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November 17, 2004
Grades and Studies
This story on how much (or how little) college students say they study does not surprise me even though it conflicts with some of my experience as a recent undergrad. The story claims that only 11% of college students study for more than 25 hours a week, yet 40% of students report getting mostly A's. I attended a competitive undergraduate university where most weeks I studied for more than 25 hours and my grades were pretty evenly split between A’s and B’s. I studied less than many, if not most, of my fellow students. I was a philosophy and religion double major and those were not the hardest majors work wise.
This biggest surprise for me in graduate school (at a state university) is that it has been easier for me than undergraduate (at a private university) was, both in how hard I had to think and how much work was required. It was not until this semester that I had to start doing work at night and on weekends regularly for grad school, but I had to study at night and on weekends each semester during my undergraduate studies. I have taken 12 hours the last two semesters and had to argue with my advisor to be allowed to take that much. When I tell people I am taking this many hours they often think I am crazy for taking this many hours at once in grad school. Even though I worked harder at my undergraduate classes my GPA at grad school when I graduate is going to be at least .5 higher than my undergrad GPA was at graduation.
I think it mainly depends on what school students are at and what major students are in. I was talking to a history major from a big Texas state university a few years ago who was almost through her junior year and who had never had to write a paper in college. Meanwhile the engineers and math majors I knew at my school had all written papers at least for their common curriculum classes by the end of their freshmen years. I only minored in history and I still had at least one paper for each history class I took. I also wrote more papers per class in my undergraduate studies than I have in my graduate studies. Although the study is not surprising, it would be interesting to see the stats broken down by major, by school (or at least type of school), and by what type of studying the students do.
Posted by Pete at November 17, 2004 01:20 PM
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