Difficulty compared to High School

[indianjatt]

My question is the difficulty of college compared to high school. I know the general consensus will say it depends person to person and where you go as well as professors, etc. But, overall what is the pattern you have seen yourself in your own experience.

For example I have a cousin who went to a school in the same district as mine and went on to go to UC Berkeley and is now in Haas, which is likely very difficult because of it being a good business program and because it is UC Berkeley. From his experience, he said college is different but it's actually easier than high school (forgot his reasoning).

If you guys can write your experiences I would appreciate it or if you want tell me about the difficulty compared to high school of these schools:
UCLA
UCB
UCSD
UCD
UCI
Northwestern
Duke
Rice
Lewis and Clark?
Santa Clara..... Maybe

If this makes a difference, I am asking about Biology/the Pre Med track specifically.

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[schrizto]

I am not at one of the schools you listed but I got into Northwestern, visited and was given a lot of information on Biology, Communication Sciences and Disorders, and the pre-med track.

Northwestern's pre-med weeds people out, so the students that make it through the curriculum often end up at some of the finest medical schools in the nation. Their organic chemistry class is supposed to be the hardest in the country, and until recently some NU students took organic chemistry at Harvard over the summer to avoid NU's own class. This was put to a stop when NU decided they wouldn't accept credits for organic chemistry from any institution other than their own. I kept running into NU students who said "I was pre-med, but now I'm ______ instead." 😱

 

[indianjatt]

I am not at one of the schools you listed but I got into Northwestern, visited and was given a lot of information on Biology, Communication Sciences and Disorders, and the pre-med track.

Northwestern's pre-med weeds people out, so the students that make it through the curriculum often end up at some of the finest medical schools in the nation. Their organic chemistry class is supposed to be the hardest in the country, and until recently some NU students took organic chemistry at Harvard over the summer to avoid NU's own class. This was put to a stop when NU decided they wouldn't accept credits for organic chemistry from any institution other than their own. I kept running into NU students who said "I was pre-med, but now I'm ______ instead." 😱

May I ask where you go to school?

I think I am knocking off NU now. That's just too insanely hard for me. I am a strong science student, but no way do I want to go through hell and if it's the hardest in the nation, I just ain't ready for that.
Edit: thanks for the advice though! You give good advice. I read around on Chance me Threads. 😀

Do you know more friendly schools hahaha? !!!!!

 

[xnfs93hy]

May I ask where you go to school?

I think I am knocking off NU now. That's just too insanely hard for me. I am a strong science student, but no way do I want to go through hell and if it's the hardest in the nation, I just ain't ready for that.
Edit: thanks for the advice though! You give good advice. I read around on Chance me Threads. 😀

Do you know more friendly schools hahaha? !!!!!

He goes to Pitt (Univ. of Pittsburgh). Look in his sig...

 

[indianjatt]

He goes to Pitt (Univ. of Pittsburgh). Look in his sig...

Wow I can't believe I didn't see that.

Hmmmm.... Can you tell me about the specifics and how you like Pitts so far in a PM or here? I think I may add it if I have a reasonable shot and the Supplements aren't long. 😛 D

 

[schrizto]

May I ask where you go to school?

I think I am knocking off NU now. That's just too insanely hard for me. I am a strong science student, but no way do I want to go through hell and if it's the hardest in the nation, I just ain't ready for that.
Edit: thanks for the advice though! You give good advice. I read around on Chance me Threads. 😀

Do you know more friendly schools hahaha? !!!!!

I may be giving a biased view because I am only talking about Northwestern, and it was my impression in one visit over a few days, so take my advice about the school with a grain of salt. Someone else could've visited Northwestern and gotten an entirely different view of the school, or someone who actually went to Northwestern could attest to the pre-med curriculum not being as difficult as people have said it is. The same situation of tough pre-med can possibly be found at similar caliber schools like UC Berkeley or Duke.

 

[Clairea11]

It doesn't just depend on the college. Your high school and its level of difficulty will also be factors.

 

[Handinhand]

Highschool is more about getting all of your homework done and what not, even in AP classes, there is more focus on the day to day work than there is exam performance. College, at least starting out in the gen eds and such will likely be around the same. Exams will usually dominate your total grade but there will also be homework/participation outside of it. Upper level science classes are, at least at my school, completely exam based. My neurobiology class this semester is 4 Exams and that's it, each one is 25% of your grade.

A little caveat, it really depends on what classes you take and what your major is. For instance, I took two years of Spanish and every class had homework, participation as well as presentations/compositions that when totaled, actually weighed more than exams.

 

[EyEnStein 07]

Agreed with above...if you went to a very challanging and rigorous HS (meaning it would probably be on the charts for top schools and everyone knows about it) college will be much easier than the student who went to the "zoned" school.

 

[bucknut101]

The biggest difference between science classes in high school and college is the amount of material covered. Where I went to college (Miami University) we would cover in one lecture what would usually take us a whole week in high school. So basically each exam covers a larger amount of material than exams in HS.

In high school I would use to wait to study for tests the night before. In college once I learned to begin studying well in advance of exams my grades greatly improved.

The same applies going to med school from college. There I had to begin studying weeks before exams rather than a few days.

 

[bucknut101]

The biggest difference between science classes in high school and college is the amount of material covered. Where I went to college (Miami University) we would cover in one lecture what would usually take us a whole week in high school. So basically each exam covers a larger amount of material than exams in HS.

In high school I would use to wait to study for tests the night before. In college once I learned to begin studying well in advance of exams my grades greatly improved.

The same applies going to med school from college. There I had to begin studying weeks before exams rather than a few days.

 

[schrizto]

A main difference between college and high school that I have found is that the tests are much shorter in college, yet count for a bigger part of your grade. The big tests I had in high school would have 100 or 200 questions each, but would count for about 10% of the final grade. On the other hand, the most amount of questions on a test I have encountered thus far in college was a 45-question test, yet it counted for 25% of the final grade (IIRC).

 

[MilkmanAl]

Just for the record, Schrizto's account of people getting "weeded out" of pre-med courses happens universally. That's not only a Northwestern thing. At least a good 75% of the people who start as pre-meds will not be pre-meds at the end of college. Also, people get into "some of the finest schools in the nation" from just about any college. Northwestern is a great school, but the facts that it has hard classes and puts people into med schools tell you next to nothing.

Anyway, the difference between introductory courses in college and AP classes is pretty minimal, in my opinion. I actually had several AP's that were notably harder than some classes I had in college. Once you get into higher level classes, the intensity (i.e., difficulty and volume) picks up considerably. You'll have plenty of time to prepare for the build-up in most cases, but there are times where you'll be faced with a substantial learning curve. The trick is to figure out which classes those are and brace for impact.

 

[schrizto]

Just for the record, Schrizto's account of people getting "weeded out" of pre-med courses happens universally. That's not only a Northwestern thing. At least a good 75% of the people who start as pre-meds will not be pre-meds at the end of college. Also, people get into "some of the finest schools in the nation" from just about any college. Northwestern is a great school, but the facts that it has hard classes and puts people into med schools tell you next to nothing.

I probably made it sound like only Northwestern weeded out its pre-meds, but I know it happens everywhere. A (bitter) NU student said that medical schools will consider the same GPAs from Northwestern vs University of Illinois the same, and that the organic chemistry class at NU curves to a B- while the ochem classes at Ivies curve to a B+/A-.

 

[Clairea11]

I probably made it sound like only Northwestern weeded out its pre-meds, but I know it happens everywhere. A (bitter) NU student said that medical schools will consider the same GPAs from Northwestern vs University of Illinois the same, and that the organic chemistry class at NU curves to a B- while the ochem classes at Ivies curve to a B+/A-.

You also have to take into account the university's stance on grade inflation. My university is very strict when it comes to that, and will send grades back to the professor if the average is too high.

 

[indianjatt]

I probably made it sound like only Northwestern weeded out its pre-meds, but I know it happens everywhere. A (bitter) NU student said that medical schools will consider the same GPAs from Northwestern vs University of Illinois the same, and that the organic chemistry class at NU curves to a B- while the ochem classes at Ivies curve to a B+/A-.

Sorry for being so naive, but how does the curve really work? Does the curve mean that the majority, like 50% of the students get their grades curved to a B- and around 25% who do substantially better will get a B- and above, and 25 percent of students who do poorly will get B-'s or below.

Off topic: Now that I think of it, I am glad I started using forums early on rather than later.

Another question that popped up in my mind is grades. I took two classes in my sophomore year of high school at a community college, but I really don't want the grades to show up on my college transcript or have it in my gpa later on say when I apply to medical school because I got two B's. Is it mandatory to report it, because I know a lot of people say you have to report every grade, or is there a way I could get around doing that?

 

[schrizto]

Sorry for being so naive, but how does the curve really work? Does the curve mean that the majority, like 50% of the students get their grades curved to a B- and around 25% who do substantially better will get a B- and above, and 25 percent of students who do poorly will get B-'s or below.

It means that the average grade is a B-. Think of the bell curve.

Another question that popped up in my mind is grades. I took two classes in my sophomore year of high school at a community college, but I really don't want the grades to show up on my college transcript or have it in my gpa later on say when I apply to medical school because I got two B's. Is it mandatory to report it, because I know a lot of people say you have to report every grade, or is there a way I could get around doing that?

You have to report the grades. No way around it.

 

[physicsnerd42]

If you guys can write your experiences I would appreciate it or if you want tell me about the difficulty compared to high school of these schools:

Santa Clara..... Maybe

If this makes a difference, I am asking about Biology/the Pre Med track specifically.

I went here for undergrad. They tend to curve the grades in intro-level (gen chem, organic chem, bio, physics) so that the median is somewhere around the B-/C+ range (half the students get Bs and As, half get Cs, Ds and, if you're really far too stupid or lazy to be in college, Fs), but the professors have leeway and sometimes the median would be as high as a B. Once you get to upper-level classes, most people get As and Bs. Honestly, a lot of places curve and it's not really a big deal. You don't necessarily have to do all that well in the class, you just have to do better than most other people. Even so, students work together and I thought the professors were (in general) absolutely fantastic. I loved SCU...

It's impossible to judge how difficult college will be since I have no idea what high school you were at or what college you'll go to. Assume college will be more difficult than high school but also assume that you'll rise to the challenge.

 

[xnfs93hy]

This has probably been mentioned before but studying for undergraduate classes is totally diff. than studying in HS.

 

[Algophiliac]

Don't underestimate how hard college will be...I just found out the hard way that AP classes do NOT prepare you for the same college-level class. We're learning at least 1/4 MORE material per unit than was ever covered in the AP versions of the classes.

Not only that, but there are FEWER tests, which means you need to remember even more material per test...something I had forgotten to consider entirely.

Also, my university classes actually still assign online homework for every class, have quizzes every week, and about 3 tests per class per semester (1/2 as many as I'm used to, ahhh!), so it's not really all that different from high school for me in those respects.

 

[orthomyxo]

The biggest difference between science classes in high school and college is the amount of material covered. Where I went to college (Miami University) we would cover in one lecture what would usually take us a whole week in high school. So basically each exam covers a larger amount of material than exams in HS.

In high school I would use to wait to study for tests the night before. In college once I learned to begin studying well in advance of exams my grades greatly improved.

I completely agree; in college there's a ton of material to learn in a short amount of time. For example, in my Bio class, I feel as though we have already covered more material in 3 weeks than my entire high school Bio class did all year 😱. Exams are a huge portion of your grade, and can often times be your entire grade, so instead of studying the night before, you need to manage your time well and chunk out the material evenly in between assessments.

 

[fahimaz7]

College is the best time of your life. Don't forget to study and you'll do just fine.

 

[indianjatt]

Yeah guys I really appreciate your advice. Nice to know scu was great. I definitely plan on studying for tests well in advance and try to keep up with readings. I have had some experience with college classes because I have about 20 semester units, but since it was just foreign language at a csu and philosophy classes at a cc it probably is not adequate for better colleges.

 

[Neuronix]

A (bitter) NU student said that medical schools will consider the same GPAs from Northwestern vs University of Illinois the same

This is pretty much always true. This is why I always recommend staying away from very competitive pre-med programs.

What matters to med schools is GPA and MCAT and ECs. They don't care about things like grade inflation, perceived difficulty of cirriculum/major, prestige of undergrad, "honors" majors or programs, etc... A 3.8+/35+ with strong ECs from a 4-year college that includes the pre-med courses is going to get you anywhere you want to go.

 

[da8s0859q]

Another question that popped up in my mind is grades. I took two classes in my sophomore year of high school at a community college, but I really don't want the grades to show up on my college transcript or have it in my gpa later on say when I apply to medical school because I got two B's. Is it mandatory to report it, because I know a lot of people say you have to report every grade, or is there a way I could get around doing that?

I'm not an internet armchair commando, but... damn, man. I don't blame you for wanting to give yourself the best shot you can, but your academic record is your academic record. And besides, a couple of Bs will not keep you out of medical school. Keep in mind that the mean GPA for most US allopathic schools is somewhere around a 3.70, give or take, and that most MD students have a bachelor's degree (meaning that they've finished lots of semester hours worth of coursework -- we're talking well over 100).

College is the best time of your life.

God, I hope not.

 

[tennisball80]

High school: Ahhhhh!!!

College: Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!

 

[KingstonPre]

I don't remember studying more than a few days TOTAL in HS... and I took 2 AP classes... junior year... and even more senior year.

If I tried that in college I'd have F's in every class.

A lot of people enter college with the High School mentality that the teacher is going to care about you or ask people where you are and why you didn't attend class today.

Truth is, NOBODY cares about you in college, and nobody is gonna ask about you when you're gone. If you miss 5 classes or bomb an exam, too bad, it's more money for the school when you repeat the course next semester.

The transition from HS to College is learning how to study for YOU and not just to please others such as your parents.

You also go through an entire year of HS coursework in about 4 months, with more challenging questions...

 

[Backpack]

I'm a freshman and in my three months of college I've found that the tests are actually really short compared to high school. My mid term for philosophy is to answer four questions out of six. So in my opinion it's easier to get a bad grade if you don't study. Also it's easy to fall behind and the number of assignments (difficult or not) pile up fast so you have to stay on top of things. I also agree with Milkman on the "weeding out of pre meds" universally. I go to a small private university, and 98% of pre meds here get into medical school, I'm pretty sure that involves a lot of weeding out. Good luck with everything 👍

 

[coldweatherblue]

College is the best time of your life. Don't forget to study and you'll do just fine.

👍

college was awesome. I would love to be a freshman again... holy crap we had fun.

Exams in uni were more difficult than high-school, but I'd say I spent about the same amount of time doing school stuff per day. Classes in college are a lot more interesting too. I think the best way to do undergrad as a pre-med is to study the least amount necessary to get into med school, then party, travel, get crazy at concerts/sporting events, and generally live it up with your friends as much as possible cause those years go by way too quick.

 

[SlaskWroclaw18]

I am not at one of the schools you listed but I got into Northwestern, visited and was given a lot of information on Biology, Communication Sciences and Disorders, and the pre-med track.

Northwestern's pre-med weeds people out, so the students that make it through the curriculum often end up at some of the finest medical schools in the nation. Their organic chemistry class is supposed to be the hardest in the country, and until recently some NU students took organic chemistry at Harvard over the summer to avoid NU's own class. This was put to a stop when NU decided they wouldn't accept credits for organic chemistry from any institution other than their own. I kept running into NU students who said "I was pre-med, but now I'm ______ instead." 😱

Schritzo, thanks for the congrats on CollegeConfidential!!! I remember when I went to visit Pitt over the summer, one of the Pitt Pathfinders asked me what my intended major/career path was going to be and when I said pre-med he said that he was pre-med but he dropped out of that! Not exactly a confidence booster but I am up to the challenge.
How is the pre-med curriculum at Pitt? The intro classes and the higher level classes (I don't know which year you are in)?
Finally, do you know the name of the program that runs in Pittsburgh (UPMC) that runs patient simulations for med students, etc. I think it is run by or at least associated with Dr. William McIvor? That would be an interesting volunteer opportunity!

 

[Neuronix]

Not exactly a confidence booster but I am up to the challenge.

We med students are always curious how many college students who start pre-med never actually go to med school. The general estimate is >90% of first year pre-meds change their minds. It's not exactly a confidence booster, no, but it is reality.

 

[schrizto]

Schritzo, thanks for the congrats on CollegeConfidential!!! I remember when I went to visit Pitt over the summer, one of the Pitt Pathfinders asked me what my intended major/career path was going to be and when I said pre-med he said that he was pre-med but he dropped out of that! Not exactly a confidence booster but I am up to the challenge.
How is the pre-med curriculum at Pitt? The intro classes and the higher level classes (I don't know which year you are in)?
Finally, do you know the name of the program that runs in Pittsburgh (UPMC) that runs patient simulations for med students, etc. I think it is run by or at least associated with Dr. William McIvor? That would be an interesting volunteer opportunity!

The name of the patient simulation lab is called WISER. Alpha Epsilon Delta organizes trips to the WISER center all the time and links students with volunteering there, so you might want to look into joining AED if you're interested.

http://www.wiser.pitt.edu/

Intro classes are okay (I'm a freshman). They're really big classes and professors are hit or miss. Some suck, some are great.

 

[SlaskWroclaw18]

We med students are always curious how many college students who start pre-med never actually go to med school. The general estimate is >90% of first year pre-meds change their minds. It's not exactly a confidence booster, no, but it is reality.

Didn't realized it was that high, I was thinking around the 70-80% range, but I guess the odds are still there.

The name of the patient simulation lab is called WISER. Alpha Epsilon Delta organizes trips to the WISER center all the time and links students with volunteering there, so you might want to look into joining AED if you're interested.

http://www.wiser.pitt.edu/

Intro classes are okay (I'm a freshman). They're really big classes and professors are hit or miss. Some suck, some are great.

Thanks! I saw a presentation at Pitt of this and thought it was pretty cool, and he also said that they look for volunteers so it would be pretty cool to get involved somehow.

 

[smq123]

I remember when I went to visit Pitt over the summer, one of the Pitt Pathfinders asked me what my intended major/career path was going to be and when I said pre-med he said that he was pre-med but he dropped out of that! Not exactly a confidence booster but I am up to the challenge.

<shrug> That's a fairly standard phenomenon, at all places. Not just at Pitt.

A lot of people start out as premed and then realize that a) they don't want to work that hard, b) they don't want to be a student for THAT LONG, c) they don't actually like science all that much, or d) other fields of study are more appealing.

How is the pre-med curriculum at Pitt? The intro classes and the higher level classes (I don't know which year you are in)?

The intro classes are, for the most part, like any other intro class at any other large university. They're big, although I felt like there were plenty of opportunities to get to know the professors on a more personal level.

(This is, of course, if you choose not to take the Honors Level of the intro classes, which are more challenging, and smaller.)

As for "higher level courses," that depends on what you mean. Even among the higher level courses, there are varying levels of difficulty. For instance, you can take regular biochem, which was faster-paced and larger than the "biochem for future grad students) which was slower, spread out over 2 semesters, and smaller.

Keep in mind that Pitt does not offer a pre-medical major, so it's hard to say which higher-level courses you'd actually be taking.

For a school that doesn't have a set pre-med major, Pitt manages to do very well and a lot of their students do go on to med school. I liked my time there, and felt like it opened my eyes to a lot of non-medical areas of study that I would never have learned about otherwise. They were very encouraging of learning about things that would make you a better human being, not just a good pre-med. It may be the only chance that you, as a pre-med, will ever have to learn about the hidden metaphors in Chinese poetry or the international factors that led to the coup that overthrew Salvador Allende's government.

 

[RySerr21]

I don't remember studying more than a few days TOTAL in HS... and I took 2 AP classes... junior year... and even more senior year.

If I tried that in college I'd have F's in every class.

A lot of people enter college with the High School mentality that the teacher is going to care about you or ask people where you are and why you didn't attend class today.

Truth is, NOBODY cares about you in college, and nobody is gonna ask about you when you're gone. If you miss 5 classes or bomb an exam, too bad, it's more money for the school when you repeat the course next semester.

The transition from HS to College is learning how to study for YOU and not just to please others such as your parents.

You also go through an entire year of HS coursework in about 4 months, with more challenging questions...

This isnt true. It depends where you go to college. Are you at a large public school with 50K students? Then yes what you said is true. If you go to a small college, like i did, with less than 2K total students, then what you said is absolutel false. There are pros and cons for going to either school, you need to know yourself and know in which type of envrionment you will be happiest to give yourself the best chance at succeeding.

 

[indianjatt]

This isnt true. It depends where you go to college. Are you at a large public school with 50K students? Then yes what you said is true. If you go to a small college, like i did, with less than 2K total students, then what you said is absolutel false. There are pros and cons for going to either school, you need to know yourself and know in which type of envrionment you will be happiest to give yourself the best chance at succeeding.

RY, may I ask what are some good small schools? I have been looking around and I see a lot of potential in small schools: i.e. a lot of support, etc.

However, I don't want to go to a really bad college either, so just wondering id you know some pretty good small schools. I live in CA so it would be preferably in CA but if you some others, that works too.

 

[RySerr21]

RY, may I ask what are some good small schools? I have been looking around and I see a lot of potential in small schools: i.e. a lot of support, etc.

However, I don't want to go to a really bad college either, so just wondering id you know some pretty good small schools. I live in CA so it would be preferably in CA but if you some others, that works too.

CA has some awesome liberal arts colleges that can offer you that small college feel. I went to Occidental College. Its a great school, top in the liberal arts colleges. It has about 1800 students there. If you want specifics on my experience there you can PM me and Id be happy to answer any questions about it. I loved it, had a fantastic experience and I wouldnt trade my small college education for anything (i decided between oxy and another school which has quite large and a very different feel - going to oxy was best decision ive made in my life thus far). There are other great liberal arts colleges in CA - some of the more prestigious ones are the Claremont colleges (Pomona, Scripps, Harvey-Mudd, Claremont-McKenna, and Pitzer). Those are all fantastic schools. CalTech is obviously world reknown and is in the so cal area as well. Some other less "prestigious" schools (aka easier to get in to) but still fine educations are schools like Whittier, Chapman, Redlands etc. The student body populations vary between those schools and also the presence of graduate programs differs as well.

I think there are some very clear and obvious advantages to going to a small school. Its just simply an experience that you absolutely can not get at a larger university. Point in case, the things that kingston described was the exact opposite of my experience. Anyways, I could talk forever about small school vs large school, but in my opinion its a no brainer. But then again its diffferent for everyone. I konw lots of people that would hate going to a small school, which is unfortuante b/c you cant the beat the educational opportunities that you will get. Hands down.

In terms of picking a "good" school, youve gotta do your research. One of the things that pushes people away from going to small liberal arts colleges is that lay peopel dont always recognize the name. A school isnt "good" because lay people have heard it before (aka they have a good D1 football team). Someone might ask you where you go to school and if you reply "occidental college" they might say "where?" Some people let it get to them, but it really doesnt mean a damn thing. What matter the most are the people who will be admitting in to your grad school, or whatever program you are applying for after college or whatever it may be. Every single person I encountered on the interview trail knew of my school....it was well known and well liked. And the same goes for the other small liberal arts colleges. They are all well known for providing outstanding educations. Its easy to go to a big name school like USC or something b/c everyone in the world knows who USC is and you dont need to explain where you go to college or explain where it is. But i promise you, if you can look past this minute and insignificant detail, you will be thoroughly impressed your decision.

 

[KingstonPre]

This isnt true. It depends where you go to college. Are you at a large public school with 50K students? Then yes what you said is true. If you go to a small college, like i did, with less than 2K total students, then what you said is absolutel false. There are pros and cons for going to either school, you need to know yourself and know in which type of envrionment you will be happiest to give yourself the best chance at succeeding.

Most students go to large public Universities, where there are 300 people in the class, and they are no longer sheltered. That's the reason why I generalized my statement. If you didn't have to go through that, congrats. I would've chose that route if I could 👍

 

[Perfbird]

As a senior at UC Berkeley, I will tell you I have mixed feelings about the difficulty of high school versus college. I think the most difficult aspect for me was finding the discipline to stay on top of my studies. In high school, we had daily assignments and homework to turn in, so in a sense I was forced to stay on top of my studies. Not to mention that in class there were assignments and such, which also reinforced the material.

At Berkeley, the academic focus is on lecture. The teacher talks at you for an hour or hour and a half, and you take notes and then later try and understand and absorb all the information. There are also discussions, but those are often lecture style as well and if you're not alert then you won't learn. There is no homework whatsoever (maybe a few minor lab assignments, but nothing like HS), so it is your obligation to actually do the studying and do the work and practice problems - something I personally have found to be difficult.

I am pre-vet, however majority of people here are pre-med. It is extraordinarily competitive and difficult to succeed here, so if you don't want your self esteem to be completley crushed by the end of your 4 years don't come here. The Ochem professor is the one who wrote the book and he is incredibly difficult and callous and purposefully makes his class so it weeds out the people who are not committed. When I took it, our averages on our exams were about 50 out of 200 points. This was not because people didn't understand the information, but because of the difficulty of the exam itself. And those sort of statistics are the normal here.

I came from a high school where I got a 2000 on the SAT and that was considered low, where people took all AP classes every semester, and we had a close to 100% college entrance rate and sent majority of our students to nationally recognized universities. Is Berkeley hard? YES. Do I love it? YES. Is it worth the work and suffering? YES! I think it makes you a better person, knowing you struggled through some of the hardest courses you will take in your life and did well and suceeded, not to mention the shiny diploma at the end and the many career opportunities that follow. Good luck in your college endeavors!

 

[orthomyxo]

I'm a freshman and in my three months of college I've found that the tests are actually really short compared to high school. My mid term for philosophy is to answer four questions out of six. So in my opinion it's easier to get a bad grade if you don't study. Also it's easy to fall behind and the number of assignments (difficult or not) pile up fast so you have to stay on top of things. I also agree with Milkman on the "weeding out of pre meds" universally. I go to a small private university, and 98% of pre meds here get into medical school, I'm pretty sure that involves a lot of weeding out. Good luck with everything 👍

Well that just sounds positively terrifying. Four questions for a midterm...if you get one wrong that would suck. Plus it's philosophy

 

[xnfs93hy]

As a senior at UC Berkeley, I will tell you I have mixed feelings about the difficulty of high school versus college. I think the most difficult aspect for me was finding the discipline to stay on top of my studies. In high school, we had daily assignments and homework to turn in, so in a sense I was forced to stay on top of my studies. Not to mention that in class there were assignments and such, which also reinforced the material.

At Berkeley, the academic focus is on lecture. The teacher talks at you for an hour or hour and a half, and you take notes and then later try and understand and absorb all the information. There are also discussions, but those are often lecture style as well and if you're not alert then you won't learn. There is no homework whatsoever (maybe a few minor lab assignments, but nothing like HS), so it is your obligation to actually do the studying and do the work and practice problems - something I personally have found to be difficult.

I am pre-vet, however majority of people here are pre-med. It is extraordinarily competitive and difficult to succeed here, so if you don't want your self esteem to be completley crushed by the end of your 4 years don't come here. The Ochem professor is the one who wrote the book and he is incredibly difficult and callous and purposefully makes his class so it weeds out the people who are not committed. When I took it, our averages on our exams were about 50 out of 200 points. This was not because people didn't understand the information, but because of the difficulty of the exam itself. And those sort of statistics are the normal here.

I came from a high school where I got a 2000 on the SAT and that was considered low, where people took all AP classes every semester, and we had a close to 100% college entrance rate and sent majority of our students to nationally recognized universities. Is Berkeley hard? YES. Do I love it? YES. Is it worth the work and suffering? YES! I think it makes you a better person, knowing you struggled through some of the hardest courses you will take in your life and did well and suceeded, not to mention the shiny diploma at the end and the many career opportunities that follow. Good luck in your college endeavors!

I'm really curious to know what you got in that class. That is nuts. Just...wow. He actually wrote the book.

 

[Thomas Hearns]

I'm really curious to know what you got in that class. That is nuts. Just...wow. He actually wrote the book.

It's not uncommon at all

 

[MilkmanAl]

Yeah, it happens pretty frequently. In fact, those classes are actually a little easier since you know exactly what the professor wants you to learn.

 

[orthomyxo]

I'm really curious to know what you got in that class. That is nuts. Just...wow. He actually wrote the book.

Happens all the time, no big deal.

 

[CopToEM]

If you maintained B's and A's in High School and took even an inkling of difficult classes you will almost certainly have no problems. To truly succeed, prepare to treat your studies like a part/full-time job and work hard. As with anything in life, you get out of it what you put in.

To quote my Chemistry professor who is truly a very reflective man who has done a lot of things in his life: "There are many people who attend this University. However, there are only a few students. I cringe each semester when our 'student enrollment' figures are released. I disagree. To become a student one must become studious and we all know there's a lack of that in the 'dropout nation.'"

He's right. There's a difference in being enrolled and being a student. Be the student and everything else will fall into place very easily.

 

[CopToEM]

Oh, another thing, record lectures and most importantly cover the material for lecture BEFORE class so that class is more of a review session. You will not believe how much this helps. A lot of people do not ask questions because they think, "I probably just don't understand this because I haven't read over it yet." Read over it, attend lecture, if you still have questions... you know you simply don't 'get it.'

 

[xnfs93hy]

Yeah, it happens pretty frequently. In fact, those classes are actually a little easier since you know exactly what the professor wants you to learn.

Well, you went to UNC and the poster I quoted is at Berkeley which are competitive universities where I'm sure it's rather common to have a professor who wrote the textbook. Although I could be wrong; this may happen at a lot of other colleges and universities as well from the way I'm reading the posts.

 

[Bears683]

As a senior at UC Berkeley, I will tell you I have mixed feelings about the difficulty of high school versus college. I think the most difficult aspect for me was finding the discipline to stay on top of my studies. In high school, we had daily assignments and homework to turn in, so in a sense I was forced to stay on top of my studies. Not to mention that in class there were assignments and such, which also reinforced the material.

At Berkeley, the academic focus is on lecture. The teacher talks at you for an hour or hour and a half, and you take notes and then later try and understand and absorb all the information. There are also discussions, but those are often lecture style as well and if you're not alert then you won't learn. There is no homework whatsoever (maybe a few minor lab assignments, but nothing like HS), so it is your obligation to actually do the studying and do the work and practice problems - something I personally have found to be difficult.

I am pre-vet, however majority of people here are pre-med. It is extraordinarily competitive and difficult to succeed here, so if you don't want your self esteem to be completley crushed by the end of your 4 years don't come here. The Ochem professor is the one who wrote the book and he is incredibly difficult and callous and purposefully makes his class so it weeds out the people who are not committed. When I took it, our averages on our exams were about 50 out of 200 points. This was not because people didn't understand the information, but because of the difficulty of the exam itself. And those sort of statistics are the normal here.

I came from a high school where I got a 2000 on the SAT and that was considered low, where people took all AP classes every semester, and we had a close to 100% college entrance rate and sent majority of our students to nationally recognized universities. Is Berkeley hard? YES. Do I love it? YES. Is it worth the work and suffering? YES! I think it makes you a better person, knowing you struggled through some of the hardest courses you will take in your life and did well and suceeded, not to mention the shiny diploma at the end and the many career opportunities that follow. Good luck in your college endeavors!

I"m guessing you're talking about Voldhardt's class. As a Berkeley alumni, I 'd have to say I echoe the same sentiment. Undergraduate at Berkeley was a pummeling experience academically, but it's by far a great preparation for real world job as well as graduate academia world.

 

[45408]

Northwestern's pre-med weeds people out, so the students that make it through the curriculum often end up at some of the finest medical schools in the nation. Their organic chemistry class is supposed to be the hardest in the country, and until recently some NU students took organic chemistry at Harvard over the summer to avoid NU's own class. This was put to a stop when NU decided they wouldn't accept credits for organic chemistry from any institution other than their own. I kept running into NU students who said "I was pre-med, but now I'm ______ instead." 😱

I don't know the specifics about chem classes at NU, but like some other people have said, EVERY college will have weed-out classes, in which many people go from pre-med to many other majors. Sometimes it's because they can't handle it, but other times it's because they didn't realize that there are so many other options out there (pharmacy, dental, physical therapy, etc). Out of 250 people in my gen chem class as a freshman, there were probably 100 pre-meds, and maybe 10 of them ever went to med school. It sounds scary when you tell that to a freshman, but the truly dedicated and hard-working students tend to make it. The party animals or those who didn't really care are the ones who fall by the wayside.

 

[Perfbird]

Yeah, it happens pretty frequently. In fact, those classes are actually a little easier since you know exactly what the professor wants you to learn.

Unless you've been a student at UC Berkeley and have taken Vollhardt's class yourself, you have no idea how wrong you are when you say "In fact, those classes are actually a little easier". That's your opinion, maybe based on your own experiences at your own University, but I can tell you Vollhardt's class is not "easier" - I wish! I'd love to hear you say that the class was easier after you have a go at it, lol!

I would venture to say that what makes his class incredibly difficult (at least one factor that contributes) is that you only get one perspective on the material, and if you don't get it based on that one teaching style, you're screwed. Vollhardt lectures exactly from the book, and is extremley hard to follow as powerpoint is no way to teach chemistry. So if you don't understand something from lecture, you go to the book and - oops - it's the exact same thing! Perhaps most importantly, because he wrote the book, he expects us to know the entire text as a baseline. So not only do we have to be adept at the textbook material, but we have to know everything in tons more detail that we get from OHs, additional texts, and graduate student lectures. So no, I have to disagree strongly when you try to tell me my class is easier because the teacher wrote the book - maybe for you, but not UC Berkeley.