Is College hard for other people also? Or is it just me?

Post Reply New Topic

So heres my deal:

I had this basic Economic course; Economics 101.

At the beginning of the course I could tell that it was going to bit a bit challenging so I started to prepare for it.....:

-I went to class 30-40 minutes early every day to read the textbook so that I could prepare for the lecture.
-I attended all lectures even though they were up in PowerPoint.
-I usually went to the Office Hours after class every day so that the teacher could help me learn the concepts that I don't understand.
-Every night I would spend an average of 4 hours going over notes, reading books, and doing homework.
-Before the exam, I would print out the practice tests and do them 2 weeks before the exams(the other students would usually do them 3-4 nights before).
-I would go to the review sections before the exams. They were usually around 4 and each where 2 hours each. I attended every single one. Even though they just repeated the same thing over and over.
- I would average about 20 hours of my own time in the two weeks before the exam.

Now........after doing all of that for basic introductory courses Econ 101/102 I got solid "C's" and right now I have a 2.0 GPA.

40% of the students didn't even attend lecture(Since the powerpoints were online) and only about 100 of the 300 people in the class went to review sections.

Still; after doing all of that I guess it doesn't really matter since 80% of the class did better then me. People who didn't even go to lecture did better than me somehow(I have no idea how this is possible) even though I worked my ass off.

So; has anyone else experienced this?

College is NOT easy. I don't care what people have said or posted. And my IQ has been tested between 160-180 but like I said it doesn't matter because IQ only measures a narrow area of intelligence. And I only do well in Math classes anyway.....

Brian

worst experience of all my schooling was college was that almost everything is based off an split into groups or teams

theres always some big group project coming up and you know how I do in groups? Terrible

In calculus class "ok everyone go find a partner and work out these problems (make me tremble) -_- "

In english ok split up into groups and we will have a debate on the book share your idea's "EEK"

I am a terrible speaker I am terrible at sharing my idea's in a group setting so basically I just sit there an end up leetchin off the groups and wishing it was a solo project that I could do on my own.

My son is in college but he only takes the classes where he knows he's good at, programming, math and science, except he finally tried a literarture class. He didn't do well but he only went into the class to learn more about what he can do. He liked the class because he had no expectations other than finding out about himself. I have noticed that his awareness is getting broader. In time, he'll be able to handle more different kinds of classes.

From my limited experience with him, I'd advise AS people to stay with the subjects they're good at, while taking tiny steps venturing out to the other kinds of classes. In time, I think AS brains catch up and excell. Otherwise, you might get too discouraged to continue. I tried and messed up so much in college because I knew I was smart and really tried to take classes that I couldn't handle.

Hey I got a C for my Microeconomics class and made mistakes at the beginning of the class.

I know now that I should go to tutoring after each class to understand something that I don't get easily.

Yes, college is still tough for me not only socially but academically...

I took a zoology class and I went to every lecture, every lab, and still managed to get some sort of B.
Same with an art history class I took (with an awful teacher, mind).

It was like in high school when I worked so much harder than some people and still managed to score lower...

I'm the exact same way. I'm coming out of my first semester with what will probably be one A, two C's, and one D.

I think study habits and the pressure certainly play a part. I have some anxiety issues...

Sometimes something in class triggers my son to space out or not feel comfortable about doing homework or keeping on the same track as the rest of the class. It could just be one little thing, like the teacher might say, in about two months, we'll be doing a project. That statement could cause a momentarily stab of dread in my son that he forgets about but the after effects are that he's out of step with the assignments or what he needs to be learning.

We, his parents, listen and try to give him feedback until we back track enough to figure out where he got derailed. It's easier now but my son really benefits from us knowing him well enough to help him figure himself out.

ECON 101 takes a different mindset to understand it. I didn't do well in it, either when I was in college. For a real treat, get Chaos by James Gleick at the library. Read the part where physicists and economists tried to trade ideas about math. It was the Tower of Babel all over again.

In high school, I hardly did any work and I would get an A. Now that I'm in university, I work my ass off and end up with the equivalent of a C in some classes... It's a different world, and even though I'm intelligent and a hard worker (like you said, I go to classes when half the students don't!), I just can't seem to do any better...

Good luck to you!

Wow....I thought College was a breeze academically for most people with AS.

I wonder if it would be at any public library? I'll check it out when I go back up to school.

I'm starting to like Economics a lot more as I learn more and more. The problem I had is that the tests where not analytical enough for my way of thinking(It was a lot of interpreting two points on a graph which should be easy; but is extremely hard for me). My teacher was shocked when I complained that the test was "too easy" in the context that I would have done better had the questions been "harder" in terms of the analytical part.

The practice exams where much more analytical and people always said that they were a lot harder but they seemed much easier to me. In a given exam out of 135 points; I would usually score around a 90 on the actual test and around 115-120 on the practice tests. I can't ever explain why.



I'm doing the same thing and getting an Econ. tutor next semester.



The first semester is always the hardest. I am at my 4th different College now so I am not new to the routine but I am stuck in a horrible arrogant/snobbish town called Ann Arbor in Michigan. Even i can't stand the total disrespect people have for each other in general because you have hundreds of I-am-better-than-you type personalities all crammed together in one town.



It is the exact same way for me......I spend more time and go out of my way to try and get a good grade. I'm the kid who stays inside Friday and Saturday night studying. And when it comes time to take the exams I always seem to do worse than the average....it makes me more than just a little angry because I believe that I should perform better and beat the people who don't come to class.



I use to have a 3.98 GPA but I don't think B's are bad anymore. If I get a B in a class I am happy now .

That's good to here, and I get what you're saying about that personality type. This is especially (I've found) among business majors and premeds. My life goal is basically to do scientific research of some kind.

Do you have a way of checking whether your homework is correct? I don't think you should have done so poorly with that much effort. Or you need better study habits. For instance, when you say

"-I would go to the review sections before the exams. They were usually around 4 and each where 2 hours each. I attended every single one. Even though they just repeated the same thing over and over. "

That really is just a waste of time. Attending lectures just because they are given is not synonymous with actual learning. The only explanation I can think of is that you didn't pick up on what you've learned throughout the semester or that you didn't understand it when you thought you did. If there was someone to check your homework and if you were able to do them, you should have earned a much better grade.

I would agree that going to all those review sections was a waste of time.

I should have only gone to 2 instead of going to the full 4-5.

I thought I understood the material quite well- When I talked to the teacher in office hours I understood what she was explaining and I understood what I did wrong and what mistakes I made.

The thing I hate most about tests in general is that they only test you on a small percentage of what you actually learn in class. On a given test; I would say that it only covers 25% out of everything that you learned in lecture.

That is the reason why it is so hard to get an A.

There are so many extraneous cases and different types of problems that the exam questions could be that it is impossible to prepare for every single case unless you study 60-70 hours a week.

This may seem like I am making it sound harder than it is but I'm really not.

The type of students who set the curve for everyone else do nothing except study all day long. That is literally all that they do. They will spend up to 10 hours a day in the library and stay up until 2AM studying and wake up at 10Am the next morning and repeat the process.

The school is extremely competitive; and if you don't put the effort to stay in the game with the other students then you will fail. I realize that now.

I find that the course material isn't hard enough actually. Often times I find myself completely and utterly bored with most if not all of my classes about 3 weeks into each semester.