral examination at the end of the semester.</p>
<p>I have no idea how my last class is graded. Grad students get an A if they show up at least ~2/3 of the time, but since I’m an undergrad, and apparently my grade matters, I have to do something at some point in the class.</p>
<p>To summarize: college professors are going to do whatever the hell they feel like.</p>
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<p>Haha… in my Russian class, there was 5-10% extra credit on 3 or 4 of the exams… I boosted my grade a lot on that. Aside from that, though… if you made your CS projects look really nice you could earn up to 20% EC on the project… and in PoliSci you could do a 10% EC paper, but that just meant the midterm and the final were each worth 5% less, so it wouldn’t have helped me, so I ended up not doing it anyway.</p>
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<p>What is a language lab…? You mean like recitation? Well attendance is necessary for language classes, since they’re typically smaller, both for lecture and recitation.</p>
<p>for most classes, at least all the ones i’ve taken, midterm (whether it’s 1 or 2 tests) AND the final will add up to 70% to 80% of your final grade. the rest gets filled up with one or a combination of the following: class attendance/participation/quizzes/hw assignments/project/lab reports.</p>
<p>It really sucks that most of your grade is derived from two exams like that but that’s how it goes. I was sick last semester and missed the midterm for my accounting class. The professor made my final count for both a final and the midterm (70% of the class grade). It sucked, I got a decent grade all things considered but I hated how much my final grade depended on that final test.</p>
<p>as you will find out it varies from class to class. some professors are really cool about finals, and give you take-home finals and others are anal about it and make it so long that you’ll have to last every single minute of the period taking the test. some professors also tend to give more weigh to the midterm than the final but it’s been 50/50 for me in that department.</p>
<p>it all depends as everyone else has said.</p>
<p>It’s not true that you get NO extra credit, it’s just alot rarer than in HS. I turned in an extra credit lab for my phys. anthropology class last week, and my lit professor is giving us extra credit if we write a poem in Baudelaire style. She also sometimes gives us EC on quizzes if there’s more than one answer for what she asks and we provide all the answers not just one.</p>
<p>I have a class where the midterm is 40% of my grade and the final’s 60% of my grade. It also happens to be the hardest class in the law and society program. I have 300 pages to read this week. I’m screwed.</p>
<p>In my econ class, homework’s completion-based, and we have two midterms and a final.</p>
<p>Can’t overemphasize the point that it varies from class to class. </p>
<p>I once had class where the final grade was out of 40 points.</p>
<p>I had an organic chemistry class where the point values of the exams started at 250, the second test was 480, the third 710, and the final was worth 1025 points. For some reason we had weekly quizzes that were worth only 10 points each…In second semester with the same prof, the point values for the exams only continued to increase in point value.</p>
<p>This TOTALLY varies from class to class, though in general yes, you will have less assignments you turn in/are graded on, and way more reading. But, to give you a general idea of how different things can be, here are how some of my classes from the last two years have been graded (including the department they were in):</p>
<p>ENGLISH: Two longer papers, one take-home final, 6 short response papers (no letter grades) + class participation</p>
<p>ENGLISH (Seminar): 5 short-ish papers, one final project, class participation (which was a lot of the grade)</p>
<p>SCIENCE FOR NON-MAJOR: 3 equally weighted exams</p>
<p>RUSSIAN LIT: 2 papers, 1 longer final paper</p>
<p>RELIGION: Two papers, two in-class essay exams, take-home final</p>
<p>RELIGION (seminar): Weekly response papers (no letter grades), class participation, final take-home exam</p>
<p>FILM: Take-home midterm, take-home final</p>
<p>FILM: 2 short papers, 2 long papers, bi-weekly quizzes, in class participation and exercises </p>
<p>HISTORY: 2 tests, one final </p>
<p>Etc. The point is, if varies a TON</p>
<p>@ avik224</p>
<p>My college experience was very variable. It depends on the teacher and the course. Writing classes will stress more term papers and class discussion whereas quantitative classes will stress more exams and problem sets. The most common format was midterms, finals and class participation/attendance. </p>
<p>I had term papers (5-20 pages in length), actual exams (with multiple choice and/or short answer), team projects, (pop) quizzes, problem sets, weekly response papers (usually no more than 3 pages in length), in-class writing assignments, and powerpoint presentations.</p>
<p>I agree with all that has been said: It varies from teacher to teacher, class to class. </p>
<p>Another thing that can vary is the type of exam. A prime example is my bio class from last semester and this semester. My teacher for Bio 101 was really difficult and his tests were short answer, fill in the blank, and short essay, meaning that I would have to study for hours and know everything as he would take points off if you were not exactly correct. My teacher for Bio 102, however, is so much easier and his tests are all multiple choice and matching.</p>
<p>Does failing a class totally kill you GPA? Or can you recover from it?
And what considered a good GPA in college? (I know it depends on the college)
Is there a classs rank in college? and are there a lot of curves on finals and stuff?</p>
<p>Speaking for Princeton:</p>
<p>Almost everything in non-seminar classes is curved. The curves are often pretty harsh, what with grade deflation and all (this is especially true in intro courses, as the department likes to save their As for the upper-level courses).</p>
<p>The median GPA here is 3.2-3.4 somewhere (exact numbers aren’t released), so above that is good. Below that is pretty good too - it’s Princeton. ;)</p>
<p>There are no exact class ranks, but you are unofficially grouped into a quintile of students. This is not reflected on the transcript, but you are told.</p>
<p>Failing a class would definitely hurt your GPA, but you could potentially recover.</p>