is university supposed to be so hard? i am in my first year, 1 month into school and i am not doing so good. i graduated from highschool with a 92% average, and right now i am probably going to be making 60’s, all though i haven’t written any tests yet, from my assignments i am guessing that will be my average marks… i seem to have trouble with 4 classes out of 6 (im enrolled in engineering), which means that i spend my nights in my room working just trying to understand stuff and a good deal of my weekends too. which sucks… right now i am trying to do some c++ stuff, got a midterm next week on it, and it makes almost no sense, this is depressing, in highschool i had hardly any homework and studied for about an hour a week… is it like this for everyone in school or just me?
Yes, it’s supposed to be tough. But the first year always kicks your ass. It did mine, but I was making the Dean’s list once I got used to it. You’ll adapt, develop more productive study skills etc. One trick is to take the really tough classes during the summer or May-mester, one at a time. Usually easier then, plus it’s all you have to focus on.
I find most people that I know who had 90% or higher averages in high school usually drop out or have an extremely difficult time in university. Maybe it is because most of them never had to work for their marks in high school. Of course that will not hold true for everyone. If you keep up with your studies and assignments you shouldn’t have any problems. It is only when you start procrastinating that things start to get rough. Or maybe you should get a tutor to help you understand your work better.
C++ in your first semester is fucking crazy!!! Man that shit so hard to learn even after you’ve learnt other programming languages. Without previous programming experience, I’d recommend getting the hell out of that subject if you can.
Short answer, yes. College is not meant to be one of those things that all of the other losers you graduated high school with were supposed to understand. That’s why you have to apply, not just enroll.
As for prior grades in high school, forget them. They really mean nothing anymore. Nobody’s going to ask you your SAT or ACT score after your first semester. I could sleep in most of my high school classes and still blow anyone else out of the water in grades. High school is not hard if you really try. Not even the really hard classes. High school is made to teach the lowest common denomonator and inspire those above that to go to college.
As for your grades in college, it all depends on your major, you school, and your lifestyle. For example, you would find a basic course in physics at Princeton miserable, but an advanced course in psychology at Southwest Texas State (sorry for those of you there) mediocre at best.
What I see most when this problem comes up, is a poor balance of social and school. I’m not saying this is your case at all, but you might need to take a look at it. All too often, guys really do believe that college is a bar with a $15,000 cover charge. Years of stereotypes tell us that college is about partying and drinking, and to a certain degree I can see that. But it seems that people have forgotten that we’re there for education first and “social development” second. Need an example, look at what the freshmen do on their first weekend at college. It’s sad to see. They go to the parties/bars not because that’s who they are, but becuase that’s who they are told to be.
Assuming you have the perfect balance and you are intellectually able to tackle those classes, there are some things I suggest you do. First, meet and then sit down with someone in your major. They will be able to translate textbooks into reality. Second, get a tutor. There’s nothing shameful about it. Most campuses offer them for free. Third, don’t be afraid of sitting down with your profs. They are usually pretty down to earth. This isn’t as easy at a big school, but you can at least get a grad assistant. The key in all of this is using your resources. Hey, you’re paying for them. Campuses want you to succeed.
Hang in there and do the best you can. College is a transition that takes some people awhile to get used to. Not everyone can do it. Keep at it and keep your priorities straight and you’ll make it through.
ThetaChiGuy says it very well. The only other thing I might add is – why are you in engineering?Do you really want to be one, or is it something you felt you should do? If you find it so difficult and frustrating, perhaps you are in the wrong field. Maybe not, but it could be. Try looking at what you are interested in and what you are good at, and then talk to other people in other programs. Often, people with very good marks in high school pick programs they aren’t suited for, but think they are because they have the marks to get into them. Often enough, they change their minds during or after their first year. What courses are you understanding? Is there a field that branches from those that would catch your interest and spark your abilities?
As was said before, I truly believe that those who flew through high school are at a disadvantage because they are not prepared to work as hard as is needed to do well. I played around in high school, missed some classes, and basically just tried to be “hard”. When I got to college, I was so afraid of not doing well that I read up to at least the first chapter in all of my textbooks before classes started. That pretty much set the tone for the next four years and I ended up tutoring some other students in calculus and cal II. The key to making it in college, which even holds true in medical school, is to stay ahead and never fall behind. If you can get to the point that you are ahead of the game, even slightly, in your classes, college becomes much easier. I was a biology major and my cousin had the same major as you. I helped him in his math classes when we were in them together and I know it is tough to get through. Here’s the deal, don’t give up. It doesn’t matter what you did in high school. The students who seemed to do the best in my high school were the first to drop out of college. The game flips completely. The nerds aren’t so nerdy anymore and no one cares if you were captain of the football team before you got there. You have to learn to pace yourself and focus on the task at hand. My cousin is getting paid about 70,000 a year now. Maybe that can be some incentive. I think he had a 3.0 GPA by graduation (up from a 1.8 our freshman year) One more thing, I was probably labeled as least likely to succeed in high school. Obviously, that holds little water as to how far you go. From what I remember my cousin going through, C++ was the hardest to understand for everyone, but he made it through because he put the time in. Sometimes he would be studying later than I was, but it paid off, in spite of the fact that he thought about quitting a few times.
C++ is a GREAT way to be introduced to programming. It’s the most powerful OO language ever created. It’s so hard at the university level because they want you to get the hell out of the program. Its the idea at many colleges, especially in Engineering and Computer Science, to get you to drop out after the first year so that they can work with only the people they feel have the talent to make it. Once you learn the concepts of C++ and grasp the ideas of Object programming everything else will be fairly easy. Remember VB programmers are a dime a dozen, a good C++ programmer is worth a small fortune to most companies.
Hey molsonman on this one we agree. See I am not out to annoy you. Again good post.
I have a BSME and I can tell you that first semester was a bitch. It is so different than HS and you are away from home eating shitty food and all that stuff. It sucks. I messed around in HS and did enough to get by, but then was scared shitless my first week of college. My advice: just keep plugging away, put your time in and once you get the hang of it, you will have more free time. Learn what each prof is looking for and forget the rest. You don’t need to know it all and frankly you can’t, you just need to know what the prof thinks is important. I graduated with a 92% overall from undergrad and I just graduated cum laude from law school and can tell you the #1 thing is to go to class. Don’t skip very often. It sucks sometimes but it pays off in the end.
Sometimes I think I would love to go back and do college all over again, but then your post reminds me of how bad it sucked at times.
The first year or two of college is usually the hardest. It was for me. I had done above average in my government provided high school, particularly during my senior year, so I thought it would come easy for me. Boy was I wrong. Looking back, I should have spent two years in one of those college prep acadamies, or served a hitch, or maybe both. Just keep at it, you’ll be fine. Definitely avoid partying too much. You need to graduate with a gpa over 3.0. Looks better to employers when you’re just out of school, and helps if you ever want to go to grad school.
I’ve had profs who went to school in england (oxford & london) & they say that they can’t understand why university students have so much trouble here. Back when they were in high school (which would have been late 50’s/early 60’s) they said they were doing differential equations, some basic linear algebra & multivarible calculus etc in their math classes, topics you don’t get to until 2nd (sophomore) year of university in North America. North American universities have to end at the same place all the other schools in the world end, so the north americans have A LOT of catching up to do compared with other places. I know that stuff went by waaay too fast for me, it was just too much. No wonder 40% of the students taking the 1st calculus course fail on their 1st try at my U. I think a lot of it has to do with the high school curriculum here (BC) also, they’re covering less & less stuff in high school, which means more work in university. That’s just in science/math though, I don’t know how it is in other subjects.
Hate to break it to ya, but welcome to the world. If you are in any kind of good engineering school, this will be your life for 4-5 yrs. Studying, working, studying, working, studying, working, sleeping now and again when you finally pass out on the damn keyboard and wake up w/ 150 pages of r’s typed on the screen… It is anything but easy. But that is how it has to be. The idiots and the lazy have to get weeded out sooner or later. Otherwise we have morons designing cars, buildings, roads and everything else. I had a 3.97 GPA in High school (on a 4 pt scale). Now I am struggling to maintain a 3.5. It aint pretty, it aint always fun, it sucks A LOT. but in the end it pays off when you know you succeeded where so many others failed. and the money you make once you are out is nice, as well.
Another reason for trouble is that, while
the material to be learned hasn’t gotten any easier, and the point students are at when entreing college definitely hasn’t gotten any higher, the conception students have of how much study is appropriate has dropped into the basement.
Some while back, before my time, it was completely expected that students would study 3 hours for every one hour in the classroom.
That’s right: if in class 15 hours per week total, study 45 hours total during the week,
every week. That’s why 15 credit hours is considered full-time. On that standard it surely is.
Many students today imagine studying 5 hours
per week is a lot.
Speaking of older professors, in many cases they are amazing. In fact the professor who inspired me to go into medicinal chemistry was an eldery gentleman from India, with two doctorates (biochemistry and organic chemistry), and when he was in university in India they did not have enough money for paper and therefore wrote down very few notes and memorized everything else, and every day worked to keep it in memory.
Absolutely seriously.
Amazing.
I go to Carolina(UNC), it is hard as hell
True that Da Man. I go to a engineering only school, so you know that is tough. J, engineering is so tough to you b/c you probably didn’t take hard classes in high school. Did you take AP courses, calculus, physics, anything more advanced than homec? Engineering is tough, and it is tougher for you b/c you probably breezed through high school. So you are at a fork in your life: Suck it up and make up for your your lost knowledge and continue on working harder, or 2, say fuck it and drop to some pussy ass major like general studies and make shit for money. Or 3, become a civil engineer, they take easy courses compared to the EE’s like myself.
Since T-men and T-women are by their very nature non-conformist, I am going to share a little information on the game of college. By profession I am a Strategist and a Planner. That means everything is a game, with their own rules and strategies. Here is an un-varnished look at college life.
Acquiring the first degree, the high school diploma, determines whether we are allowed to play the in the bigger Game of Modern Life or not. Those who do not earn a high school diploma are virtually excluded from positions of authority and power in our society.
Next comes the bachelor’s degree. What is required to obtain a B.A. or B.S.? Students, typically living away from home, are free of the constant parental overseer who prompts them to get up in the morning or to do their homework. Instead, they must prompt themselves. The B.A. degree indicates that a person has successfully made it through four years of college, with five courses a semester. This entails attending each class under one’s own direction, feeding back on tests and in class discussions what was transmitted in lectures and books, studying rather than playing on evenings and weekends, writing laborious papers, and memorizing for tests innumerable facts of questionable usefulness. It is no wonder that the new college graduate is the prime candidate for management trainee! Holding a B.A. degree indicates one is malleable and can follow directives on one’s own.
Future employers look at how well you played that game. My advice is to: 1) learn time management, and study skills: 2) Visit your school library. Most professors keep old tests on file at the library. This will give you an insight as to what is important to that professor. If not the library, the athletic department at most university’s keeps the tests on file. “To help the players maintain focus”. 3) Find out your learning style. Most people learn in one of three ways (visual, auditory or kinetically). Unfortunately, most classes are taught in the auditory manner. Which means, if you learn via another means you are going to have to finds alternative ways to supplement your class instruction.
Best of Luck.
HELL YEAH! Damn Civils. Im a mechanical myself. I call Industrial Tech and Civils the Early childhood Ed. majors of the engineering college. Hard compared to many other things, but not as bad as EE, ME or EECS.
Old lifter is right about the Library. One semester, I found all of my tests for biochemistry on file and happened to be the only student in the class who found them and used them. You would be amazed what they have in there. They have these things called “books” and they are just like the internet only on paper. I know, I flipped when I read one for the first time too. Ancient texts speak of something termed “The Dewey Decimal System” but that was a little over my head.
I don’t know why you engineers think you’ve got it so bad. Math is way harder & you know it. btw I’m finally going to start using my library more. I’ve done all the problems in the sections of the official text, so now I’m getting books from the library on the same stuff & working through all the problems in there.