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That depends on one’s major. With nearly 300 credits I can attest to that.</p>
<p>One friend’s an anthro major the other cs.</p>
<p>Here’s a video which perfectly encapsulates how one could actually take much pride and enjoy some thrills from being the subject of such a question:</p>
<p>[Horrible</a> Histories - Literally: The Viking Song - YouTube](<a href=“Horrible Histories - Literally: The Viking Song - YouTube”>Horrible Histories - Literally: The Viking Song - YouTube)</p>
<p>:D</p>
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<p>My graduate school offered two tries to pass the qualifying exam, and an additional “free shot” when you first entered the program. I studied for the exam in the summer before starting graduate school and passed the free shot. It helped that I had taken graduate-level courses as an undergrad. Foreign grad students tended to pass the free shot. If you go to “University of Chicago Graduate Problems in Physics with Solutions” (a hard but good book) on Amazon, you see that customers also bought</p>
<p>Problems and Solutions on Mechanics: Major American Universities Ph.D. Qualifying Questions and Solutions
by Yung-Kuo Lim ,</p>
<p>one of a series of books published by a Chinese university.</p>
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So, based on the report of two friends . . .
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<p>I’m really not trying to be snarky, but expecting college not to be very difficult isn’t a safe assumption.</p>
<p>"I’m really not trying to be snarky, but expecting college not to be very difficult isn’t a safe assumption. "</p>
<p>If its easy you are in the wrong college.</p>
<p>Well, and admittedly, many college have what we call a Jesus department. Somebody has to be the savior for those who weren’t cutting it in whatever. I suppose in those majors (school-specific, of course) are not that difficult.</p>
<p>I said difficulty arises in the volume of work.</p>
<p>Those two were examples. Duh.</p>
<p>“Those two were examples. Duh.”</p>
<p>There are a few million college students. Two kids’ opinions are just those. </p>
<p>If the school is hard enough, a physics/chemistry/math professor can assign you a two line problem and you can spend 3 days trying to find an answer. Nothing to do with volume.</p>
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Again, that would depend on your major (and, I suppose, just how “truly smart” you are). Most of the people in my Real Analysis class didn’t find it easy, for example, and it wasn’t because of the volume of work.</p>
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This. I personally kept the Ithaca Dominos and the hot truck in business with late night food runs while in the middle of short problem sets (4-5 problems) that took MANY hours to complete well.</p>
<p>I think it’s true that students who have been in a rigorous high school program may find that the workload in college is not as heavy as high school was. This was the case for my kids, coming from a magnet IB program, and many others from the program have said the same thing. I think it’s just that they’ve developed good work habits, and perhaps don’t procrastinate as much as some of their classmates. I’m not claiming that the IB work was “harder” than college work–just that going from all-day classes plus homework to a college schedule can be a relief. I think this is probably less true of STEM students, who spend a lot more time in class in college than non-STEM students because of labs.</p>
<p>Hunt - don’t the non-STEM kids get voluminous reading/writing assignments at your kids’ school? They need to follow your tagline - “if you are finding it easy, you need to add more challenging classes.”</p>
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<p>Seems that a common theme of descriptions of IB programs is that the workload is huge compared to other high schools, including when other more-rigorous/advanced-than-normal-in-high-school courses are chosen (like college courses or AP courses). On the other hand, it does not seem that IB HL exams are necessarily granted that much more subject credit and placement when the student goes to a four year college as a freshman.</p>
<p>Would it be accurate to say that the main value of IB (versus any other rigorous/advanced curriculum or course selection) is to condition the student for high workloads in school?</p>
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<p>True, but the difference in workload may not be as big as often assumed. Non-majors tend to flock to the lowest-workload H/SS courses when they take breadth requirement courses; they tend not to choose the high workload ones (with huge volumes of reading or large term projects) that may be required for majors in those subjects.</p>
<p>Also, art studio and music performance may be very time consuming.</p>
<p>In non-STEM, not all classes will have the volume of work or the high level of academic challenges. You can get hudreds of pages of reading in one or two classes, plus a high load of papers and exams- but also have classes where the tasks require less time.</p>
<p>hi sylvan8798, yes I did pass the Ph.D. qualifiers the first time through (although I felt that I could have done better on one part). There is an intermediate ground between “winging it” and studying intensively, and I would say that’s where I was. I am fortunate to have a good memory, and as an undergrad/grad, I worked on all of the topics that I studied to the point of understanding. So when it came to review, the things that I had forgotten along the way came back to me very quickly. Luck in one regard, and hard work along the way in the other regard.</p>
<p>In high school, I think I fit into the group who studied more than they “had” to, although I did have serious EC’s (relative to my era).</p>
<p>Upthread, there have been distinctions between a student who studies just enough to ensure an A, and then devotes the time to something else (favorable strategy for college admissions) vs. a student who “over-studies” and loses out on EC’s. If the student who is over-studying is just putting in unnecessary time on the “same old stuff,” that’s clearly a losing strategy. On the other hand, if the student is going deeper into the subject than the class requires, there should be a strong return on that time investment, even if it is not seen immediately in terms of college admissions.</p>
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<p>I fit into the group who “overstudied” relative to what I needed to get good grades, but to me my return on it was that I genuinely liked / enjoyed doing so. Hobby would be too strong of a word, but when a subject gets my attention I genuinely enjoy reading and learning more about it. I’ll cop to geeky in this sense.</p>
<p>I’d personally rather have a small amount of difficult work than a large amount of relatively easy work.</p>
<p>Also, I was always winging my classes. I had other more pressing things to do, so it was completely necessary.</p>
<p>Easy is in the eye of the beholder. When in Florence for his semester abroad, my STEM kid couldn’t handle the pressure of a course that everyone else was taking for fun and an easy A: “Gardens and Villas of Italy.” He replaced it with Advanced Financial Accounting. Not quite as exotic (and no field trips), but he was happy as a clam.</p>
<p>Hahaha, Neuroticparent. I think we might have the same kid.</p>