undergrad vs. grad/med/law school

[Dionysus]

How is your grad school different from your undergrad school?

These differences can include:
-Classroom stucture
-Kind of classmates
-Schedules
-Assignments
-Work and/or social life outside of the classroom
-What you like/dislike
-Anything else

[irishpipes]

The grading scale was totally different in grad school. You would be on probation for 1 C, and expelled from the program if you got a total of 2 Cs during your tenure. A C was equivalent to an F, and they just weren't given unless a student really, really stunk.

In my tax courses the emphasis was on reading and then analyzing together, rather than lecture. I am sure that is different depending on what you study.

My grad school exams were much more comprehensive than undergrad - anything you "should" have known at that point was fair game, whether it was covered in that class or not.

Now, my elective classes that fell under the MBA umbrella were totally different. They were all marshmallow group projects with a presentation and/or paper due. I hated those touchy-feely classes.

By the way, my graduate degree was a Masters of Science in Taxation from the University of Tulsa. It fell partially under the business school and partially under the law school, so our electives (non-Tax courses) had to be taken from the MBA and JD programs.

[Taualumna]

-Classroom stucture

Undergrad: Varied between 100+ lectures and 10-25 seminars

Grad: No more than 30 people in a class

-Kind of classmates

Undergrad: Almost all young people in their late teens/early 20s

Grad: In my program, 85% of the students had kids old enough to be in high school!

-Schedules

Undergrad: Classes mostly during the day (except for a conversational French class I took in my first year)

Grad: Almost all evening classes...the program I was in catered mostly to people with full time jobs.

-Assignments

Undergrad: essays and oral presentations

Grad: Almost all essays!

-Work and/or social life outside of the classroom

Undergrad and grad pretty much the same...except I didn't really socialize with classmates in grad school....

-What you like/dislike

Undergrad: HUGE LECTURES!

Grad: evening classes/being one of two 20-somethings in the class.

-Anything else

Nope!

[ADSigMel]

I don't know if all of the differences I've experienced are an undergrad vs. law school thing, or whether it's more of a University of Alabama (big public school) vs. Vanderbilt (small private school) thing, but I honestly think I liked undergrad better.

Pro-Undergrad:
I tested out of most of my freshman-level undergrad classes (English, math, science, and foreign languages), and the ones I didn't test out of, I took as honors course, so my classes were small all the way through undergrad, much smaller than many of my law school classes have been.

Pro-Undergrad:
My classmates were friendlier, more interesting, and not as .... well, *studious* (not that studious is a bad thing, but I'm trying to think of a nicer way to say "engrossed in school to the point of being socially inadequate"). They smiled and chatted with everyone sitting near them before class started. Maybe that was just because they were southerners and I go to school with a bunch of Yankees now, but I don't like it.

Pro-Undergrad:
The social life is pretty much non-existent, unless you just want to get plastered every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night, but without the friendly bonding that went along with binge drinking in undergrad.

Pro-Undergrad:
Schedules were easier to manipulate in undergrad because most courses were offered more than once per year and more than one section was opened per semester.

Pro-Law:
I do like the work better in law school. It's kind of rough being so completely immersed in legal academia (which is, I have observed from my summer associate experiences, not particularly similar to the actual practice of law), but at least it's all stuff I enjoy, and my only required class after the first year is Professional Responsibility. Electives are good, and I like them.

Pro-Law:
I'm also pretty pleased with the final-grade-based-on-the-final-exam thing. I would much rather have a whole semester to put my thoughts together and then have my knowledge of the subject be based on how well I can put it all together, rather than having little BS mini-tests throughout the semester, when I know I haven't really learned enough to know what the devil I'm talking about. Plus, not having to take a test until the end of the semester allows me to be a lot more relaxed through the first 14 weeks. I know some people just stay all anal and uptight all semester long, but I'd rather procrastinate on the outlines until after classes are over, spend the two weeks of finals constantly on the verge of tears, and then have it all over and done with. After all, the worst grade I'll get is a C, and that's still a passin' grade in my book.

Pro-Undergrad:
On that note, I definitely do not like the grading system of law school in the slightest. Maybe I would like it better if I had gone to a less strenuous school, but at Vanderbilt, I'm competing against people who are so much smarter than me, it's not even funny. I'm actually okay with that. They want to work in D.C. and N.Y.C., and I don't even like to venture north of Birmingham when I can help it. So, I'm not really competing against them in the real world. But it SUCKS BUTT that I get stuck with B+'s as the best grades I can possibly get, even when I work my tail off and know that I know this material well enough to avoid a malpractice suit in any courtroom in the country (and maybe even win a few cases), just because I'm being graded on a ridiculously strict curve against the indomitable Doogie Housers of the legal world. I figure, if I know enough to do pretty well in the real world, give me a B. But if I know enough to do really well in the real world, damn it, give me an A!

Anyway, this has turned into an "I hate law school" vent, and I really didn't mean for it to (even though we do have lockers in the basement, and a prom every spring). Suffice it to say that I liked undergrad a lot better, and that ain't just because my law school is above the Alabama line.

[Munchkin03]

I went to smallish private schools for both undergrad and graduate school, so there really wasn't THAT much of a difference between them for me in regards to the campus culture.

Class types: Lectures for the basic stuff (ie, History of Architecture), seminars and independent studies for more advanced things. In fact, most of my undergrad seminars were capped at 10-15 students, while there were usually enough spaces for my entire grad program to take a "seminar" together (we had a graduating class of 30).

Grading Scale: In undergrad, we had the option of ABC/No credit or Satisfactory/No Credit. So, I took classes that I was merely interested in pass/fail, and kept the graded classes for my majors. In grad school, we had High Pass/Pass/Low Pass/Fail. Most teachers just gave passes. There were a few that gave High Passes or Low Passes, but they were in the minority.

Level of Competition: In grad school, most people tried to be very competitive, but most weren't competent enough to pull it off. The program tended to attract a lot of people based on where it was, but most graduate schools here have just gotten their yields up to pre 9/11 levels. So, there were a lot of people who wouldn't have gotten in if it hadn't been for 9/11.

Social Life: See above. Many people were just way too pretend-competitive to have social lives. There was a couples' clique, and there was also a bunch of us who had friends in the city to begin with. Once in a while, someone would have a party or two, or groups of us would go out for happy hour. But, for the most part, it wasn't the way it was in undergrad.

[AUDeltaGam]

Originally posted by ADSigMel

Pro-Undergrad:
Schedules were easier to manipulate in undergrad because most courses were offered more than once per year and more than one section was opened per semester.

AMEN!

This is my main gripe about grad school. (I go to a large public school, BTW).

[ADSigMel]

Originally posted by Munchkin03
Level of Competition: In grad school, most people tried to be very competitive, but most weren't competent enough to pull it off. The program tended to attract a lot of people based on where it was, but most graduate schools here have just gotten their yields up to pre 9/11 levels. So, there were a lot of people who wouldn't have gotten in if it hadn't been for 9/11.

Did grad school enrollment rates drop post 9/11? I didn't know that. I would have thought it would be the opposite, since I thought the economy got worse after 9/11 and it caused *more* people to go to grad school. Of course, I'm no economist, and since I've been in school since 1988 and have not really had to be a grown-up with bills and a job and stuff, I don't generally follow the economy at all. But I thought I had heard that somewhere.

[ADSigMel]

Originally posted by AUDeltaGam
AMEN!

This is my main gripe about grad school. (I go to a large public school, BTW).

In the future, I would prefer that you please not quote me or have any further contact with me on these boards. I understand your signature to indicate that you went to Auburn.


(J/K )

[Kevin]

Undergrad -- academically, it was kind of a blur. I showed up and got okay grades, nothing spectacular, but all I really did was show up and turn in whatever homework was assigned.

Law -- academically, it's pretty rigorous. I'm in a part time evening program, and in my day job, I'm a legal assistant. The hardest thing when you're working full time and taking 10 hours of law school classes is time management. Typically, I get to bed around 1AM-3AM, and am up to go to work around 7:30AM. If you're able to survive on a limited amount of sleep, that's great.

The toughest thing has been adjusting to my LRW class this semester. Last semester, it was just Contracts I, Torts, and Legal Analysis. None of those classes had any major papers or assignments due, you just show up, participate in the lectures, and then show up and take the final. LRW requires a pretty substantial amount of research and writing, and they give us short deadlines (I guess to simulate the kind of time constraints that we'll be under in the real world).

Class discussion is an entirely different animal. It does vary from class to class, but a lot of my proffessors rely on one degree or another of the Socratic method -- that means, that you shut your laptop and your book, stand up and recite the case and argue with the professor about it. If you're prepared, it's alright, but the tough part is figuring out where your prof is going to go with the case. Some classes don't require the whole standing up/closing the laptop, while others require that if you are called on, you're standing for the remainder of class with no help allowed from your colleagues.

I understand the day program is pretty competitive for rank. People backstab, provide notes to each other that are wrong, lie, etc. just for class rank. Class rank is a pretty big deal to some folks. I'm an evening student (and #5 in my class since someone ahead of me had to go to war) and it's totally different. It's more of a team effort to get through finals. Everyone has a life, a job, many have kids, etc. From what I understand, the environment is a lot more professional. Not all schools are like that though.

The grading curve is vicious. The average grade is a C. They don't give many grades below C-, but they do give lots of C-'s. In a class of 60, last year, we had on average about 7 people 14 people above B- and only 7 with B+'s and above.

The school does do a pretty good job preparing us for trial practice. They have some firm management courses and things of that nature so that we're pretty well prepared to go out into the world and hang up our shingles.

I'm at the Oklahoma City University School of Law btw.

[AUDeltaGam]

Originally posted by ADSigMel
In the future, I would prefer that you please not quote me or have any further contact with me on these boards. I understand your signature to indicate that you went to Auburn.


(J/K )

Oh, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings...you must not have been able to get into Auburn Haha

[Munchkin03]

Originally posted by ADSigMel
Did grad school enrollment rates drop post 9/11? I didn't know that. I would have thought it would be the opposite, since I thought the economy got worse after 9/11 and it caused *more* people to go to grad school. Of course, I'm no economist, and since I've been in school since 1988 and have not really had to be a grown-up with bills and a job and stuff, I don't generally follow the economy at all. But I thought I had heard that somewhere.

In graduate architecture programs in New York City, yes, it did right away. People who would have begun programs in 2002 chose not to apply to the major programs, which all received less applications than they did the year before and the year after.

[KSigkid]

I'm about to find out - I start law school in the fall. From what I've heard, the experience will be quite different. Also, I can say the admissions process was a heck of a lot different; for law school I went through LSDAS, obsessed over the LSAT, and got a lot less guidance than I did for college.

Also, I imagine that my classmates as a whole will be more intelligent than going into college, for the simple reason that not everyone gets into law school. I'm guessing things will be much more competitive, which I'm actually looking forward to.

I went to a big private university (Boston U.) for undergrad, and although I'm going to a state school for law school (not in MA - Massachusetts doesn't have a state law school), it still will be much smaller (200 kids in my 1L class).

[ADSigMel]

Originally posted by Munchkin03
In graduate architecture programs in New York City, yes, it did right away. People who would have begun programs in 2002 chose not to apply to the major programs, which all received less applications than they did the year before and the year after.

Oh, gotcha, I didn't realize what city your school was in. I thought you were saying that enrollment had dropped nationwide.

[Rudey]

Originally posted by ADSigMel
Oh, gotcha, I didn't realize what city your school was in. I thought you were saying that enrollment had dropped nationwide.

It did.

-Rudey

[AGDee]

Originally posted by Dionysus
How is your grad school different from your undergrad school?

These differences can include:
-Classroom stucture
-Kind of classmates
-Schedules
-Assignments
-Work and/or social life outside of the classroom
-What you like/dislike
-Anything else

It has been many years since I attended either, but I'll give this a shot.

My undergrad experience was almost like two separate experiences. There was the part where I was doing pre-reqs to apply to the Occupational Therapy program and the part where I was in the OT program. Our OT program was very competitive to get into and was structured to be your junior and senior year. You were in all the same classes with the same 50 students, although some classes were split into two sections, they were held simultaneously. For instance, for our Programming class, we had one instructor for physical disabilty while the other half of the class had a different instructor for mental health. Halfway through the semester, we swapped. After we made it through our "weed out" semester (with gross anatomy and physiology), the rest was tough, but our professors were great. There were only 6 of them and 50 of us who went through it all together. We were on a first name basis with them. We were all full time students, because it was required. It was quite different than the large lecture halls of my first couple years. My first two years, I didn't have to study and got good grades easily. The OT program demanded a lot of time. We had classes on Mondays and Wednesdays from 8 am-5 pm and did 16 hours of fieldwork each semester, on Tues, Thurs or Fri, in some combination you worked out with the supervisor at the placement. I tried for Thurs, Fri. field placements so if I had tests or papers due on Wednesdays, there was time on Tuesday to study/write. We did a TON of oral presentations. A TON! No fear of public speaking after going through that program. We had a ton of group projects too.

Grad school was part time evenings, while working full time. I was working on a masters in Clinical Psychology. The biggest stress there was getting off work at 4:15 pm and having to be in class by 5:15 pm, 50 miles away. If there was an accident or construction, yikes.. major stress. Class sizes were small, maybe 20 in a class. I was the only one in most of my classes who had ever seen a mentally ill patient, so my instructors used to have me give examples all the time. Instructors were much more formal than they had been in my OT program, and we called them Dr. such and such. There were more papers and reading than oral presentations or group projects. One class had 8 books and they were written by the biggies in Psychology.. Erikson, Freud, etc. Reading the actual works of Freud was a challenge, just getting through the language. Tests were good though, except for one prof who tested us on footnotes (and that was the class with the 8 books).. Personality was the title of the course. Where in OT school, we were a very tight knit group, almost like a second sorority, in grad school, people kept to themselves. There wasn't time for much interaction, except for the night the Persian Gulf War started, we didn't talk much. That night, the reports that bombing had started were coming in while we were on a break.

Overall though, grad school was easier than OT school, at the same university. When I applied to grad school though, I was really missing my old college days (about 3 years after I had graduated) and was disappointed that it was so different and so much less social! My work experience was a HUGE asset in grad school, which is probably why I thought it was easier. I'd had hands on, I'd worked with Clinical Psychologists, seen the tests, etc. Oh yeah! The standardized testing, IQ testing, Personality testing, etc.. I LOVED those classes. I got to do IQ tests on everybody I knew, including my fiance (who became my second husband and the father of my kids). I highly recommend being able to IQ test the potential father of your children... LOL.

ETA: It was also in grad school that I learned that I didn't have to have a heart attack over every A- and that I could relax a little and still get good grades. I was insane in undergrad about my grades and would totally freak out over anything that wasn't an A. I put myself under a lot of unnecessary stress. I don't know if it was confidence or maturity that got me over that hump, but I know I did beat it while in grad school. The world wasn't going to end because I got a B+ instead of an A-. And, ironically, my GPA in both undergrad and grad was exactly the same.