As a final year high school student, I am curious about how much harder is college/university than high school and whether it usually takes undergraduate university students to graduate with a Bachelor's in 3-4 years or longer?
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I said 3-4 years because in universities in the UK, many Bachelor's degrees (without a foundation year) are 3 years.A lot depends on the college, the high school and what you took and will take.
As has already been mentioned the baby sitter aspect is usually gone. Miss class and no one will even say anything. Along the same lines there will be considerably more material covered in class that is not adequately addressed in the text book or even not mentioned at all. Miss a class session where a lot of that is covered and you pay for it at exam time.
I found college a little harder. But perhaps a lot of that was because I took the hardest options available in the sciences in high school, drifted into AP European History and in college was able to concentrate somewhat on my strengths. If I had gotten into the only other college I applied to it would have been a lot harder. I would have been allowed to focus even more on my strengths, but that would have been the desire of almost everyone there. Cal Tech isn't easy. So difficult that the graduation rate takes a big hit. At one point a major college rating company had them at about 8th in the United States which was rather strange because the same company had them tied for 3rd worldwide. I think that company had graduation rate as a significant factor in U.S. ratings but not so much in worldwide ratings.
Near me is a community college. So close that the cross country team at my high school ran there and then trained on the cross country course there. I took some accounting courses there before going to grad school in business. They were far easier than the vast majority of my high school classes. There was also a degree of baby sitting. Roll was taken and homework made up a significant part of your grade. The nickname given that community college 'cow tech' was deserved.
If you are going full time getting a degree in 4 years is the norm. Trying to cut it to 3 can be very difficult, especially if the motivation is economic. The most obvious way to cut teh time is to go to summer sessions, but at many schools, especially state schools, the summer sessions MUCH more expensive. Not all so check at the schools you are interested in. Some people suggest getting some prerequisites r required classes out of your major out of the way at community college. I would not suggest that for prerequisites and for either check on transferability to the specific colleges you are interested in.
If this were about the USA, I would caution that some of those careers almost always require work beyond the 4-year (Bachelor's) degree, mainly because there are so many degree-holders competing for positions.I said 3-4 years because in universities in the UK, many Bachelor's degrees (without a foundation year) are 3 years.
If I go to university next year, I am interested in subjects (majors or minors) such as special needs and inclusion studies, deaf studies, early childhood education, and/or social work.
In the USA I think you would find that it is only harder at the so called "ivy league schools" or in a state university that has the best program for some specialty that you're interested in because if they're grading on the curve and you're competing with the best students, naturally it's going to be competitive, but foreign students, especially from China or South Korea, have already had to compete in order to be in the position to go overseas. The only problem would, of course, be English speaking ability. You probably know some USA state universities actively seek foreign students and have special arrangements to help acclimate and get you up to speed in English. I marvel at how well they learn our language because it is surely one of the more difficult languages to learn!As a final year high school student, I am curious about how much harder is college/university than high school and whether it usually takes undergraduate university students to graduate with a Bachelor's in 3-4 years or longer?
College is a lot different from High School. How harder it is depends on what your major is.
In High School I got mostly 'A's. Whereas in College I got mostly 'B's. My major was computer science.
There is no absolute answer to that question, but there is no harm in waiting a bit before enrolling in a college.One of the reasons I started this thread is because I'm not certain about whether to go to college/university next year or not (alternatives may include employment (possibly with part-time study) and/or 1-2 gap year(s)).
There is no absolute answer to that question, but there is no harm in waiting a bit before enrolling in a college.
Sometimes people get the idea that they are going to be missing out or are slough-offs or academic failures if they do not go automatically from high school to college...but all of that is just bunk. There may be plenty of benefit in waiting a little while and seeing what else could be better for you, if anything.
It does matter to some degree, as most of these decisions do, on HOW LONG the absence is. I thought I made it amply clear that I was referring to a short time-out, not to a lengthy one.If you are going into a STEM major there can be huge harm, your math gets rusty and you no longer have the base to do well. Similar things can happen with other academic abilities like writing decent papers, but that usually is not as drastic.
It really depends on who you are, your ability, where you went to highschool and where you go to college. I personally found it easier than highschool because I wasn't so stiffled and I had better teachers and better resources. But most people find it harder because the pace is faster, and they get distracted by young-adult life.