<p>Hi folks -</p>
<p>Father of an aspiring 2018 grad wondering whether Study Groups exist these days.
I'd welcome hearing from anyone who has input on the topic. </p>
<p>Particulars regarding course topics, year (freshman, sophomore ...) and school especially welcome, as are anecdotal insights.</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>In my daughter’s experience some teachers create homework groups - they want the group to submit one copy of the homework and the group is together for the entire semester. This makes the professor’s life easier (fewer homework copies to grade). The homework group can (if the members want it to) become a study group. (BTW she goes to a large university and this has happened in Economics classes)</p>
<p>Well, I’ve been in a few study groups arranged by other students. I’m currently a sophomore, and thus far I’ve had regular study groups in German and a couple of my CS classes, and “before an exam” groups in…a lot of classes. In the case of CS, the study groups started as a homework/project group (as kiddie mentions) and turned into study groups a couple weeks into the quarter. German started out as chatting with a few people in the class and then deciding to start studying together. For the others, generally someone posts in the class chat/forum that they’ll be in a certain location at a certain time and anyone is free to drop by, and people trickle in and out as they’re available.</p>
<p>Thus far I’ve had one professor that strongly encourages study groups by putting up a class chat specifically for people searching for one to join. This professor is my chemistry professor for next quarter, and sure enough I’ve already contacted a few people and we’re planning to try meeting up within the first couple weeks and meet regularly from there. Whether that will actually happen or not, we’ll see.</p>
<p>Long story short, at my school they do exist but you have to take the initiative. Even in the case of homework/project groups, it’s up to you to find a partner and some professors don’t require that you do find one if you’d rather work alone.</p>
<p>I should mention, I go to a large university.</p>
<p>I work at a two-year school/daughter is in a four-year LAC, and study groups are big at both institutions. In addition, former tutors at my college have gotten tutoring gigs at the local state university. Study groups are ‘in’ and encouraged to help students learn to manage time, learn to hear diversity of ideas, learn the material, and just in general, ‘learn how to learn.’ My only negative memory of this was on a tour we did at a small LAC in the Midwest where the student campus tour guide basically dissed the entire NOTION of visiting a tutor or needing assistance. She made it sound like only ‘dummies’ would go ask for help. I mentally crossed the school off the list, and luckily my kid did, too. My daughter uses tutors in just about every college class she has (and study groups)… tutors working in classrooms is also ‘big’ on some campuses. One way to check it out for the schools your son/daughter may attend is to go onto their websites and plug in words like ‘tutoring’ or ‘learning center’ or ‘writing center’ or ‘math center’ / ‘math tutoring’ or ‘study groups’ and see what pops up. Purdue’s Online Writing Lab (affectionately known as OWL) is used in thousands of teacher/class/learning center links around this nation and probably the world. Tutoring – be it individual tutoring or helping lead study groups-- is ‘in’… and peer tutoring options are also great on-campus jobs, be it small college or big state u. Those are my thoughts/insights on it. It’s great you are asking about it now!! :)</p>
<p>My D is at Harvey Mudd, and she says it is “one big study group”. Everyone is taking the same classes for the first two years because of the core. Along with formal tutoring sessions organized with older students, she says you can ALWAYS find a group of students working on the same material on a given day. They often hang out in groups working problem sets or lab write-ups.</p>
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<p>I’ve had this in a few classes but in my experience it’s pretty rare for problem-set type homework. I think this will definitely be very dependent on the school and department. </p>
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<p>I’ve also had this in a few classes, but again, I’d say it was pretty rare and when it was there wasn’t well utilized. People often just talk to others in the class. Like whoever they happen to be sitting next to or whoever they already know.</p>
<p>I’ve always had study groups of some form for every class that wasn’t completely trivial. Sometimes I would meet up with people to do the homework and to do all the studying for a class. Sometimes we would do the homework independently but be able to call up a few others if we had trouble with it and just call if we had a question with studying. Sometimes it was a hybrid of those two. </p>
<p>Generally, the harder the course material the closer the study group will be.</p>
<p>My son is a freshman at Georgia Tech. He said he had more than one study group for his hard classes. I know that may sound excessive but for example in Calc II he had a study group with kids in his class but also had a study group with friends that were taking Calc II with a different professors. The theory was that even though they may not have the same quizzes or tests they all had to learn the same basic material… It seems at Georgia Tech the kids try and learn together because it’s not an easy school to go.</p>
<p>I’ve been involved in several study groups, and I’ve personally started two of them. I’ve had study groups for almost every math class I’ve been in so far during college. I had one for physics this last semester. They’re a very effective way of studying. I usually end up playing more of a ‘leading’ role in the study groups I’ve been involved in, but I find that incredibly beneficial too. Having to explain things to people helps me to better understand it myself.</p>
<p>I’m also a math tutor, and this same fact is one of the things I love about doing it. By helping people, I’m helping myself.</p>
<p>I create my own study groups and have seen plenty in the library. None of my professors have actively helped us but encourage it for harder classes.</p>
<p>I’ve experienced a good range of study group attitudes throughout my 3 semesters at my regional research university, and I’d assume it’s similar at other types of institutions. </p>
<p>For some classes, nobody talks to anyone. You sometimes clarify something together right before class starts, but unless you have a friend going in or really befriend someone, everyone’s pretty much on their own. </p>
<p>I also had a philosophy class where my professor held a review session before every exam, so she kind of made her own study group. Practically the whole class would show up, and we’d work through all the ideas together. </p>
<p>One of my French professors had us sign a sheet of paper if we were interested in a discussion group outside of class, and she then emailed everyone on the list and encouraged us to make it happen. (it never did, though. I tried, but no one would come. I even brought cookies!) </p>
<p>Also, in my writing and rhetoric classes, we’re all very close because there’s only 10-15 students per class and we’ve all had classes with each other before, so we frequently meet up in the library or student center to discuss our readings. We also hang out outside our classroom’s building and pow wow about classmates or professors. It’s rather fun. 
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<p>Also, before tests, I usually study with a couple people in my class the night before, especially if they live on campus. </p>
<p>So, I think it totally depends on the student and the program. If it’s a smaller program, everyone will know each other and can have an easier time getting together. Bigger programs might be harder to get to know everyone, but I’m sure you can still find a good group of friends to study with.</p>