<p>So, I've finished high school and I'm going to be heading off to college or uni in 2014. And was wondering how much work is expected in a relatively easy degree like business (so not physics, science etc.). </p>
<p>I'm not from the USA and the last year is pretty hard here, counts for 100% of your uni application. Nothing else at all. But I still found everything doable, although stressful at times, the expected workload is around 3-4 hours a day plus school 5-6 on weekends, and 5-6 every day of any holidays you get. And around 7ish just before and during exams.</p>
<p>How does that compare to college and I was wondering whether to expect it to be easier or harder. I know that uni here is about the same on average, harder with harder degrees and probably about the same as high school with easier degrees.</p>
<p>It depends on you, on your school, you major, your classes, your professors, etc. Do you like the subjects you’re studying? Are you taking project based classes? How much of your grade is based on papers, exams? And of course it depends on where you excel… some students get really nervous on exams, some are too lazy to write long papers, whatever. But there’s just a ton of factors. Compared to high school, well, that’s even harder to judge. Some highschools/classes/teachers are very competitive and expect a lot, others are much easier.</p>
<p>Also, side note, business is an easy major? Depends on the school. Here it’s one of the most competitive majors on campus, very difficult to get into and equally hard once you’re in.</p>
<p>The one thing most people do agree on when it comes to high school vs college is how you’re graded. In high school, you often got points just for participating, attending class, etc. And so long as you showed effort, you’d pass. In college, participation tends to be a lot less of a factor. There’s no more busywork, nothing to pad your grade. You might encounter an attendance policy or participation grade, but it won’t be a major factor in your grade (expect maybe as a “miss 5 classes and you fail”). You’re graded on knowing the material. It’s pretty common for a final exam to be worth 40% of your grade. You’ll be graded on a couple big things (exams, papers, projects) instead of dozens of little assignments… and that’s the biggest difference.</p>
<p>^This. It really rankles me when people say, “College is WAY harder than high school; no one babies you or forces you to do the work.” My high school, for one, didn’t expect any less independence than my college does, and the work isn’t much different in difficulty (of course, I was in honors and AP classes, though). But the grading is definitely different. That works out better for me, though, because I’ve always been lousy with remembering to do busy work and getting it done on time.</p>
<p>“The one thing most people do agree on when it comes to high school vs college is how you’re graded. In high school, you often got points just for participating, attending class, etc. And so long as you showed effort, you’d pass. In college, participation tends to be a lot less of a factor. There’s no more busywork, nothing to pad your grade. You might encounter an attendance policy or participation grade, but it won’t be a major factor in your grade (expect maybe as a “miss 5 classes and you fail”). You’re graded on knowing the material. It’s pretty common for a final exam to be worth 40% of your grade. You’ll be graded on a couple big things (exams, papers, projects) instead of dozens of little assignments… and that’s the biggest difference.”</p>
<p>Cool, sounds alright. My high school was similar I guess, if you don’t turn up to class you get suspended. No participation grades only exams count. Final one was 50%. There were 3 others in the year. And only 1 of my subjects did the teacher actually make us do our homework, although even that was relatively minimal. Most of it was independent study and notes.</p>
<p>Looking forward to learn far more interesting stuff in college than high school, not be completely overloaded with work and also have fun :D</p>
<p>Business isn’t exactly an easy major. It’s certainly quite different from majoring in physics/math/chemistry etc, but it’s not necessarily ‘easy.’ It’s a very different kind of hard. </p>
<p>College doesn’t have to be harder than high school though. It’s a different type of system though, and it assumes that you’re going to be able to teach yourself to a greater degree. In a math class, the professor might not do an example of every possible type of problem you’ll ever see, because they assume that you’re going to be able to understand the concept of what it is you’re doing, rather than simply memorizing a mechanical method of how to do something. It requires more dedication in some respects, but it also offers a lot more freedom to do what you actually want to do. When you’re taking classes that you’re actually interested in, it’s a lot easier to spend more time on the material.</p>