What is it like at a university?

Question

Im in the 8th grade, and I plan on going to college when I am older. I just had some questions about college. Is a university like high school, or middle school? How do you learn at a college? Are there any required classes you must take in order to graduate? How big can some classes be? Do you make up your own schedule?

Answer 1

College is like a big high school (some people never grow up) except for the fact that you have so much more freedom. Well, ofcourse YOU CHOOSE to go there in the first place. You choose what you wear, you choose if you want to come to class or not, you choose what classes you want to take, what time you want to take them, and you even choose if you want to do your homework or not. Personally, I think it's stupid that people in college think it's "cool" to skip class and not do their work...they, or im sorry, their mommies and daddies, pay way too much money for them to slack off. Sorry, that is a little off the subject. But with that said, you should come to class and do your homework. Although it is not required and you don't get sent to detention for not doing it, it's very hard to pass a class without it. So, it's more like you come to the lecture, you take notes, you go home and read and do whatever you need to do to understand and then you take a test, and that is usually all you get graded on. Ofcourses, some classes have assignments like group projects, essays, and homework for a participation grade, but not very often...it depends on the class.

Your first 2 years at college (if youre doing a bachelors 4 years 120 hours) will be your basic classes. Those will depend on what you want to go into. If you go into the business field, you will take different basic classes from someone who goes into the science field. The basic classes are not TOO different, but some are. There are 60 hours of those..and it's 3 hours per class..so it's 20 classes in all you have to take.
After those 60 hours, you will have your upper classes to take. Those are basically for your major. Lets say you want to go into biology..well they will mostly only be science and biology classes.

So when you enter college, you get this advisory sheet that has a list of all of the courses you need to graduate. You take that sheet and make a schedule out of it every semester. You get to choose what to take and what time you want to take it and how many classes you want to take...4 classes is considered a good load. I always take 5 or 6 depending on difficulty.

I go to a big university (20000 people), so my basic classes were pretty big, about 100-200 people or more in each class. But now that I'm in my upper classes they can be anywhere from 30-100 people. That's really different from high school.

Just overall, don't be intimidated. And don't listen to your teachers when they try to scare you about how much work you're going to have to do to succeed in college. It's all a bunch of crap. Sure there is some work, yes some of it is hard, but no you will not spend 10 hours with a book every day or write 100 page essays on a regular basis. If you want some help to prepare yourself better though, start taking AP classes in school. It will really help. They push you on purpose to get you prepared for the reading and listening to the lectures and whatnot.
Good luck....

Answer 2

I just started my freshman year of college and it's definitely not like middle or high school. You do have to read a lot, that's one thing I noticed. So studying for class isn't all that hard if you don't mind reading, but it does take up a lot of time.
And yeah, there's typically classes that are required but that would depend on what college you go to. My school has general education requirements that include one course each in history, humanties, intro to literature, rhetoric, quantitive or formal reasoning (basically math or a class related to logic), 2 science courses including one with a lab, and then like a few other classes too. But every school will be different with what they require.
And the size also depends on what school. I go to a large university with nearly 30,000 students, so lectures can be in the hundreds and then like my discussion sections or other classes tend to be about 20-30 people. But I assume a smaller college is going to not have classes that are as big.
And yes, you make up your own schedule, you get to pick your own classes and the time/days and everything, so there's a lot of flexibility.

EDIT: I also want to add, that the person below is not necessarily correct when they say math is required everywhere. Like I said, my school does require one quantitive or formal reasoning course and that can be math, but also for that requirement there's choices like computer science or principles of reasoning.

Answer 3

There are about 2000 colleges and universities in the USA. Some are very big, with many 1000s of students. And some are quite small. Some are in the city, and some in small towns in the country. Some have beautiful campuses with lawns and trees, and some are in big buildings. Some mainly teach very practical things, like how to build machines or how to take care of animals. Some teach a lot of things that are interesting, but not as practical, like ancient history or how to look at a painting and know what artist painted it.

Some colleges have all the students live at the college. Some have students who mostly live at home or in apartments away from the school. Some teach most of the courses inthe day, and others have a lot of courses at night so that people can work in the day and have money, and study in the evening when they have free time.



If you are a fairly good student and get mostly Bs or better, then you will be able to go to college and get Bs in college. The course are harder there, but you will be older and be able to handle it!

Keep up the good work in school and you will find a college that is good for you. You can talk to your friends older brothers and sisters and ask them about what they do in college, or to your teachers - every one of them went to college so they know what its like.

Answer 4

college is nothing like high school or middle school. you take classes according to your major(what you choose to be/do). and yes, to some extent you choose your own schedule, as long as the classes you want are available at the times you want.

also, will be to your advantage to go to a 2 yr(community) college then the university. that way you get the required courses out of the way at a smaller school.

when i went to phoenix community college, enrollment was about 3000. i graduated then went to arizona state university where enrollment was about 30,000. big difference.

if you go straight to a university, classes like english and other required subjects will have like 400 students. if you go to cc more like 30-40 per class. hard to take a class in an auditorium with the professor walking around talking on a megaphone.

the biggest difference from high school to college, is you are there because you choose to be, not because the law requires you to, makes a really big difference in your outlook.

good luck!!!

Answer 5

A college/university is very different from high school or middle school. From what I gather is that:

The college tells you what classes are offered during what semester/quarter and you have to use that information to make a schedule

Computer classes usually aren't required. English, History, and Math are required everywhere, and very rarely you will find a college that doesn't require science. It all depends on your major.

for differences between high school and college, get an account on makingitcount.com (you'll learn a lot from this site). It also gives you a lot of information about how to survive high school.

Answer 6

depends on the school. every school is different.

there are all sorts of required classes. usually there is a core of classes that everyone does, then people branch off into what they major in. then you do the required classes for your major --and then you graduate with that degree. and that degree gets you into more school or a job or whatever you want.

most degrees will be enough for lots of jobs. some jobs need a specific degree --like nursing, engineering, ect.

there are all different colleges too. there are small schools, big schools. ivy league schools like harvard and yale. there are all girls schools, all boys schools. there are christian schools. there are very expensive schools, there are state universities that tend to be less expensive.

then there are scholarships and loans to pay for school.

if you take the psats and do really well on them you can get scholarships to college so try to do well when they come up. . .

a tough part about college is that for the most part --noone holds your hand. if you need help you have to be the one to go and ask for it --from a tudor or a teacher or in finding other students to study with. . .

best of luck to you!!!

Answer 7

I'll leave it to the younger folks to talk about classes and the like. I'll tell you this. They aren't going to chase you around to make sure you do your assignments in college. They figure that you are an adult and should act like one. You go to class if you want to, you do your reports if you want to. If you don't get them done, or don't get the material covered in class, you go home and work at Wal-Mart.

I think college is best if you have a love of learning. Love of money is only good for so long. A love of learning lasts for ever and enough money will come.

Find something to do that you love.

Answer 8

University is more like high school than middle school. Unlike high school, you generally don't go to the same classes every day. Each class meets regularly on its own schedule. Most classes are lectures and you learn by taking notes while the professor lectures and by reading from one or more assigned textbooks. There are some standard courses that most curricula require in the same general fields of study you have in high school: English, math, history, and science. Classes can be anywhere from a half dozen people to several hundred, where the former occurs mostly in higher-level classes in a specific department and the latter in lower-level courses that are commonly required by many majors (likely due to schools wishing to retain accreditation from specific institutions that place restrictions on what they must teach). Classes generally range from 1 to 3 hours and meet 1-3 times per week. You do make your own schedule, but it partially depends on when courses are offered. Higher-level courses may only have one section available that meets on specific days at a specific time, which limits what sections of other courses you may be able to take. You will have more flexibility when taking lower-level courses, as they more commonly have more sections available at varying days and times during each week. At the university I attend, students are assigned an adviser within their department which they must meet with at the end of every semester to discuss their planned schedule for the next semester. The adviser helps the student to pick courses and ensures that the courses taken can be applied to their degree. This practice depends on what university you attend, however. Another variance is the availability of professors to answer questions outside of class. Some universities require professors to maintain office hours in which you can visit them to ask questions, some don't. One big difference in college is that no one is there to hold your hand: how well you do is entirely constituted by your own responsibility for getting schoolwork done and doing well on exams and projects. Given that you're asking this question so early on, though, I believe you have such a level of responsibility and will likely do well when it comes time to attend college. I would advise you to take the highest level of courses in high school that you can. This will do several things: 1) prepare you for the difficulty level of college work; and 2) review material that you will likely see again in college. Take high-level math and science courses, try to get in advanced placement courses, etc. Take the SAT (if you live in the north) or ACT (if you live in the south) as many times as possible before your senior year, as it will speed up the process of applying to colleges. Apply to the schools you prefer, but also a few "back up" schools in case you aren't accepted to your preferences. The same goes for financial aid: apply for scholarships wherever you can. Sometimes the state government in your resident state will help to fund your college tuition if you go to a school in-state. Take loans out only as a last resort. While in college, try to get a low-level part-time job that relates to the field you want to go into. When you get out of school with your degree and experience, you're more likely to find a job. Best of luck to you.

Answer 9

Well Chris alot of those things depend on the school you choose.
In college you get to major in your favorite subject though, how cool is that. Say you like math but you don't like english or something you still have to take english :( . The teachers don't remind you to do your homework: you do it, or you flunk.