<p>I've always thought my social life in college will kick @ss because I've like reinvented myself senior year, and I think I'm a much more social person now. However, I totally forgot to think about how hard college would be! I'm going to Purdue as a chemical engineering major; currently as a senior in a very competitive H.S. I'm taking AP chemistry, AP biology, AP literature, Advanced precalculus, Advanced C++, and College credit Spanish III. How much more difficult will college be? I usually procrastinate like crazy right now and manage mid b's/low a's. I know once I get to college I would study a LOT more because it's costing so much $, but is it similar to H.S.? It just seems like the stuff in AP chemistry is nothing compared to college courses; is this true? OR is AP actually like the difficulty of a freshman college classs? It would easy my worries a lot to know this. I plan to take the most extremely difficult courseload in college and go crazy. Thanks!</p>
<p>You will have no difficulty with the academic work load.........but nobody is there to enforce getting sleep, cut off the booze or make you go to class. The social life and the lack of sleep are the challenge not the academics.</p>
<p>It might depend. Check online for Purdue requirements, and see if their are finals or problems from the various classes online so you can see what the difficulty is. You might work very hard for lower grades, so beware that this is possible. Hazmat has a point, though- few will help you stay the course (although the academics can be the biggest challenge).</p>
<p>I have found that the workload in college is much harder than the workload in high school. It requires much more time and commitment. However, you seem like a dedicated person so I doubt it will be too much of a problem for you.</p>
<p>engineering is one of the toughest majors in college. I don't have a magic crystal ball, but if you try the same thing of procrastinate/cram I think you'll be an engineer for 2 semesters tops. Engineering has about the highest dropout rate there is; on average between 1/2 and 2/3 of those who start college as engineers switch out before graduating. One big reason is everything is cumulative; if you barely passed course A, course B which depends on what you learned in course A will be almost impossible. </p>
<p>College isn't necessarily more difficult, but it DOES require more discipline. If thru some means you are able to figure out a way to keep up with the workload you'll be ok. From your track record you have the smarts to succeed, but to succeed requires more than smarts; it requires actually doing the work at a steady rate so that you're learning the material and so that what they talk about in week 8 of the class makes sense because you've been right there understanding everything in weeks 1-7. Relying on your last-minute cram technique is the sure road to failure. You might find it helpful to get a week-at-a-glance type calendar and literally schedule hours where you study, etc. Or promise yourself you can't watch TV each day until you've done X hours of study. Whatever works for you. I can guarantee, though, that as a ChemE if you procrastinate you're going to crash.</p>
<p>I find myself spending more time on schoolwork in college, but I'm also spending more time being social. It's a lot easier to hang out with people when they love down the hall, or even in te next building.</p>
<p>I will say I went to a top uber competative HS and pulled high B's low A's and I'm finding college a lot easier. I am also a super procrastinator, but as long as it gets done eventually it doens't matter how long it took you to do it.</p>
<p>YAY a future Boilermaker!!!! I am a chemistry major right now at Purdue. I took AP chem in HS, and it will DEFINITELY help you in college. However, DO NOT PROCRASTINATE!! I did, and I go screwed for chemistry. However, I am in marching band and that took up a heck of a lot of time, so that was partly why I procrastinated so much..... But your AP classes will def. prepare you for college! The classes will be hard (freshman engineering is really hard, but since you seem very smart you should survive :) Don't fret!!!!) but if you work hard and balance your time, you'll be fine. Feel free to message/e-mail me if you want to know more about classes or anything else. I'm not an engineer but I know a lot of them :)</p>
<p>I think college will be a definite step up in terms of self discipline and difficulty for chemical engineering. Your (science & math) course load right now is what I would expect to be quite a bit easier than a typical first year engineering curriculum (though I'm not an E-schooler, so I'm speculating), so I think you may have to just adjust once you get there. Nothing too big as long as you can adapt, though.</p>
<p>Well...last year i took:</p>
<p>ap bio, ap phys c, ap bc calc, ap euro, ap spanish lang, ap english lit. i'm an aerospace engineer and college is more work.</p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>Yeah, AP classes provide a good background though. But college classes are harder then AP classes.</p>
<p>Hehe you guys have me all wrong. Freshman year my avg GPA was 2.46. Sophomore it went to 3.54. Junior it went to 3.75. Senior it plummeted b/c it was my first time taking AP's. I overloaded myself with SAT prep, SAT II prep, college apps, and AP's. I ended up with a 2.9 for quarter and 3.2 for semester. I was WORKED. I did procrastinate and got addicted to a video game though. This semester I'm doing a lot better. I have for first quarter a 90, 95, 89, 80, 81, 85. I'm considered the smartest kid in AP biology (95), I procrastinated in math (90), I blew off spanish (89), I missed couple days of chem and got screwed (80), missed couple days of lit and got screwed (81), I suck at programming in C++ (85). Next quarter I'm sure I can get 95+ in math, bio, spanish, c++. Chem and lit will probably be high 80's. The point I'm making here is that procrastinating didn't help me very much; I'm good at doing it, but the end result is not very good in grades. I sold all my video games and am completely focused on studies now so I think I can get extremely high grades next quarter. I also stopped procrastinating completely. If I keep this up into college, do you guys think I would be successful?</p>
<p>BTW space_cadet, whats your real name? And have you ever heard of a guy named Tom Canada? He's a sophomore now, cool guy. I came and visited Purdue the 24 of Feb, and it looks AWESOME. The tour guide was a hottie :) I can't wait to go there.</p>