I am thinking about going to William and Mary but I am very worried about the work load and if I will be able to handle it. I worked pretty hard in high school but a lot of things were pretty easy for me and honestly, sometimes I can be a bit lazy. I am planning on majoring in government and would like to know what the work load would look like and how overwhelming it can be. Thanks!
Hi college4821!
Glad that you are interested in William & Mary! It just so happens that I am currently a government major William & Mary. I just declared this semester, but I only have a few more classes to go before finishing up my major. Government is one of the most popular majors at William & Mary, and for good reason, there are many different avenues you can take with government and there are many different ways to get involved in research projects or other things you might be interested in.
As for the government major itself, it is as easy or as hard as you make it. There is a great deal of flexibility woven into the curriculum, so aside from a few core classes most of the courses will be chosen by you. This means you can take classes in things like state and local politics, environmental-related classes, public policy, international relations, economic policy, you name it. So depending on your interests there will likely be easier and harder classes, but that shouldn’t mean you should shy away from them. Some of the best classes I have taken have ended up being the most challenging, but at the same time most rewarding.
Probably the only difficult core class I would say is necessarily difficult is Intro to Comparative Politics, which is more so because of the nature of the professor than the course itself. It is more on the intense side with a good amount of content to know before each test. Most of the courses are generally set up in a way where you have a couple of papers a semester, participation, possibly some homework, and alternatively substituting some the papers with a midterm or final depending on the nature of the class. Unlike high school, you likely will not have homework due each class, but it is up to you to keep up with the readings which make up the bulk of assignments aside from papers,
I would say mix up some of the government classes that you are taking with some test-based courses and some paper-based courses. As long as you do that, I think the coursework is very manageable. The experience will likely be different for every person depending on your background in high school, but like you when coming into college I was nervous about the workload and whatnot because I also came from a high school where I thought things were relatively easy and I hadn’t necessarily fully developed certain study skills. But what I have found in college is that I have been doing better because I really enjoy what I am studying and because you honestly have more free time because you are not taking as many classes/don’t have regular due-tomorrow assignments. Of course I wouldn’t recommend pushing them off until the last minute, but you have a great deal of freedom in how you arrange your time.
In short, I have enjoyed my time here at the College so far and I have found time to do plenty of other things outside the classroom. The most overwhelming moment I would say is if you have put off multiple papers that are due in the same week off until the day they are due, but you learn to manage your time. Either that or you develop the ability to be really good at writing papers from scratch in a short time. Not that I have done that or anything. In all seriousness though, I have found the workload here is pretty manageable and I would encourage you to apply if interested
Let me know if you have any further questions
current humanities major here. the work load isn’t half bad if you have proper time management skills, as noted by the poster above me. people here tend to waste absurd amounts of time “studying”–procrastinating in a variety of ways–then complain when they have a paper due the next day. entitlement when it comes to grades–despite lack of full effort–is rampant on campus, but that’s a rant for another day.
depending on your major, it’s still entirely possible to breeze through material without much effort. it’s impossible to generalize your expected workload, as it varies between schedules, but most students are not studying 6 hours/day. business majors, for example, get Fridays off and have block scheduling & differing grading policies. polisci is one of the more flexible majors, as noted above, so it shouldn’t be an issue at all.
be strategic with course registration and play to your strengths, e.g. not taking too many courses with exams if they’re not your thing (you’ll know after a semester, same goes for papers). avoid courses with group projects and TA-graded assignments. don’t take all reading-heavy courses unless you’re prepared to be reading hundreds of pages/week, and in general expect participation & attendance to count for smaller courses. use syllabus week to “window shop” and attend interesting courses that you’re not signed up for, view assignment due dates, & request overrides if the courses work well for you. most important, at least for me, is taking courses that match my interests, as i’m more likely to not fall behind on readings if i’m actually looking forward to doing them. in summary: plan accordingly and you’ll be fine.
as noted above, entering academic ability varies with background and there is no way to tell whether it’ll be more or less work than high school–i’ve seen people say both. in my case, HS required pretty much no effort despite the hardest schedules, while w&m is more demanding due to the higher quantity of reading assignments & no feeling of security when it comes to class averages (due to no homework & the higher weighting of final exams/papers). with proper study techniques, e.g. outlining or skimming instead of taking actual notes, time spent on reading can be greatly reduced. just know what you need to know for each class, based on whether or not you have quizzes / participation grades, and adapt as needed. in the end, it’s all about balancing your work.