<p>I've often heard from college students (particularly a UMich Student) that they spend nearly four to six hours a day studying. Or at least pack it all in on weekends. They say it's hard to get a 4.0 but yet the work is the same like high school work. </p>
<p>My question is what kind of work is assigned? What is expected when a freshman walks into their first class? Does the professor hand out packets a lot (my high school loves packets with questions and little maps and matching and fill-in-the-blanks kind of stuff)? Or do professors just assign questions out of the book and then expect them to be turned in like in high school? What actually gets graded? Do you just write papers all the time? What makes someone need to study for their classes for four to six hours a day when they only have four or five classes, maybe six? Is most of the work reading textbooks and other assigned reading? Basically, what is the difference between high school work and college work and the way you're graded?</p>
<p>In college you do homework for your own benefit, but the homework itself doesn't score you any points or simply 5% of the overall semester grade. Generally there are one or two midterms, one or two papers and a final which determines your grade.</p>
<p>It depends on the college. I have had to turn in a huge amount of homework, and it often is a big influence in grading. </p>
<p>I do a huge amount of reading, and then usually have to write reading questions, an analytical essay or answer questions the prof has posed. Usually 1-3 pages of writing for a nights worth of reading. In every class. Every night.</p>
<p>The difference between my high school and college is that college weights tests more heavily. And I do a lot more work. And work a lot harder at it.</p>
<p>I'm with kc_lady -- I am currently on CC to put off starting my reading for the week... it's Friday night, but I have to get started on it, because there's quite a bit this week: 130 pages in a lab manual, 5 papers from scientific journals, a full chapter in a physical chemistry book, 2 papers from anthropology journals, and about half a novel-sized anthropology book.</p>
<p>For many math/science/engineering classes, there will be problem sets with problems either from the book or from the professor's head. The differences between those problem sets and the ones from high school: 1) college problem sets are a lot harder, 2) they're graded right/wrong rather than completion (completion was big at my high school), and 3) they're not worth as much of my grade (often weekly problem sets are worth 10% of the total grade).</p>
<p>D started UM this week. Italian prof has given a lot of reading and memorizing of vocab....MUCH vocab! Pages and pages to memorize. It's like h.s. foreign language in fast forward.</p>
<p>college has no busy work. High School was full of crap that counted for your grade that could be done like the class before, or in the time between classes. All the work you do in college is meaningful.</p>
<p>Courses are different though. I have an International Relations class where the grade is 30% midterm, 30% paper, 40% final. I have a Spanish class that is 3 papers 30%, Workbook exercises 15%, participation 10%, Quizzes / short writing 10%, E-folio 10%, Presentation 10%, Final paper 15%. A Jazz History class that's Listening Exams (x2) 20%, Midterm 20%, Final 30%, Paper assignments (x2) 20%, Attendance/participation 10%.</p>
<p>The stupid freshmen in my IR class complained that they weren't getting enough feedback, because you read the chapter and listen to a lecture, with no turned in work. So the professor made it so you can write an essay a week, and if you write 8 of them, that grade (the average of fthe 8) can replace your lowest essay score on the final, essentially 10% of your class grade.</p>
<p>depends....high school was a joke compared to college because I just kinda slid by without really doing much. It was easy to make As for the most part in high school. College, they take the stuff more seriously. I have two classes that have no homework other than to read the books. Our only requirements are to take the exams and show up (actually one of the profs said he dont care if you show up or not but you are responsible for the tests and there are NO makeup exams except in grave circustances).</p>
<p>the readings are not 10 pages...they are more like 20-40+ pages long in some of these classes and then you pile those ontop of the other stuff you have to do....so it can be a lot of work at times but definitely more than in high school.</p>
<p>If you go to a college that is not very competitive (such as a college where the average SAT score is 900), you'll get lots of pop quizzes and busywork because that's the only way that the profs can get the students to keep up with their schoolwork. Part of the grading will probably include things like class attendance and participation.</p>
<p>The more rigorous the college, the less busywork and pop quzzes you'll get. For instance, at the Ivy that I attended, for writing-based majors such as government, English, etc. typically, one got a midterm and a final and a 15-20 page paper. Another option would be a midterm and a minimum 20-page paper on a course-related topic of your choice. Unlike h.s., you would not be required to turn in your topic or paper outline in advance.</p>
<p>You'd get the class outline including reading assignments, dates of tests, etc. the first day of class. The professor would lecture on things that were not directly in the reading. You'd be tested on the reading and lectures.</p>
<p>Attendance was not part of one's grade. If you skipped all of the classes, but did your assignments and tests, you could get an "A" if you managed to do well on those things.</p>
<p>Here at ND,(Go IRISH, Beat WOLVERINES), my classes are alot different from high school and I have alot more homework. Almost all of my classes are graded on 4 tests that we have throughout the semester and then with the ones that have labs, the labs are counted as a percentage too. Take last week for example, I did chemistry problems for 8 hours on Sunday, I also had to read 2 chapters (a total of like 65 pages) for biology, read labs for both bio and chem (15 pages each), write two 3 page papers for my composition class, do 3 online homework assignments for calc, read a total of like 15 pages for theology. And for the majority of these classes they are all review from high school for me. There is alot more work involved but if you are smart and can manage your time you can get some of it done during the day and between classes. I know that here Saturdays are for football, and Sundays are for homework.</p>
<p>most of my classes had 2-5 tests per semester. </p>
<p>most of my 100/200 level courses had 1-3 papers associated with them.. this could range from a 5 page thing, to a 20 page single spaced thing. (managerial accounting. that's right, we even wrote papers for accounting)</p>
<p>all of my 300/400 level courses had a semester long group projects attached to them - some of which were 100 page papers.. we also had at least one formal (get dressed up nice) presentation in each of these classes (some of our presentations were done at companies in front of their management and whatnot.. examples of this would be york international, harley davidson, dentsply, etc) these courses also had 1-3 papers due in each. so pretty much the same thing as earlier classes, but lots of added group work. I probably spent more time in group meetings my last semester than i did on everything else.</p>
<p>then you have classes like foreign languages, where you have workbooks that need to be done.. or art classes where there's not so much papers (we did have tests), but there's projects.. lots of projects.. typically 6-10 per class i'd estimate. every once and awhile we'd have a class where we had to answer the questions at the end of the chapters and hand them in, such as in business law. then there's programming classes where you have lots of programs to write for assignments to hand in.</p>
<p>It sounds like college is mostly reading (time-consuming sort) and memorizing for tests. Also writing papers and a final. It seems though that even if it's a lot on the plate, it's easier than high school in a way because you have a) less classes, rather than high school which took up your whole day practically, b) no pointless and boring Busy Work, meaning more time to actually study and learn, and c) more time between due dates to do the work (if your classes are spread apart by a few days at least). What I hate about high school is you have all of this pointless sitting around in class for 7 classes a day doing less than you would do at home sitting in your pajamas. I get the feeling AP classes are the closest thing to college as you can get as a high school student. I like my AP English and US History classes because we get assigned reading which I can knock off easily, and then we do discussions and get notes and that's it. Normal classes though we sit around doing questions out of the book every day or little worksheets with questions and two lines given for you to write an answer. I suppose writing lengthy papers and doing them perfectly is what makes college more difficult than high school. And the material is more detailed. But I look forward to it. Just not the math. I suck at it.</p>
<p>you would think it doesnt take up as much time bc you dont have as many classes a day but you end up doing work for longer because you dont have classes as often</p>
<p>I can't stand when people "memorize for tests".. i'm all about "learning for tests".. not "memorizing".. i had a roommate who memorized everything for a test, and if it was an essay she'd write the whole thing down verbatim how it was in the book.. but if you asked her to explain something, or to do something, she couldn't do it because she didn't really understand it, she didn't "learn" it.. she just memorized what the book said.. and she graduated with like a 3.8 or something of that nature..</p>
<p>".. i had a roommate who memorized everything for a test, and if it was an essay she'd write the whole thing down verbatim how it was in the book.. "</p>
<p>At many colleges, the best that such regurgitation would do would be to get her a C-.</p>
<p>I guarantee that her lack of critical thinking and analytical skills won't help her advance in the work world, no matter what field she has entered.</p>
<p>she was a graphic design major, so most of her classes were art.. which doesnt have much essays or things like that. other than art all she has was the basic requirements - two languages, two sciences, etc.</p>
<p>I know at my school, it's not just the tests. Some of my classes I actually find dramatically easier than in HS. for instance, I'm only taking 4 classes as oposed to 6, and I basically only have class MWF. One of my classes is pretty easy, with inclass writing assaignments and readings, with 2 essays, and no final. my english class is wonderful (literature and creative writing) where all we have to do is read 5 poems each week (specific ones) and either write a 150 word reflection on one, or a poem that was inspired by one, plus lead a class discussion on a poem and a short story, and do some oetry writing and shrt story writing, but so far it's easy. Then my econ classhas a TON (3 hrs a night at its worst) of readiing, but I took AP Econ (5's on both tests) last year so its a bit of a joke for me, but I have to take it for my major (econ), and then the only class I'm not thrilled about is Calc 1, where we have ungraded homework problems everynight, and 6 graded problems to turn in weekly, in thay class it's 45% tests (3 of them), 10% homeworks, 15% quizzes (weekly) 25% final and 5% participation. </p>