Just curious what others experiences with grad school classes have been. By "how are they taught" I mean are they abstract/theoretical or are they more practical, how are you tested, things like that.
For example, I was surprised by how theoretical almost every class I'm taking this semester is. I was expecting psychopathology to be learning some details about criterion, differentiating one disorder from another, etc. Instead its purely article based, examining classification problems, how this is inherent due to constructs of certain disorders, etc. No tests, only papers.
I prefer it this way actually, since I can read the DSM on my own time and never understood why so many classes seem bent on just repeating what you should be able to get from reading the textbook, but I was kind of surprised since I was expecting the first year courses to be a bit more structured and factual and that we wouldn't delve this deeply into theory until upper-level seminars. They are pretty much all heavy on theory (even for assessment it seems we will spend alot more time learning about development of tests and the theory behind them than the actual implementation, with the assumption being that if you know the theory and the background, actually implementing the test should almost seem intuitive).
Just wondering if this was the norm or if other schools have a different approach. I went to an undergrad that taught everything in a very "practical" manner so this was a pleasant surprise!
For example, I was surprised by how theoretical almost every class I'm taking this semester is. I was expecting psychopathology to be learning some details about criterion, differentiating one disorder from another, etc. Instead its purely article based, examining classification problems, how this is inherent due to constructs of certain disorders, etc. No tests, only papers.
I prefer it this way actually, since I can read the DSM on my own time and never understood why so many classes seem bent on just repeating what you should be able to get from reading the textbook, but I was kind of surprised since I was expecting the first year courses to be a bit more structured and factual and that we wouldn't delve this deeply into theory until upper-level seminars. They are pretty much all heavy on theory (even for assessment it seems we will spend alot more time learning about development of tests and the theory behind them than the actual implementation, with the assumption being that if you know the theory and the background, actually implementing the test should almost seem intuitive).
Just wondering if this was the norm or if other schools have a different approach. I went to an undergrad that taught everything in a very "practical" manner so this was a pleasant surprise!
