College Expectations vs. The Reality

College Expectations vs. The Reality

Phoebe Priel

ABSTRACT:

Many students have certain or uncertain expectations about what to expect when coming to college. A lot of upcoming freshmen start to panic a little before college begins because they have heard the horror stories about the workload and how much harder it is. I did a survey that asked the finishing freshman if the homework was everything they expected it to be. I sent out an email to a couple of my friends asking them these questions. I added all the information together to find the results. I found that most of them didn’t think that the homework was any harder than they had expected and there wasn’t a whole lot more work than they expected either.  My results support my original thoughts and ideas that most people didn’t think college was as hard as they had expected before they began.

            I couldn’t find any articles specifically on the expectations of the work load in college, but from my own experience and what I heard from many of my friends before we went to college was fear. Many students are very paranoid before college starts because they don’t know what to expect because college is so vastly different than the school we’ve been in for 12 years.

           

INTRODUCTION:

Many of my fellow freshman students at the University of Louisville had many different expectations about what college would bring. Most students are very scared of the amount of work they’re going to get, and how hard it is going to be compared to high school. I did a survey asking 20 of my fiends if they thought there was more homework than they expected, and if they thought that the homework was harder than the work in high school. 

            This study tries to figure out whether or not students should be worried before going off to college. I wanted to find this out so that hopefully it could help incoming freshman to not be freaked out by all the stories they’ve heard about how hard college is, and to experience it for themselves and they’ll see that it’s not so bad. My results show that most finishing freshman did not think the work was harder or there was more of it than their original expectations. That means that the majority of incoming freshman have an idea in their head that college is going to be way harder than it actually is.

METHOD:

20 students participated in this study. All participants are currently finishing up their freshman year at the University of Louisville. They answered 2 survey questions “was the work in college harder than you expected” and “was there more work than you expected.” These questions were sent out through email.

RESULTS:

For my results, the question of “was there more work in college than you expected” 12/20 said no, while 8/20 said yes. For the second question “was the homework harder than expected” 5/20 said yes and 15/20 said no. Both charts show you that the majority of people that completed the survey would say that the work in college is not as hard as their original expectations. This tells us that most incoming freshmen have high expectations of the work that’s coming to them in college.

Was their more work in college than your original expectations?

Was the homework in college harder than your original expectations?

DISCUSSION:

This study suggests that the majority of college freshman did not think the workload from freshman year was any harder than, nor was there any more than they expected. Although only 11 freshmen participated in this study, and 7 of them were girls, it still goes to show that the expectations students have of what’s coming for them in college is worse than how it actually is. Students fear of how hard college is going to be isn’t nearly as bad as it is. Most incoming freshmen are scared that there will be a ton of work and that that work is much harder than the work they had in high school. While I did not find any research on this topic, it does contribute to the idea that many have of college. Of course only 20 people were asked these questions, so had more of the freshman class answered these questions, the findings may have been different.