3 ms·

There are, I think, three big hurdles for freshmen in college: First, college can be a very abrupt shift from "someone is watching over you" to "you, and only

There are, I think, three big hurdles for freshmen in college: First, college can be a very abrupt shift from "someone is watching over you" to "you, and only you, are responsible for yourself." If you slack off in high school, someone--your parents, your teachers, your school administration--is likely to get on your ass to put you back on track, and this is more likely to be the case for people who get into tougher colleges ("helicopter parents" are very real things). But in college, if you sleep in and miss all of your classes... no one is going to care. Well, your parents might, but your parents aren't with you in college to do anything about it. I've seen quite a few people who went from straight A's in high school to failing most of their college courses because of this. Second, a lot of those accepted are going to be the smartest person in their class, who are now going to a college where they might be average--or even below average. Finally, college courses are generally more difficult than a high school course, even an AP course, teaching the same material; there's just a lot more that's expected as students. Freshmen courses generally mitigate this somewhat to help ease in students, but by the time you get to a senior-level course, reading multiple research papers a day for per class is considered pretty normal. Of course, if you're a kid with a truckload of AP courses who let you skip your first year of college, now you're dropped into courses that expect you to have already adjusted to college life first.

atomicnumber3 2mo ago
"Freshmen courses generally mitigate this somewhat to help ease in students" Interesting, that's not my observation at all. Instead freshman classes were the most grueling experiences, intentionally weed-out classes to try to detect and, well, weed-out early those who wouldn't have the combination of grit, intelligence and organization skills to make it to the end of the degree. I speak somewhat hyperbolically, it was never _unfair_, but the classes absolutely were paced and had homework/exam loads that you would simply be unable to cope with if you were trying to half-ass it. At my college, Calc I and Physics 1 were the big freshman showstoppers. I tested out of calc 1, but my IB HL was chemistry and as such I had a chemist's disdain (and begrudging respect) for the more academic science of physics, and while the actual topics weren't difficult, there was a LOT of homework and the exams left no stone unturned. Comparatively, jr+ classes tended to be much more relaxed, focused more on learning the material than ensuring you are willing to do 8-10 hours of physics homework per week. Every college is different though, I suppose.
- jghn 2mo ago
  This was a few decades ago but we had 2 tiers of weed outs. The first was the intro classes that most everyone took their freshman year. Then there was another wave that was major specific and tended to show up 2nd semester of sophomore year into 1st semester of junior year, essentially the point where coursework was shifting almost entirely to be major specific. So for instance, one of the notorious freshman weed out classes was a class that *every* engineering student took. But then each individual engineering major had their own handful of pain in the ass classes that showed up as the engineering curriculum diverged.
  - thedougd 2mo ago
    Same experience in 2000s. I’ll never forget there was a kid on his third try to pass the mandatory Intro to Engineering class. I sure hope he moved on to a new major.
AndrewKemendo 2mo ago
All of this has been true for at least two generations That’s what college life was like for me in a top 10 US school in 2003-2008 and was true of that school since 1954.
pj_mukh 2mo ago
All of this has been true for the last 50 years at least? What changed?

atomicnumber3 2mo ago

"Freshmen courses generally mitigate this somewhat to help ease in students" Interesting, that's not my observation at all. Instead freshman classes were the most grueling experiences, intentionally weed-out classes to try to detect and, well, weed-out early those who wouldn't have the combination of grit, intelligence and organization skills to make it to the end of the degree. I speak somewhat hyperbolically, it was never _unfair_, but the classes absolutely were paced and had homework/exam loads that you would simply be unable to cope with if you were trying to half-ass it. At my college, Calc I and Physics 1 were the big freshman showstoppers. I tested out of calc 1, but my IB HL was chemistry and as such I had a chemist's disdain (and begrudging respect) for the more academic science of physics, and while the actual topics weren't difficult, there was a LOT of homework and the exams left no stone unturned. Comparatively, jr+ classes tended to be much more relaxed, focused more on learning the material than ensuring you are willing to do 8-10 hours of physics homework per week. Every college is different though, I suppose.

jghn 2mo ago
This was a few decades ago but we had 2 tiers of weed outs. The first was the intro classes that most everyone took their freshman year. Then there was another wave that was major specific and tended to show up 2nd semester of sophomore year into 1st semester of junior year, essentially the point where coursework was shifting almost entirely to be major specific. So for instance, one of the notorious freshman weed out classes was a class that *every* engineering student took. But then each individual engineering major had their own handful of pain in the ass classes that showed up as the engineering curriculum diverged.
- thedougd 2mo ago
  Same experience in 2000s. I’ll never forget there was a kid on his third try to pass the mandatory Intro to Engineering class. I sure hope he moved on to a new major.

AndrewKemendo 2mo ago

All of this has been true for at least two generations That’s what college life was like for me in a top 10 US school in 2003-2008 and was true of that school since 1954.

pj_mukh 2mo ago

All of this has been true for the last 50 years at least? What changed?