B+
Never Worked Hard in High School? -That's About to Change
The academics are great. Really. I completed my first semester and I'm halfway through my second, and I think I've learned enough to compete with upperclassmen from other schools for internships (I'm a bio major). Many of the first year professors in math and science have a hard time matching the difficulty level of the course to what freshman are capable of doing -they expect a lot given that they're used to working at a graduate/doctorate level. Some even joke about how much they dumb things down. And just because you took APs in high school doesn't mean these classes will be fine for you (well maybe they will, but they're not for most people). Even general classes tend to be like their AP version, except on crack. There is a lot of pressure to do well in relation to other people because many exams are curved so that the mean (say it's a 76) becomes a B-. Sometimes good, often bad (say the mean's an 88, and you got an 80. That could be a C, depending on standard deviation). But hey, it's not all bad. The profs, however difficult to understand at times, are often very willing to help you understand if you come to them with questions. They all have office hours and so do all the TA's, and although you will probably never be the only person at office hours (so you don't exactly get individualized attention), OH will still help given that you have some general background and know exactly what you don't understand -sounds paradoxical right? Think about it. Ultimately, what it comes down to is that this school is really hard. Sure, you will probably have a C average or higher. But getting higher takes work and easy classes to cushion the GPA -don't underestimate those. But for your main classes, expect academic hell: thinking you understand the material and walking out of an exam not having a clue what just happened; feeling confident about an exam only to get a B-/C because well the curve either screwed you or you actually didn't know much; and really only having free time on fridays and saturdays and none during the week because you'll be doing problem sets and readings and studying. Once you get the hang of all this, getting B's and A's in your classes will be very rewarding, but it takes a drastic shift from the high school mentality to achieve this.