IMRad first draft

IMRaD Report

College Expectations vs. The Reality

Phoebe Priel

ABSTRACT:

Many students have certain or uncertain expectations about what to expect when you get to college. A lot of upcoming freshman start to panic a little before college starts because they have heard the horror stories about the workload and how much harder it is. I wanted to do a survey that asked the finishing freshman if the homework was everything they expected it to be.

INTRODUCTION:

I, like many of my fellow freshman students at the University of Louisville had many different expectations about what college would bring. I personally was very scared of the amount of work I was going to get, and how hard it was going to be compared to high school. I did a survey asking a couple 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. 

METHOD:

7 girls and 4 boys participated in this study. All participants are currently finishing up their freshman year at the University of Louisville.

RESULTS:

For my results, as you can see most of the answers from my survey questions say there is pretty much an even amount of yes’s and no’s. Both charts do show you that No was the more common answer only winning by one on each question, meaning that the majority of people I asked said that the Homework in college wasn’t as hard as they expected and there wasn’t any more homework than they expected.

Was the homework in college harder than you expected?

	Question 1
Yes	5
No	6

Was there more work than you expected?

	Question 2
Yes	5
No	6

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.