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College can be easier than high school and for most people, it is regardless how many classes they're taking.
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<p>Maybe it's just because I started college in a tough major (and went to a crap high school), but I have a really hard time believing that. I'd think that most people, regardless of major, would at least find college to be moderately more difficult. </p>
<p>I dunno...maybe my mind will change after next quarter (my first quarter in my new major)?</p>
<p>Acere, no offense but IB diploma does not mean anything. College is completle different</p>
<p>It depends on what you mean by "hard", because "harder" and "easier" are extremely vague terms. They could mean any number of things:</p>
<p>number of hours/day spent studying?
number of hours/day spent on homework?
difficulty of getting high grades given same amount of studying?
amount of content learned?
required IQ/"intelligence" to understand material?
amount of patience required to work through stupid assignments?</p>
<p>and so on, ad infinitum. Unless the criteria is better specified, people will always disagree over the reasoning. Actually, some people will disagree anyway, but there would probably be more consensus.</p>
<p>I will say though: many students graduating high school, even those with lots of AP courses at top, rigorous high schools, haven't really taken a course based on the socratic method - and I would challenge anyone to say those are not among the hardest courses there are (though I personally prefer it that way)</p>
<p>Eh. I'd say that college is easier in terms of the classes and workload. And the worst thing that could happen in college is you have to re-take the class. It's a slippier (heh) slope in HS.</p>
<p>If college is easier in terms of difficulty/workload, that means you weren't smart enough to apply to a good enough school, or aren't smart enough to take challenging courses.</p>
<p>College is much more difficult than high school. I look back on my high school days and realized I wasted so much time. I would be able to not do anything and still pull off A's. During senior year, I had 14-20 cuts per class per quarter. And I still got A's. In college, if you don't keep up with your homework or go to class (well, some classes), you start falling behind and have to play catch up (which is incredibly difficult). I work my ass off just to pull out low B's.</p>
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If college is easier in terms of difficulty/workload, that means you weren't smart enough to apply to a good enough school, or aren't smart enough to take challenging courses.
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<p>What crawled up your ass and died? Damn.</p>
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If college is easier in terms of difficulty/workload, that means you weren't smart enough to apply to a good enough school, or aren't smart enough to take challenging courses.
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<p>I almost want to say quoted for truth. Instead I'll put it this way: if you find college easier than high school, you either wasted a lot of effort in HS for no reason or you're wasting your money in trivial college classes.</p>
<p>My high school was pretty much on the opposite end of the spectrum from advanced supercompetitive prep schools. The only homework I ever did at home was writing papers, and that was maybe once a month or so. Otherwise I did it real quick before class in the morning, during lunch, or during health class. If we had a test, I read over my notes once or twice during lunch and that was the extent of my "studying". Just because you're sitting in school for 7 hours a day doesn't mean that you're not spending 5 of those 7 hours being bored, listening to the teacher review the same concept for the 10th time.</p>
<p>Based on that I assumed that I would actually be doing work in college, but most of my first-year classes weren't too bad because they were intro classes that retread what I'd already learned in high school. I did, however, think that everyone's tales of the immense amount of work you do in architecture school were gross exaggerations...they were not. Eventually you just get to the point where you don't think it's odd that you have to purposely schedule 3 hours of free time in on a Friday night so you can go to the movies with some friends.</p>
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<p>1) Only four or five classes instead of 8. You're mind isn't as cluttered with 87 or 8 different subjects.</p>
<p>2) AP and honors classes are tough...I'd say some of my AP classes in HS were comparble---if not harder---than a lot of classes in college.</p>
<p>3) More time to do your work, less time in class. I only have about 2 or 3 hours in class on any given day. That gives me 12 or more hours to do work</p>
<p>The college environment is condusive to studying.
In high school, I usually only had to take 2-3 of my classes (out of 6 or 7, whatever) semi-seriously. I always had classes where we did absolutely nothing or we spent months on what we should have covered in 2 weeks. Not the case in college... </p>
<p>My AP classes in high school were just busy work on steroids. It was so useless... we spent more time filling out charts, doing homework assignments than actually sitting down to study the material. In college, I have fewer assignments but now I'm actually expected to learn(!)</p>
<p>It's so easy to get distracted because there's always something going on. I think the rigid structure in my high school schedule and the routine of everyday helped me buckle down more.</p>
<p>High school was stressful for me because I had to keep up ECs and juggle classes and busywork and other BS... college is a little bit more relaxing for me. The flexibility in my schedule helps a lot.</p>
<p>yes I thought college was easier than high school</p>
<ol>
<li> you have 4,5 classes a semester compared to 7,8 in high school</li>
<li> you don't have to do any EC's anymore</li>
<li> you have class notes, old exams</li>
<li> you can ask / choose ur professors</li>
<li> Homeworks are due like once every 2 weeks</li>
<li> You can come to TA's and professors for help more than high school because no one ever have office hours in high school.</li>
</ol>
<p>that was what I thought, until the first semester I got 1.0 lower than my high school gpa. yes, despite the "easy" stuff up there, college is much much harder than high school because not everything is presented to u clearly. Classes are 1 semester long, not 1 year (which means more work in less amount of time). And individual/group studies are way way way more than high school. Plus, some classes in college only has midterms & finals which determines the overall grade. In high school you have worksheets, homeworks, projects and crap like that for u to pull ur grades up.</p>
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2. you don't have to do any EC's anymore
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<p>But if you're applying to grad school you still want to put something that looks good on your app</p>
<p>I figure college will be easier because you get to study what you want. Sure, there are those requirement sort of classes you have to take freshman year (I think?) but after that, you get to choose something you're interested in and can sign up for a class that is relevant to your interests. Dunno about others, but I tend to work better on things I'm more passionate about, so... Yeah.</p>
<p>Just because you're interested in it doesn't mean it won't be hard. It will be interesting but it can be tough as hell too. I guess you won't really grasp what I mean until you actually start college. Just trust me, it's hard.</p>
<p>my friend who graduated from my school is a freshman at harvard right now and he says it's easier than high school. at harvard, it's kind of understood that everyone deserves high grades just because they were accepted. he said lots of grade inflation there. he was also involved in a grippe of EC activities at our high school.</p>