***College Life. Academic, social, and miscellaneous***

Student Lounge College Life
1

<p>College is stressful, daunting, difficult, etc. That's all one can hear these days. Is it true?
I'll heading off to college for the first time. I want an "advanced" sneak peak at what college is like. For instance, I would love to know what classes to start off with, what clubs/organizations to join, and how to manage time.</p>

<p>I'm a pre-med student...soon I'll be choosing my classes.</p>

<p>Help me out. Please include this info if you can:</p>

<p>1- What classes are you taking? What do you recommend a freshmen to take? </p>

<p>2- What clubs/organizations are you participating in? What do you recommend? </p>

<p>3- What's the duration of your classes? (Most, least hrs) </p>

<p>4- How many hours do you study/do homework? </p>

<p>5- Do you ever get spare time to enjoy life and be with family 'n friends? </p>

<p>6- Do you take PE? Should I? </p>

<p>7- What are some internships that you've had?</p>

2

<p>I’m at an English university, in my 2nd year - I’m on this forum because I’m doing an exchange to America and want to find out more.</p>

<ol>
<li>My answer would probably be irrelevant to you!</li>
<li>I’ve joined the film society and horror society, but I’m not into clubs. They’re not necessary to make friends or have a good time - but obviously they can help!</li>
<li>I do 6 hours a week, in seminars. No lectures. (I do English) Again, probably irrelevant.</li>
<li>I spend about 3 hours a day reading. When I have essay deadlines (3 every 6 weeks), I spend about 20 hours researching and writing each essay.</li>
<li>I have a lot of spare time to be with friends, and I ring home about once a week.</li>
<li>PE?</li>
<li>None</li>
</ol>

3

<p>PE= Physical Education.</p>

4

<p>What’s the difference between lectures and seminars?</p>

5

<p>I thought it was, but I didn’t want to look silly.
No, I don’t take PE… I don’t think it’s a class. Lots of sports, lots of teams, but no classes.</p>

<p>From my experience, a lecture is where you get talked at for an hour, and you just take notes. Often for a very large group.</p>

<p>Seminars are usually 10-15 people in a group, and it’s more like a group discussion. (With note taking, not really worth it otherwise - who’d remember it all?) Also, they last 2 or 3 hours.
I have a couple where we sit in a circle in comfy chairs and discuss recent novelists… it’s amazing. :'D</p>

6

<p>

</p>

<p>Sounds like my version of hell, haha</p>

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<p>@ MLDWoody - pfft, go back to your quantum theory Physics boy.</p>

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<p>Man, SunSloth, that sounds heavenly:)</p>

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<p>How’s your college experience? Fun? Boring? Or what?</p>

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<p>I feel like threads like this one ruin the joy of discovery for people. YOU WILL BE OKAY if you don’t know the difference between a lecture and a seminar. Or what kind of powerpoints profs create. Or where the bathroom is. You’ll learn and be 100% fine.</p>

11

<p>Sometimes I wish I’d been a bit more outgoing in the first semester, in the first year.
I have a really great group of friends, and I’m not often bored, but if I had a wider circle I might have more stuff to do.
I really like my second year in particular, because I’m in a house with 3 friends, about 2 miles from campus. I love being independent, and having my own room, but there’s always someone there to do stuff with.
I would suggest being near a good town or city. We can walk into the city centre from the house, takes 10 minutes, and there’s all the shops/restaurants/cinemas/pubs/bars you could want. Because I have so few contact hours, I like going into town a lot for lunch - with friends, or even just with a book. There’s loads of great cafes, and independent shops.
It’s quite a European city in that the layout’s a bit labyrinthy (nowhere near the scale of London, of course) and there’s a lot to explore. It’s also super safe so I’ve never felt worried on that account. Quite often, we forget to lock the back door at night.</p>

12

<p>1- What classes are you taking? What do you recommend a freshmen to take? </p>

<p>I’m a sophomore and pre-med; right now I’m in 2nd semester bio, immunology, first semester physics, and independent research. As a frosh, I took chem, calc, english, and university band (easy 1 credit). Looking back, that was by far my easiest semester. I’d recommend similar classes if you want to spend some time getting acquainted with college life before diving into harder classes (because trust me, they get a lot harder!).</p>

<p>2- What clubs/organizations are you participating in? What do you recommend? </p>

<p>I’m not really involved much in clubs, per se. I AM very involved in Campus Crusades though, which is an organization I suppose. I probably put in 7-8 hours a week between bible study, discipleship, accountability, etc… What I’d say is only join something if you’re going to love it; it’s not really worth your time to join some meaningless club if you’re not interested in it.</p>

<p>3- What’s the duration of your classes? (Most, least hrs) </p>

<p>Research = ~8-10 hours/week, 2 credits. Immunology = 3.25 hrs/week, 3 credits. Biology = 6.25 hours/week, 5 credits. Physics = 5.25 hours/week, 4 credits. Total “class time” = roughly 24 hours a week.</p>

<p>4- How many hours do you study/do homework? </p>

<p>This has varied between semesters. I’d say a couple hours a day.</p>

<p>5- Do you ever get spare time to enjoy life and be with family 'n friends? </p>

<p>I see my friends all the time through Campus Crusades. Family lives pretty close too so I see them pretty often. Don’t expect boatloads of time to just be able to chill, though. I go to the library and study with friends pretty often, which is a good combination of getting stuff done and hanging out.</p>

<p>6- Do you take PE? Should I?</p>

<p>Eh, it depends if you have the time for it. I haven’t taken a PE class here at Madison, but I work out hard by myself (run 30 miles a week, lift weights twice a week). So really it depends on the person.</p>

<p>Feel free to ask me anything else about being pre-med.</p>

13

<ul>
<li>What classes are you taking? What do you recommend a freshmen to take?</li>
</ul>

<p>I’m taking Calculus, Quantitative Modeling in Biology, Introduction to Biology, and a Social Sciences class. We have a core curriculum here so I’m limited with my options. In my experience, though, taking Physics right off the bat sucks if you a) hate it, b) are shaky on Calculus, or c) didn’t take much Physics in high school.</p>

<p>2- What clubs/organizations are you participating in? What do you recommend?</p>

<p>I’m on a bunch of mailing lists but not really active in any club. Mostly they’re a good source of free food. I’d recommend theater, and try some martial arts. </p>

<p>3- What’s the duration of your classes? (Most, least hrs)</p>

<p>Lectures and discussions are mostly 50 minutes to an hour and 20 minutes. Lab work can take 2-4 hours. </p>

<p>4- How many hours do you study/do homework?</p>

<p>At least for me, there’s no real separation between school and daily life. I do the readings when I can (right before sleeping, on the bus, while eating), math and science assignments take about 2-7 hours each. Writing papers can take anywhere from 3 to 17 hours.</p>

<p>Studying is for scrubs (just kidding). I pretty much only study right before exam weeks, or I “study” by putting extra effort on the assignments. There is a lot of studying before and on exam weeks. </p>

<p>5- Do you ever get spare time to enjoy life and be with family 'n friends?</p>

<p>At random intervals. </p>

<p>6- Do you take PE? Should I?</p>

<p>You can exercise on your own time, for free.</p>

<hr>

<p>For time management, just make sure to start things early and plan ahead. Don’t wait until two days or a day before the assignment is due. Don’t wait to study until a few days before the final exam. I’ve tried it. I do not recommend reading 100 pages of Marx in one night, or reviewing 9 chapters of Physics in 10 hours. Your brain will go on strike.</p>

<p>This is not high school! If you start the paper two hours before it’s due, you won’t get it in on time, unless you’re okay with submitting crap. That said, some professors are very lenient with their deadlines. Sometimes they’ll give you full credit even if it’s more than 6 hours late. But talk to your professors first, and ask for extensions if you need them.</p>

<p>Talk to your professors, TAs, and get tutoring if you need help. Don’t sit around pondering by yourself. It might be more fun that way, but at some point you’re just being silly when you’re trying to figure out something that was already figured out centuries ago! Networking is key. Even when you’re just chilling in your dorm, try to talk to people so you can get to the point that you can ask them for help if you need it, for assignments, internships, jobs, etc.</p>

<p>Don’t do that thing where you procrastinate or sleep all day and do work through the night. It’s much more efficient and pleasant to sleep early and start your day early. All-nighters generally suck. But stock up on caffeine just in case.</p>

<hr>

<p>Varying intervals of fun and boredom, gloom and hope. It’s life.</p>

14

<p>No, I think it’s like a movie trailer. Dont u think? One can’t see the whole movie, just a sneak peak. ^_-</p>

15

<p>Thanks Mudskipper, Bauman1535, Sunsloth!!! You have no idea how helpful your posts are. They’re priceless. I can see that you guys have moderate schedules fit you guys perfectly. Excellent! I love reading your posts. :)</p>

16

<p>Mudskipper-----Mudskipper-----Mudskipper-----
You gave the most elaborate response. Thank you. But, you don’t seem to be involved in a lot of EC’s. Y?</p>

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<p>I don’t know. I tried going to club meetings and got bored. I did some volunteering, was involved in a play and am learning kendo.</p>

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<p>Oh. I c. Ok. I just thought that graduate school and medical school need to see good EC’s.</p>

<p>Thanks anyway.</p>

19

<p>They don’t need to see ECs for the sake of ECs. It’s not high school. They would rather you did internships or volunteered or did other related things. Grad schools don’t really care if you were in the Recycling Club, for example. </p>

<p>Also I don’t think that Mudskipper said that he/she wanted to go to grad or med school. Not everyone does.</p>

20

<p>I know mudskipper didn’t mention wether or not graduate school is the next step. I was just commenting under an “if” scenario.</p>