I know it varies from person to person, but I’m curious about people’s experiences. I’m in my first semester of Artsci, taking prerequisites for programs like econ, IR, political science, and public policy. The workload can definitely be tough, especially with commuting and living alone, but so far, university hasn’t been as terrifying as I built it up to be before starting.
Am I getting too comfortable, or is this a reasonable impression? Does second semester get significantly harder? What about upper years?
I also came from an asynchronous, independent high school, so part of the adjustment has literally been learning how to use Scantrons and figuring out how to make the most of professors and TAs lol.
On a related note, I feel like I spend a lot of time studying for ECO101. I can explain the concepts and even help other people understand them, but that doesn’t always translate into answering exam questions. For example, I can explain elasticity, but unfamiliar question wording throws me off, and then I panic and feel unprepared despite all the studying.
Has anyone dealt with this? Should I spend more time doing practice questions instead of going so deeply into the reasoning behind every concept? I tend to spend ages making sure I understand everything, then get to past midterms fairly late and find that I’m still slow at working through them.
Would love to hear what helped other people make that jump from understanding the material to actually performing well on tests.