The common refrain I keep hearing is high school teachers saying "That won't fly in College" with College professors letting that fly all the time. In your experience, were American High School teachers very strict while American College professors very lenient?
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You kind of need to study in college or you will fail, unless you are some sort of genius
Everything is generally more relaxed, yes (except the exams, they will fuck you up)
In high school you are a child and you have to be there. An elementary education is a guaranteed right of every child resident.
In college you are an adult and no one can force you to do anything.
Typically slackers don’t really show up to college classes, they just skip it or maybe only show up for tests and hope to coast by on good enough
Yes because teenagers can very rambunctious while college students tend to be more respectful
It’s not that they won’t allow you to, at that point you are an adult after all. It’s more that you will not succeed if you do not put work into your studies.
It’s a have to learn the rules before you begin to learn what rules can be bent/broken in certain situations. Not all of college requires 24/7 study, but if you never built any study skills, you’ll be screwed.
Yes. Basically high school teachers often made it seem like college professors would be even stricter, when the reverse is true. College professors aren’t going to be nearly as strict, but their standards are a lot higher. High school teachers are usually preparing the students to live in an academic world with less teacher-driven structure.
I found that my high school teachers who tried to use college as a threat like that were very out of touch with what colleges actually do.
Otoh, I had one teacher, my senior year, who told us “If you need to use the restroom, just go. You’re not going to have to ask permission in college.” And she was right.
As someone working in higher ed studying isn’t a good example. But some things are true. Not all classes require attendance, but some do. Professors can be more relaxed than k-12 but there are always some who hard hard asses.
Cussing is typically not allowed in k-12 but college isn’t so restricted on that.
Generally the vibe with college professors is less like they don’t care if you study and more Iike they don’t care about you period.
Or in less pessimistic terms, they trust you to be an adult and make good decisions for your own education, or face the consequences if you don’t, and aren’t concerned with trying to coax you into good academic performance.
I was a “gifted” high schooler that never had to study. Got an academic full ride to college. Was told that I was gonna be screwed in college because I hadn’t developed good study habits, would lose my scholarship and have to drop out. Never had to study in college either, though to be fair I wasn’t like a STEM major or anything so not a ton of formulas to memorize.
Lots of stuff flies in college, the thing is that a lot of students can’t handle the freedom and make bad decisions. The professors don’t tend to baby students or force them to be successful as much as highschool teachers might.
My in laws are professors too and they’ll openly talk about how some students just aren’t meant for college.
High school teachers are trying to promote good behaviors, but they aren’t really explaining the reality of college. In college, there’s nothing enforced aside from grades. Most of your professors don’t care how you do it. Nobody is checking in on you. Attendance is inconsistently tracked. Homework may or may not exist. You get a syllabus or rubric, limited access to office hours and TAs, and the rest is up to you.
It all depends on the college.
I was an undergrad at two different schools. Professors generally didn’t have much tolerance for late assignments. You didn’t turn them in, you got a zero. The few that I remembered with late homework policies started deducting points.
There were also frequent tests. If you didn’t keep up, you’d start doing poorly on tests.
In college I learned to structure my life to have both fun time and get stuff done time.
I’ve never seen this for studying, but other than that yeah
Yep, absolutely true.
College Professors are extremely lenient when it comes to general behavior. You can be late to class, skip class, sleep in class, etc. Homework was generally very rare. Frequently it was optional.
This, of course, means tons of students don’t put in any effort and fail their exams. College is a wake-up call for those students who needed the constant supervision.
Because In High School there’d be 4-8 tests a year, a bunch of in-class assignments, several projects, quizes, and generally 25+ grades that gave you a lot of chances to make up one bad test or a few bad weeks.
In college, many many courses had grades consisting of a Midterm and a Final Exam. Maybe a project in there. If you bombed one of those three grades you fail.
College doesn’t “tolerate” things because you’ll fail the classes. Don’t want to study? Don’t study, if you fail you fail. They do not care if you pass, only that the tuition check clears.
High school teachers are trying to get kids to develop good habits. And high schools do care about the graduation rate.
High school teachers and community college teachers both tried to scare us with “we’re leaving, but the next step teachers won’t be”
It really depends on school and professor.
I teach at a university.
Compared to K-12 education, we’re “lenient” about certain things because our students are adults and are presumably there voluntarily. Don’t want to come to class? Fine, just don’t complain to me about anything that you miss. Don’t want to turn in work? Fine, less for me to grade. Don’t want to study? Fine. I think you’re wasting time/money but that’s your choice.
In other ways, we’re less lenient. It is much less common to be allowed to redo assignments, to have exams excused for flimsy reasons, etc. And we tend to punish academic dishonesty much more than I see happening in K-12 education. (All of this is, of course, a generalization – we’re a big country and you’ll always be able to find some exceptions.)
I think the tl;dr is just that we treat students like adults rather than children and that means some expectations relax and others become more strict.
Well, yes. I only had one class that required attendance and participation. I hated that class. That being said, the professors don’t care if you come, if you study, if you flunk out. But there are very few people in this world who can get a degree worth getting, and not go to class and/or not study and still get decent grades.
Professors neither control nor even know if you’re studying. But the grades don’t come as easily as high school if you don’t study.
in high school you were treated like a child, constant check ins. Making sure you were completing your work. Skip a class and they tracked you down. I had a number of teachers tell me “This won’t fly in college” when I missed an assignment,
Then I got to college and there were no check ins, skip a class no one cared. Then I got my mid semester grades, I was pretty much flunking. Why? missed classes and assignments. YEAP my teachers were right. It didn’t fly, the difference is where high school teachers have and incentive to get you to graduate. Where as in college As long as you pay your tuition for your classes the college and therefore your professor literally doesn’t care.
I had a professor say it the best way: “*You’re paying to be here. The university gets your money whether you get an A or an F. But you won’t get a degree with an F. So do yourself a favor and only pay for and take this class once. Do the work and get the passing grade*”.
Depends on your effort in college. I had an 89 in a class after the final and messaged the professor and asked if I could do anything for extra credit so I could get an A. He told me not to worry and that I would get that A, he was a real one. I always turned in my assignments and did decent on all the tests so throwing me a point was not a big ask (probably in his mind) but it meant a lot to me.
It really depends on the teacher tbh. I took Philosophy 101 and I barely did any work in it. Came to take the final and it was an essay one with multiple prompts to choose from, we had had been given the prompts in advance but I didn’t pay attention. I didn’t write the required number essays in time since I wasn’t prepared. I got a B on it because early on I had realized the professor loved certain concepts (particularly how do you know that what you see is really whats there) and I found a way to work those concepts into the essays. I’ve never had another class where that would have worked.
My high school classes were harder and my high school teachers were stricter compared to my classes and professors in undergrad
My undergrad classes were hard and my professors were stricter compared my grad school classes and professors.
It really comes down to the relationship dynamics being completely different. High school education is compulsory. The student does not have a choice, so the teachers often have to be strict towards the trouble kids to create a learning environment for everyone else. College is completely voluntary, and the students are adults. The professor will not hold your hand but will happily teach you if you want to learn. Grad school is that dynamic to a greater degree
Depends on the University and the Major and the degree. I definitely had classes in College where any paper that missed the deadline by seconds was an automatic 0 with no chance to make it up. I also had classes where attendance was part of the grade and missing class wasn’t excused regardless of if you were in the hospital, a funeral, or sick.
On the other hand most professors didn’t care about attendance at all and I also had one professor who I emailed a paper to a couple hours past the deadline and they didn’t care.
The main difference in College is that professors have more freedom to do whatever they want, whether it is to be more strict or more lenient. In alot of high schools there are school wide policies designed to try to get as many kids to pass their classes and graduate as possible.
If I didn’t show up to my college courses, I’d be out of the $500 or so. As I was paying out of pocket, there was a strong incentive to get my money’s worth because I couldn’t really afford to repeat any classes. But the instructors wouldn’t care if I showed up or not except for tests.
College teachers don’t not allow anything. You are free to do what you will.
But if you don’t study you won’t do very well.
In college my professors didn’t care if I passed or failed
No one can MAKE you study in college, but it is generally more necessary. Winging it in college is dangerous.
In college, you have to manage yourself. You constantly have to determine what the best use of your time will be, because you could argue at any given moment that the best use of your time would be to do something for your classes. So if you are able to self-motivate in high school and can do what you need to do without an adult breathing down your neck, you will inherently have an advantage over people who can’t.
It varies wildly depending on the professor and what class they’re teaching. Some require mandatory attendance. Some don’t. Some will let you coast, and others can be absolute hard asses about everything.
The point high school teachers (they also went to college) are trying to drill into you is that no one is going to be looking over your shoulder making sure you’re studying the course work. If you don’t study in college, you’re going to flunk out. You’re an adult now. The training wheels are off. You’re responsible for yourself.
Source: Me. I didn’t study at all in high school and passed everything no problem. College was a rude awakening.
If you go to a large university, especially as a freshman, you can be in 100-300 person lectures for general classes. The professor doesn’t know or care that you exist.
I remember a high school teacher telling us that if an English professor saw more than 1 grammatical mistake in your paper they would give you an F. That is definitely not true. College professors are interested in the argument you’re making, your supporting evidence, and the structure of the paper. They aren’t going to fail you if you have a comma splice or start a sentence with a conjunction.
It can be a more relaxed environment in college, but high school educators are trying to make teens have at least basic manners. That’s why they make it sound stricter than it really is. Although I do think some memes make college sound too informal too.
And some students do FAFO.
There’s a prominent historical romance author who also happens to be a tenured professor on Shakespeare. She talked once about a how a student emailed her to insult her novels and he was shocked SHOCKED that not only did she refuse to write him a recommendation letter afterwards, but that she reported him to the dean. It was “just a joke,” after all.
Not studying is crazy, and I’m not sure where you’re pulling that from.
A common thing is bathroom breaks. In high school / grade school, teachers are often strict about allowing kids to use the restroom, and college professors don’t care.
I taught at a small local public college and the gap between the local public school system and college level expectations was huge. A lot of students had no idea how to cope, and I cared about them and knew about this gap, but I’m not going to inflate grades.
In college, those who want to be there will do well. Those who only attend because they are made to go by parents will not or they will stop attending.
High School kids are required to attend and are considered minors except for maybe some seniors who are 18. A HS diploma is also a basic requirement for most things.
At my community college there would be a full parking lot in August or September but not so busy in December or March. My university was a bit better since people were going for a degree but you’d still get people who partied too much and dropped out of my school which has a rigorous quarter system.
I didn’t really study in high school or graduate school. Graduated with honors from both. Top 10% of my classes. Graduate school though. THAT took a lot of study.
College professors are both less strict but also have higher expectations.
Sure, you can bring a drink or snack to class, just make sure you clean up after yourself. You can skip class if you want; you’re the one who’s paying for it. Don’t feel like studying? Fine, don’t.
But if you forget to finish your homework, you’re not getting an extra week to turn it in. If you fail an exam, you’re not getting a free re-test. If you’re caught cheating, you’re out, period; take your F and don’t bother coming back to class.
It varies depending on the major, but college courses are typically much tougher than high school courses. It’s very common for people who never had to study in high school to discover that taking the same approach to college will result in you failing, and you have to manage your own schedule because nobody’s going to do it for you.
The “leniency” in college you speak of is just allowing the student to eventually “find out” on their own what the consequences of all their “fucking around” are.
In high school they wouldn’t let us chew gum.
In college my professor said we couldn’t bring weed to class unless we had enough to share with everybody.