<p>Are most of the people who say college is very difficult the ones who don't put in the effort?</p>
<p>Three major factors in how hard college will be:
- How hard did you work in high school? If you took a challenging curriculum and are used to putting in 3-4 hours of homework each night, college will not be that different.
- What is your college major? If you’re majoring in STEM, count on a lot of study time and sweating it on most every test you ever have. Major in elementary ed, and your level of difficulty is likely to be much lower.
- What does your college expect? Attend a large state school with lots of large classes, and you can probably dodge participating in most class discussions and just cram for every test. Go to an elite LAC with classes of 10, and it will quickly become obvious you didn’t prepare even one time for class.</p>
<p>It also depends on how well prepared you are coming out of high school to handle both the content and the independence that comes with college. If you had a rigorous high school curriculum and you manage your time well, you will likely be in pretty good shape. If you get to college and decide to spend all weekend partying, then handing your classes might end up being more difficult.</p>
<p>What about college choice? Are higher ranked schools actually that much harder?</p>
<p>On an absolute scale, probably not that much. After all, the coursework is the coursework for a particular degree. But when everyone is brilliant, that allows the course to be taught at a higher level and at a faster pace. There are no remedial courses at the elite schools, and they take the training wheels off, they expect you to do the work and keep up. So in the sense that there will no slack and really tough competition from your classmates, it’s definitely harder. But at it’s most basic level, a BA in History is a BA in History.</p>
<p>For example, anyone who scores a 28 on the ACT could probably succeed at Harvard, though they would probably not be at the top of the class. There are just too many brilliant kids at Harvard, though there are also going to be kids who skate by, and like the saying goes, “Hard work beats talent, when talent doesn’t work hard.” Harvard doesn’t admit very many 28s, but those it chooses to admit can probably do fine with some discipline and judicious course selection.</p>
<p>Another factor to consider is the major selection. No one who’s not brilliant will succeed at CalTech simply because there are no easy majors, and the ones that are there are taught at a high level and rapid pace. Realize that there are plenty of smart people who do get Ph.Ds in certain subjects, but despite the fact that they’re smart enough to get a Ph.D., they’re probably still not smart enough to get a BS in Physics, it’s just a difficult major, and when all the college offers is the equivalent of Physics, it’s just an overall harder school.</p>
<p>One last thing to think about is that no college wants to see you fail. As a general rule, no elite level college is going to let you in if they don’t think you can do the work. They have too many kids wanting to get in who can do the work and too few spaces to bother wasting one on someone who will likely fail.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>[Course</a> MAT100 | Department of Mathematics](<a href=“http://www.math.princeton.edu/undergraduate/course/MAT100]Course”>http://www.math.princeton.edu/undergraduate/course/MAT100)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>[Course</a> MAT101 | Department of Mathematics](<a href=“http://www.math.princeton.edu/undergraduate/course/MAT101]Course”>http://www.math.princeton.edu/undergraduate/course/MAT101)
[Course</a> MAT102 | Department of Mathematics](<a href=“http://www.math.princeton.edu/undergraduate/course/MAT102]Course”>http://www.math.princeton.edu/undergraduate/course/MAT102)
[url=<a href=“Harvard Mathematics Department Administration and Finance”>Harvard Mathematics Department Administration and Finance]Harvard</a> Mathematics Department : Mathematics Courses<a href=“Ma%20and%20Mb”>/url</a></p>
<p>Fascinating.</p>
<p>I could be snide and say something about who is taking those courses at such elite schools, but I won’t.</p>
<p>Still, it not exactly like they’re offering Algebra II with Trig.</p>
<p>That remedial course from Princeton seems to cover all of high school math (plus a bit of Calc) in one semester. Try employing the same class with the same grading standards at a less selective school like the University of Oklahoma and see the results (I suspect most would fail).</p>
<p>I really think it depends on the student and how prepared he or she is. I went to a small Catholic high school with good intentions but limited resources. I remember the summer after my freshman year in college telling my cousin, who was a HS freshman “When your teachers tell you your high school classes are nothing compared to what you’ll get in college, believe it! Believe it because it is all true!” I thought maybe he’d listen to someone close to his own age - turns out he went to an elite all-male LAC and even more elite grad school and has done great.
S1 has done much better in college than he did in high school, but he went to the top academic HS in our state, took a curriculum full of AP and honors courses and was better prepared than most. Also, his major plays to his strengths and he’s passionate about it, so that helps.</p>
<p>“One last thing to think about is that no college wants to see you fail.”</p>
<p>Tell that to Berkeley administration who purposely try to weed students out because of over enrollment.</p>
<p>It is not exaggerated how hard it is. I spend more time working now, with 15 credits worth of college courses, than I spent working when I had a 50 hour per week job. If anything, I think people underestimate how hard it will be, if you care about your grades. Granted, if someone doesn’t care about getting good grades they could float by on a lot less reading, study, and research.</p>
<p>Yea, I pretty much agree with what everyone else has said. If you developed a good work ethic and time management skills in high school, college should be no problem for you. I do think that the level of difficulty in college is a bit over-exaggerated. When I was preparing to head off to college, I was under the impression that the classes would be impossible and that I would spend my days locked away in my room trying to catch up on homework, but I’m finding that I actually am not even doing work most of the days that I have been in college. Most of the work I get is reading. I received more written work and more projects assigned to me while I was in high school. So for me, the work load seems to have lightened up a bit.
Also keep in mind that even if the work load itself may be heavier, you will have more time to do the work. You most likely will not be in class 8 hours/day for 5 days of the week like you were in high school. For example, I currently am in class only 4hrs/day for 4 days of the week. </p>
<p>Just keep up with your readings, keep track of due dates, and be ready to cram for midterms and finals and you should be fine.</p>
<p>Yes, it’s hard. Exactly how hard depends on a few things:</p>
<ol>
<li>How do you define “hard”? </li>
</ol>
<p>If “hard” to you means “OMG! I actually have to do my homework? I can’t just scribble it 15m before class?” you are in for a rude awakening. </p>
<p>If by “hard” you mean “the workload is so brutal I cry myself to sleep every night”, there are colleges out there for insane masochists - start with Reed, or University of Chicago. </p>
<p>If by “hard” you mean “breathtaking mental challenge that makes me question for the first half of every semester whether I will ever <em>get</em> this subject, with a difficult but <em>not</em> sado-masochistic and soul-crushing workload” there are lots of those, and they’re great! This is the sweet spot of college, no matter who you are: being stretched almost to your breaking point without exceeding it, and growing massively because of it. It’s like Crossfit for your brain.</p>
<p>Which brings me to number two:</p>
<ol>
<li>Is “hard” something that inspires you, or something that you shy away from?</li>
</ol>
<p>Just like in physical fitness, there are plenty of people who don’t want to be mentally fit. They want to go through the motions at the “gym” without really working. To this kind of student, any kind of college that demands too much of them will be “hard”, in a very pejorative sense. </p>
<p>On the other hand, some people are in college because they want to be shaped and formed. They want to get mentally buff, to think deeply and analyze critically. If this is you, there’s a right college out there for you.</p>
<p>I personally believe that <em>formation</em> matters most when choosing a college. You choose the college that will do the best job of making you what you wish to become. If you choose one that’s not hard enough, you never truly get reshaped. If you choose one that is too hard, you founder and lose your motivation. But if you hit that sweet spot, you get a 6-pack brain. Beef-caaaaake! Beef-caaaaaaaaaaake! ;)</p>
<p>In conclusion, when I say a school is “hard”, I mean it as a compliment. For example, Marlboro College has an acceptance rate over 80%, but Marlboro is hard. Lusciously, sweetly, wonderfully hard.</p>
<p>I thought college was easier than high school, but like everyone else said, that depends largely on your educational background and the program you’re in.</p>
<p>I studied much less in college than I did in high school, but that was mainly because there was much less “busy work” and I was always very good at learning independently. I learned material quickly without much external assistance, I was a good test taker, and I was in a major that I was good at. I also went to a good high school so I had a solid educational background, and it was pretty easy for me to assimilate each course I took into what I already new about the subject. As I got higher up in coursework, it got even easier (and less stressful) because I had a good background to incorporate all my classes into, and I had become pretty good at learning the material and navigating what was expected of me.</p>
<p>Objectively, the material was probably harder than high school, but I was also a better student and a better learner at the time. With all of your classes, you’re growing as an academic as well, and courses that may have been nearly impossible when you’re fourteen years old might be much easier when you’re eighteen. You just know more–about the subject and about how to learn–but if you’re never really developed those skills before (for whatever reason), then you might find college to be more of a leap than you were expecting.</p>
<p>If you had a solid education in high school, if you’re in a major that you’re good at and well-suited for, if you learn well independently and know where to get help when you need it, if you have the discipline to study when you need to, then college probably won’t feel THAT hard to you.</p>
<p>If, on the other hand, you’re high school wasn’t very good, you’re in a major that is more challenging to you or aren’t as naturally inclined towards, you’ve never really had to manage your own time, you don’t learn as quickly or independently as colleges can sometimes require, or you have never really developed very good study skills, then college will likely be more challenging to you.</p>
<p>College is different than high school.</p>
<p>In high school, you have lots of little assignments, lots of quizzes, several tests, some projects, and even “extra credit” or “bonus points” that go in to making your grade. You’re busy all the time with all kinds of little stuff that doesn’t mean a whole bunch when taken one step at a time, sort of like a hamster on a wheel.</p>
<p>In college, you are in class many hours fewer per week. Professors don’t assign busy work. Some professors assign homework on a regular basis; some don’t–and of those that do, some collect it some don’t, and some grade it and some don’t.</p>
<p>In college, each class will have very few grades-- usually one or two midterms and a final (which is generally cumulative of everything covered over the course of the semester, and often a paper or a project or two. Also, in college the lectures and the readings are often not congruent–meaning that the professor does not waste lecture time reviewing and regurgitating what you are capable of reading on your own. The lectures may use the readings as a jumping off point, or in contrast, or they may be totally unrelated–and material from both lectures and readings is fair game for exams, whether the professor reviewed the information or not.</p>
<p>Generally you won’t get chances to re-do a poor effort, and you won’t be able to pad mediocre exam grades with lots of little homework points or extra credit.</p>
<p>Generally, I think college is what you make of it. </p>
<p>You will have some classes that just really kick you when you’re down, but also, you’ll have some you can sleep through. If you want an A, you’ll work yourself much harder than you would for a B, and so on. </p>
<p>Also, in college, a lot of hand-holding stops, which is definitely different than high school. Your paper sucks? They’ll tell you. You totally misinterpreted that piece of literature? They’ll let you know. But likewise, you show a lot of promise with your writing? They might let it slip to you. You’re a keen student and you seem to grasp really complicated concepts? They might try and flag you for their major. </p>
<p>College is all about what you want it to be. No one’s going to take you by the hand and guide you along the path that they choose for you. You make your own decisions, make your own strides, and act as your own person. </p>
<p>In a lot of ways, this IS hard, but many have done it. It varies from person-to-person, but it’s still part of growing up, which we all inevitably must do. :)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>If that is their intention, they are failing miserably at it*, since four and six year graduation rates are among the highest of public universities.</p>
<p>*Other than for athletes, who seem to be making unsatisfactory records on both the field and in the classroom.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>1 credit is supposed to mean 3 total hours of work per week, so 15 credits should take 45 hours per week (including both in and out of class time).</p>
<p>In practice actual workloads are lighter ( <a href=“Why College Students Leave the Engineering Track - The New York Times”>Why College Students Leave the Engineering Track - The New York Times; shows a graph with study time of 13-18 hours per week, depending on major; added to class time of 15-18 hours per week gives 28-36 total hours per week). But courses with labs, art studio, music performance, and large term projects typically consume more time than other courses.</p>
<p>College doesn’t have to be as hard as some people make it out to be. It’s certainly not easy, but with some dedication you’ll be fine. You get out what you put in. If you spend time studying and make sure to be prepared for exams, start papers in a timely manner rather than waiting until the last minute etc you’ll be fine.</p>
<p>As others have mentioned, it depends in big part on what your major is. Some of the upper level classes you take as a physics, math, engineering etc. major are epically challenging. Other majors are a great deal easier and require a lot less time studying.</p>
<p>It depends on what you study and how motivated a student you are. Lazy people will always say college is hard period. If you have a good work ethic you will probably find that it is not as difficult as people say it is. If you study a major with emphasis on math, the hard sciences, or engineering, you will probably find that college is hard, even if you work and study hard because the material is just plain difficult. So I would not say that it is exaggerated, it just depends on individual experience.</p>