<p>My son is a freshman this year. He loves everything about the school: the classes, professors, friends. However, when I heard from him today, he told me he's reading 1000 + pages a week and up every night till the wee hours with no end in sight. I know he'll figure it out, but just wanted to know if any other parents are hearing the same thing from their kids. I also posted this in the college specific website, but wanted to hear from parents as well.</p>
<p>What is his major? 1000 pages seems like a lot each week. Thinking back I would guess I had to read about half of that when I was in college on a bad week freshman year taking biology, chemistry US History and Philosophy first semester.</p>
<p>My kids were Computer Science majors - now that’s a lot of work!</p>
<p>erm…that sounds like he may be actually reading every single page that his instructors are telling him to. Most professors will assign alot of reading even if the reading isn’t necessary to get a 4.0 in the course. </p>
<p>What many students figure out is how to skim and/or only read when they absolutely have to. </p>
<p>Also, sounds like he may be exaggerating a little ;), but regardless my advice still stands.</p>
<p>Good to know I wasn’t the only one who got a call like that today. My daughter is a freshman and just called saying she was “overwhelmed” with work. She’s stressing about her Italian 102 level class. Even after taking three years of Italian in high school, she is lost. Granted, the high school teacher didn’t teach much and she was no where near fluent. But total immersion language learning is proving difficult for her. She also is having a difficult time in Math, never her best subject. This is a lower level class, not remedial but not calculus, taught by a TA from China she can’t understand and who just assigns problems to do on the computer, spending about 10 minutes of the the 60 minute class going over things on the board. I knew college would be difficult for her, not because she’s not intelligent, she is. She managed all A’s in high school with no studying and no extra effort. She expects everything to come just as easily even though I warned her college was a new ballgame. I hope she can start managing her time well and realize that she is going to have to really work for the first time in her life.</p>
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<p>If he’s taking 4 classes, that’s around 250 pages of reading a week. A bit early to have that, but not too out of the ordinary based on my own undergrad experience and those of classmates. Especially if the student is majoring in fields like history, poli-sci, literature, etc. </p>
<p>Personally, my freshman year reading load wasn’t that high…but came close. I did have a semester where just 2 of my classes had reading loads closer to the 1500 pages/week mark. </p>
<p>Just out of curiosity, what school is he attending?</p>
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<p>I actually did successfully read every single page of assigned readings during my undergrad years. Granted, a large part of that was that I tend to read fast and I had such strong interest in the readings I’ve been known to forget to eat for an entire day.</p>
<p>Even then, I still had much more free time than in high school despite working a part-time job and participating in some ECs.</p>
<p>If he is attending a quarter college system there is a high probability that he IS reading 1,000 pages a week if he’s in some majors. Back in the day, we used to whine that we read in 10 weeks, what the neighboring state university read in 15 weeks. The organic chem kids complained even louder.</p>
<p>College isn’t necessarily “harder” for many kids but it clips right along.</p>
<p>Some courses do require a lot of reading, if you take a bunch together it can be pretty overwhelming. My son was in one class as a freshman notorious for having close to a 1000 pages all by itself. Students in that class divvied up the reading and made outlines for each other. My son, who reads very fast, did read almost all of it, but still found it helpful that he could skim some and rely on notes to see what he might like to go back to and read more carefully. </p>
<p>I used to go to French table in my house headed by a teacher I liked very much. I always wanted to take her Proust courses, but I just couldn’t face the thought of the reading involved which would have required reading a volume every single week in French. My French was fluent, but I simply don’t read very fast in French.</p>
<p>He is an international affairs major at Georgetown and taking 16 hours of classes like philosophy, history, spanish, economics and some kind of seminar class that requires lots of writing and reading. Yes, he might be exaggerating 
and my parting comment to him was I know you will figure it out , but I feel better voicing my concerns. Thanks for listening:)</p>
<p>Sometimes students overdo it on loading themselves up with classes in the first semester/quarter. It’s really best if they take a somewhat lighter load the very first semester so they can adjust to the college lifestyle as well as get a concept of what the workload is going to be like. Unfortunately a lot of students are fresh from being proud of themselves for being admitted to the college and may be full of ambition and excitement, which isn’t a bad thing, but in doing so they sign up for too much without realizing it’s not the same as HS.</p>
<p>He’ll likely be more careful in what he signs up for next semester.</p>
<p>Agree totally! Lots of lessons to be learned</p>
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Bwaaarrrrgghh, don’t discourage the readings! I’m teaching a College Physics course right now and one of the main ideas is that they have to read the sections BEFORE class and that I don’t give formal lectures on the material. It only amounts to around 25 pages a week, but if they don’t read it thoroughly it will destroy the whole plan. You’re not helping me!!</p>
<p>Sylvan### - what do you do instead of formal lectures? How big is your class?</p>
<p>D2 is taking philosophy, greek classics, history, writing seminar (required for all freshmen), spanish and macro econ. She also has a lot of reading and was struggling with macro without micro. She called to “ask” for permission to drop econ. We all told her to drop it, including D1. Econ was taking up a lot of her time. She sounded happier yesterday. D2 is enjoying her classes, especially philosophy and classics.</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure my S’s didn’t read 1000 pages/week. They went to big state u’s.</p>
<p>I think it can vary, depending on the institution, but my D has spent a LOT of time studying, whether it is reading or problem sets. At her school it seems to be the norm. When she started as a freshman I thought maybe it was the change from her urban public high school to a selective private liberal arts college and she just needed to adjust, but she’s a senior now and it’s been that way the whole time. She noticed when she did study abroad last spring at a different institution the workload was lighter.</p>
<p>My son (soph) can easily have that much reading in a week (Poly Sci major/history minor) along with several papers to write. </p>
<p>And, imo, it is very important to do all the reading as most of the courses have only two exams and usually blue book ones - where the student will be asked to apply (or it will be necessary to apply) several of the readings to answer the questions - even though the reading was never mentioned in the lecture. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, this method is rarely applied in high school, where frequent multiple choice exams, based on memorization, are the norm. Thus, a lot of kids are ill prepared for this type of workload and how to study for these types of courses.</p>
<p>laserp, my D’s boyfriend was in that program, and he had a lot of work throughout his 4 years. I remember one semester he wrote a huge number of papers! There were several other things about the program, but that was one factor that made her glad Gtown rejected her! He will adjust, but the workload may not get much easier.</p>
<p><quote>She called to “ask” for permission to drop econ. We all told her to drop it, including D1.</quote></p>
<p>I think new students don’t often think of “dropping” a class during their freshman year, afterall never had to during high school. Sometimes it’s the smartest thing to do, so that you can do well on the remaining classes (avoid overload and burn out) and get off to a good start during your first quarter/semester in college. </p>
<p>Last year, my D struggled through her classes and burned out. By Spring, made the choice to take fewer classes and did better.</p>
<p>She too, “asked permission to drop” - but it was too close to finals week.</p>
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<p>That would be an extremely heavy load at my LAC and if some aren’t 1-2 credit type courses with extremely light workloads, would probably not be allowed for anyone, especially freshmen unless the academic Dean at the college authorized an override over the 16 credit maximum. Assuming they were not 1-2 credit courses, this would be a probable credit breakdown at my LAC’s college division:</p>
<p>philosophy - 3
Greek Classics - 3
History - 3-4
writing seminar - 3
macro econ - 3
spanish - 5 credits(first-second year)/3 credits (3rd year and after)</p>
<p>Add them all up and it would be 18 credits at the absolute minimum which would only be possible if the language is at an advanced level and 21 credits at the most. </p>
<p>Unless the student is unusually gifted or persuasive, it is extremely unlikely my LAC’s academic dean in the college would approve such a high course load for a student…especially for a freshman.</p>