<p>I can't wait to go back to college and have a schedule that is steady and manageable. It'll be 3 years of shore leave!</p>
<p>I know tons of fat girls who take 20-odd credits while simultaneously working 30 hours. Does that get your seal of approval? does anyone know the kind of girl I'm talking about?</p>
<p>Football, </p>
<p>What is your point? If you honestly have to work so much in college that you think that the working world is easier, then maybe you're just in over your head.</p>
<p>Most people in college work hard and play hard. Most people after college just work hard. Enjoy it while it lasts.</p>
<p>I know people who work hard, and I know people who play hard. While the two groups are by no means mutually exclusive, there is not as much overlap as you are implying. Plenty of nerds with no lives.</p>
<p>I'm not expressing an opinion with this thread. Just looking for the fact of the matter.</p>
<p>Well, it depends on what you consider hard. Here is what I think:</p>
<p>Having to decide whether to spend this month's pension and social security checks on food, medicine or shelter when you can't afford all three is hard.</p>
<p>Getting called by the police to come and identify the body of a loved one killed by a drunk driver who walked away from the accident is hard.</p>
<p>Watching a parent who lived through the depression and saved compulsively the rest of their lives die slowly of cancer over a three-year period is hard.</p>
<p>Watching them spend their life savings on medical bills so that they can become Medicaid eligible a month or two before they die is hard.</p>
<p>Being told several years later that you have the same disease that killed them is hard.</p>
<p>Watching your child being sedated, strapped on a gurney and loaded into an ambulance bound for a mental health facility is hard.</p>
<p>Visiting them and seeing firsthand what happens there is hard.</p>
<p>Going through a messy divorce where the only winners are the lawyers is hard.</p>
<p>Coming back from a patrol with half your platoon dead or missing in action then feeling ashamed for still being alive yourself is hard.</p>
<p>Being told your newborn will never lead a normal life is hard.</p>
<p>Caring for a parent or spouse with Alzheimer's is hard.</p>
<p>Fortunately I have had to deal with only one or two of these situations and I hope you never experience any of them. However, I have had far too many close friends who have had these experiences or others like them. Unfortunately, these events are not nearly as rare as they should be and I am fully aware that sometimes they even happen to people who are in college.</p>
<p>I guess what I am trying to say is that most of the stuff we have been talking about so far in this thread doesn't amount to flatus in a windstorm. That mean professor who makes you stay up until 1 AM to get your work done will be long forgotten in just a few years. The work that I grouse about is actually good for my health and keeps me out of trouble. Many, if not most people will experience an event of far greater magnitude at some point in their lives and that is when things really become hard, whether they happen while in college or afterward.</p>
<p>Wow man, just let it go. I was talking about college vs. the workplace, not all of that hutzpa.</p>
<p>That mean professor causes a lot more stress than you let on. Staying up until 1am is the least of your worries at a state school where anything remotely competitive has a 50+% failure rate.</p>
<p>If post-college life were limited to the workplace, I might be more inclined to agree with you. As it is, those things are part of life in general and they figure into some of the answers that you are getting to your original question, "Do you think college is easier OR harder than real life?" because they tend to happen more often to those who are long out of college.</p>
<p>If you are going to redefine your question, then perhaps you will get some different answers, although I have had some bosses in my day that make the worst prof I ever had look like Santa Claus.</p>
<p>Looked at another way, the worst thing that mean prof can do is give you a 0 for his class. Even if that means you flunk out of school and have to work your way back, there are a lot worse things happening every day. If that is the greatest of your worries, you cannot expect much sympathy.</p>
<p>Old thread, bumping this. I’m really tired of hearing about how “real life” is harder than college. It just seems to me that a bunch of whining people love to ■■■■■ about how hard work is because they’re just plain lazy, or hate the fact that they have a boss that makes sure they get there work done. I personally hate the freedom / free time I have/had in college because it allows room for a person to be irresponsible. And you certainly don’t have to have a family after you graduate, if you hate raising kids then you should have used a condom. </p>
<p>College students often do have to cook/work and have other responsibilities, but even if their mommy cooks for them and changes their diapers they’re still constantly plagued by the stress of exams / projects and unless they are super popular, by the immature students around them. When you’re working, it’s easier to have your own place, you’re forced to work pretty hard yes but that’s a way of conditioning yourself, and at least you get paid so when you do have that limited free time, you can spend it how you want. </p>
<p>I’m at UCLA completing a Math-Econ degree, it took me a full 6 years to get it done. I’ve worked, done community college, UCLA, traveled, helped run a business so I can definitely compare these two based on my experiences. Yes work is harder if you’re a lazy ■■■■■ and hate having responsibilities, but real adults welcome challenges and want to grow from the obstacles that the real world throws at them rather than sit around in college forever attending frat parties, sleeping with tatted-up drunk children, sleeping at 4 AM, or living this “animal-house” lifestyle only a few morons get the pleasure of experiencing. </p>
<p>I’ve also noticed some men (probably only a minority) who were super “cool” in high school / college ■■■■■ a lot about working because all of a sudden girls stop flocking to them because they’ve grown up and don’t care about how “cool” they are or how big their muscles are, they want a man that meant business in college and is mature, responsible, and (shocker) probably even respectful to them. Not meaning to paint all college students or all employees with the same brush, just one subjective example, for example and it doesn’t represent reality completely but it’s still food for thought.</p>
<p>Easier, at least now I can have a part time job which I could never have done back in high school.</p>
<p>College is harder than a job. I am rocking my job, struggling with college. When you are out of your job, you are out of it and don’t have to worry about it until you go back next time. Homework and studying make college much more stressful. Also, as a programmer, I am naturally talented at my job. College will require you to do things you are awful at. Also, at a job, if you are at a computer, you can look up any information you need or if you are not, you can just ask somebody. Not the case in college. College is much more difficult than a job and does not prepare you for one.</p>
<p>If your job is easier than college, you are not working hard enough. Some of this will be a person-by-person thing. For many college is/was easy because they did not need to study too much. It may depend on majors, but maybe not. I was a social-science guy. Lots of research papers and such. Not much math/hard science. I loved it. My genius son would hate it. He is taking O-Chem as a Freshman and coasting. It is all relative.</p>
<p>Ultimately, the all-in pressures of real life are much more difficult than the all-in pressures of college life. There will be exceptions to the rule, but trust those of us who have gone before…enjoy college while you are there!</p>