Since I am awared that many college courses are going to be like AP courses (or even harder), I am curious on how much efforts professors in IU put at their classes. For instance, do they sincerely try to help students to master every step? Or do they just give studying materials and let you figure it out by yourself? Let’s say the majority of classes I will take are mainly within the requirements of a business major.
A college class will require much more autonomy.
For each hour in class you’ll have 2-3 hours of preparation (reading, problem sets, etc). Many freshmen make the mistletoe if thinking
If you’re not in the honors college, you’ll have to make an effort to know your professor. It means going to office hours with your textbook highlighted and questions you jotted as you completed HW or listened to the lecture, every week or every other week. If you don’t go to office hours, it’s your problem. In a lecture hall with 200 people, the professor may not know you exist and will certainly not “sincerely try to help students master every step” (that’s what office hours are for). Many professors at IU are researchers first and you’ll have TAs for the smaller sections. No matter who teaches, sit at the front to be recognized (sitting at the back means nobody will know you exist and it can be pretty alienating) and go-to every single class unless you have a fever. A hangover is no excuse.
The professor gives you a syllabus on the first day. You must enter all the information on it into your planner and reverse plan what you’ll need to do to be ready for each exam. Scedule rhevturoong/review sessions ahead of time to able sure you’ll have a spot. The professor may or may not remind you of the dates - after all, you’re in college, you can read, you got the syllabus, it’s your responsibility to know when something is due and when you have an exam.
An AP class covers content for 5 periods a week, over 10 months with frequent checks.
The college class will cover the same content in three periods a week over four months. Your first check will likely be after two or three eels and will impact your final grade a lot so that if you took it easy those first few weeks you lost precious, easy points to get, as it’ll only get harder and more intense later in the semester. By the 7th week, over 20 class periods or so, you’ve covered what would take you a full semester to cover in an AP class. So it’s crucial you hit the ground running and resist the temptation of following classmates who go and party during the week. (Most of these won’t make it during midterms and many will drop out.)
Try to take a couple classes that aren’t big lecture halls - English, freshman seminar, foreign language. Those will have more personal attention and will help ground you, make friends, and learn differently.
The big weedout class is finite math-see if you can take it at ivytech over the summer.
It honestly depends on the various courses and types of professors I’ve had. But almost all my profs have been great. I would definitely recommend making full use of office hours.
Lots of your interactions at a large university will be with TAs, especially for intro classes.
College is not high school.
The responsibility is far more on the learner than the teacher.
So the question is this: have they accepted students who will do what’s necessary to master the material?