<p>I'm going to be a freshman this year and I'm currently enrolling for fall courses and I need to take a certain amount of gen ed courses at the honors level to remain in the honors program. However, I've already completed the majority of my general ed courses at my town's local community college. Being in the honors program at my college, it's really limited my choices in which honors courses I can take since I already took the gen ed ones so now only 300 level courses are left. I'm required to take a certain number each year so I already signed-up for one since I'm not sure how many will be available for the spring semester.</p>
<p>Is there anything specific I should expect from a 300 level course? It's a humanities class so I'm not sure what level of writing I should be ready for in the fall. </p>
<p>In my experience, 300-level courses have typically more writing (and longer essays) that may not be scaffolded as much. So, for example, if you have a final 6-8 page paper in an 100 level class, you might have to turn in thesis statements or proposals a couple of weeks before hand; that may not exist in a 300-level class, and the final paper may be 8-10 pages (or longer!). There might also be an expectation that you know more of the terms/major theories/ideas specific to the field.</p>
<p>The writing I’ve done in upper-level classes has also had just higher expectations-- papers are expected to be well-researched, with original and clear theses, and the expectation is that one already knows how to write well. There are expectations that you’ve broken away from the five-paragraph essay or a list essay and that all paragraphs work together to form a coherent claim.</p>
<p>In my experience number level doesn’t dictate difficulty. I took a Sociology 300 level class without having taken sociology 101 and that was one of the easiest courses that I’ve ever taken. My freshman year, I placed into 300 level French and I made an A in it easily.</p>
<p>I’d imagine it would be much more difficult if it were say a science course…</p>
<p>I’ve never taken a 100 class, only 300 classes and up and they’ve varied greatly. One 300 class was really easy with minimal work and another 300 class had a lot of reading and writing. The difference was most likely due to the difference in course material (i.e. economics versus philosophy). </p>
<p>You can’t really tell anything from the number. At my school, this typically just means that 100 level are gen-ed non-major specific classes, 200, 300, 400 are usually targeted for a particular major but that doesn’t always hold. You can’t come up with any idea of difficulty based on the number alone, there’s no easily discernible correlation. </p>
<p>Definitely talk to your advisor because I would not be wary of taking a 300 level class my freshman year. Heck, I took a 400 level class my freshman year! Numbers are no more than a way to organize classes it seems at my school. </p>
<p>I say be wary because i have read many a story on CC where someone took lots of AP classes and then too many advanced classes freshman year and got terrible grades.</p>
<p>300 isn’t necessarily more “advanced” than a 100 level class. This is highly school and department dependent. I took a 500-level class my freshman year. Had no prerequisites if I remember correctly (or if it did, it was like Calc 1 or something). And it was easier than plenty of 100 or 200 level classes I took. </p>
<p>A 300 level class at my university would carry the expectation that you are already familiar with the general overview of the field given in the 100 level classes in our major. The work would not necessarily be more difficult, but there would be less “busywork” and a more sophisticated level of analysis expected. As an upper level class, you can expect less hand-holding by the prof in terms of reminders about due dates, study guides, etc. YMMV.</p>
<p>This is school and department dependent. I’m not aware of any department at Michigan where this was the paradigm and many cases where this was clearly not used. </p>
<p>I was deeply curious about this since I was worried about the workload. I had the option between that class or another but due to transportation issues, I decided on this humanities course instead.</p>