Student Academic Expectations

Many students ask whether college classes will be more difficult than the classes they took in high school. Often, the answer is yes; the material will be more advanced than what students have seen before, and our expectation of the way students will engage with material in college is very different from the way they did in high school. In other words, even if students are reading the same book they read in high school, we expect that they will study it differently. They will need to engage in deeper analysis of subject matter and style, bring knowledge from other subjects to that analysis, support their opinions by drawing on that knowledge, and write more complex papers than they did in high school. 

College requires students to take responsibility for their own education in ways they haven’t typically done before. They must motivate themselves to study during days that often have little structure. Attending class is essential. Their level of preparation for class will determine how much they get out of it, so they have to do their homework and reading, even if the professor doesn’t collect the homework or test their knowledge in class.

Learning to self-motivate and manage one’s time is a skill that can often be challenging for students to master. To be successful, students should expect to devote two hours of outof- class time for every hour of in-class time. For a 15-credit semester, this equates to 30 hours of preparation and studying per week. For this reason, we tell students they need to commit to college as they would to a full-time job.