<p>Hello All,</p>
<p>I recently e-mailed my faculty advisor and he suggested either doing a honors senior thesis or taking a lower division graduate course. </p>
<p>At first I was like: huh?
And then I was like: O_o</p>
<p>Has anyone on here taken graduate level courses as an undergrad? What was your experience and how is it different from undergrad? </p>
<p>Anything is helpful. :)</p>
<p>At my university, students considering graduate school were strongly encouraged to take at least one graduate-level course. </p>
<p>If you can’t do both, I’d recommend the thesis over the graduate course, though.</p>
<p>
<ol>
<li><p>More emphasis on essays, less emphasis on exams.</p></li>
<li><p>A LOT more reading and discussion.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>took a graduate course last year as a sophomore. more challenging than most other courses, but if you can succeed in upper level courses at your current institution you shouldn’t be out of your league for grad courses (provided the course is within your area of study), at least from my experience</p>
<p>At Stanford, students very often take grad-level courses. It’s good for grad school applications, obviously.</p>
<p>I’d agree with the above re: differences. Grad courses tend to meet less often but for a longer time. They also tend to be small and discussion is more common. There curriculum is often less strict and more based on what the professor wants to assign (though in the more popular classes, the syllabus is more set). There’s less busy work, but more reading. There’s less emphasis on exams, though in my experience the replacement is projects. It depends on what class you take.</p>
<p>Grad courses tend be be easier in term of grading. Everyone seems to get B+ or higher.</p>
<p>asian75 is right. I actually found graduate level classes to be less work than upper division undergrad classes so I ended up taking quite a few.</p>