How is College Different from High School?

I was going to put together a list of the differences between high school and college, but then I ran into a website which summarized things beautifully:

This website comes from California State University, Chico, a campus which is much larger than ours. As I look over their list, though, the only change I would make is the comment on class size: Here at Ashland, your class size is likely to be smaller than what you experienced in high school! The maximum class size for our course is only 15 students, which means that you really can ask a question and hope for an answer! (Though, of course, class sizes in other departments will be different from ours.)

Two differences worth emphasizing

Doing the reading

In high school, you usually got the reading assignment, then were expected to go home and read it. Many students didn’t actually do that because the teacher would typically spend the next day telling you what was in the item you were supposed to read—and perhaps even giving out a summary or study sheet. College reading doesn’t work that way. You are expected to do the reading before you show up in class, and often it’s background material for the day’s content. You may get quizzed on the contents of your reading, or the teacher may assume you’ve done it and build on that knowledge.

Homework time

You will hear me say this repeatedly: Most college instructors assume a “Two for One Rule”—two hours of homework for every hour in class. A typical course load is 15 hours per week (which seems very light), but if you add 30 hours of homework, you get a 45 hour student week, which is a full-time job. Almost no college instructors give you in-class time to do your homework. You are expected to have it finished when you arrive.

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English 100 at Ashland

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