Why is college learning hard work?

Of course, college is hard work. Even so, many students enter college without accurate expectations of what college learning is and isn’t. It is easy to underestimate how much work college is- after all, compared to high school, you spend so much less time in class and usually have more time between assignments. You also get to schedule your time and time for your work. All of this sounds great- until it isn’t great. College asks you to think more deeply, be responsible for your time and learning experiences, and ask for assistance when needed. The college environment expects that you already have (or can quickly build) skills like time management, work management, organization, reading, note-taking, studying, and self-efficacy without having someone telling you what you need to do and how to build these skills.

It’s easy in college to misunderstand what learning is (and isn’t) and to ignore or avoid what is expected of you.

How much time do you plan to spend on college work?

Any one course is typically manageable. The work can be challenging and difficult, but if it is the only thing you need to do, you could likely do it. College students usually take more than one course, though.

The complexity increases as you add more full-time college students who take at least 12 credits. Courses are not aware of each other’s timelines and workload. The freedom to complete work when it is best for you can encourage dangerous habits like procrastination- ending with you turning in no work, late work, or work that is not your best (no matter how it scores against instructor expectations). Spending less time in class means needing more time to work on your learning on your own.

For every 1 credit hour of class, you should expect 1-3 hours of independent learning (like studying, homework, reading, and writing). So for a 3 credit hour class, expect and schedule 3 to 9 hours of work! Let’s multiply that by 12 credits- you need to schedule between 12 and 36 hours of learning on your own!

Does it sound overwhelming? It certainly can be! Many first-year students need help managing their workload, scheduling their time, and making sure they manage priorities first. For students who need to or choose to work, these hours can be overwhelming and set them up for failure, even if things are manageable at the beginning of the semester.

You should expect to do MORE work in online classes than in traditional classes, especially in asynchronous classes (meaning they do not meet live).

Understanding the expectations of college learning is very important—to be successful, you have to know what your instructors want from you and how you should manage yourself and your workload.

What kind of learner were you in high school?

Who were you in high school when it came to learning? Maybe you were a strong student who handed things in on time. Maybe you were a creative student who took new approaches to the work assignment. Maybe you were a scattered student, pulled in many directions- for example, sports, school organizations, a part-time job, and social life.  The student you were in high school may still be who you are in college. It is important to know what you struggled with AND how you want to manage those challenges in college.

Ask yourself:

• Did I do my assignments on time?
• What type of assignments did I do well on, and which were difficult for me?
• When did I complete my work?
• Where did I complete my work?
• What things got in the way of my assignments and studying?
• What did studying and assignments prevent me from doing that I wanted to?
• How do I feel about myself as a student?
• How did others view me as a student? (including teachers and other students)

4 big areas you might want to consider about yourself and how you FEEL towards yourself as a student and your PERFORMANCE as a student are:

• Reading: how you process written words to understand their structure, language, and purpose, identify ideas, and infer meaning in an independent and sustained way.
• Math: your ability to use numbers, calculations, mathematical functions, geometry, variables, equations, and complete word problems
• Writing: your skill in writing in a coherent, clear way, focused on content and goals, with good grammar, paragraphs, and overall organization
• Self-regulation (managing yourself as a learner) refers to managing your emotions and learning, including planning, monitoring, anxiety management, and a mindset focused on mastery (not just grades). Self-regulation also means managing your time and work and knowing how and when to ask for help.

These four skill sets provide the foundation for your learning. While you may be stronger in one and weaker in another, you’ll want to build strong skills in each of these areas to manage the challenges of college learning—both the content and the learning process itself.

What is college learning, and how is it different from high school learning?

High school learning is filled with rules. You are typically told what to learn, how to learn it, and how to demonstrate your understanding or mastery. You likely had detailed assignments and rubrics or other information about how your work was scored. Your teachers were trained to be teachers- while they knew about a subject or content area, they spent time in college learning about how people from 3 years old to 18 years old typically learn and develop. Your learning was structured, with times and teachers who collaborated and communicated with each other. High school learning was focused on YOU and helping you learn.

And then you get to college… and trade rules for responsibilities

College learning is filled with responsibilities. You are not told what to learn, how to learn it, and how to demonstrate your understanding or mastery. You are often given assignments and expected to find out how to complete them on your own. Your faculty instructors are experts in their fields but typically have little to no background in how adults learn. They may care very much about your learning, but that does not translate to them being “teachers.” Faculty are called professors for a reason- because their expertise lets them know and explain topics- but not monitor your learning. College instructors usually do not have contact with each other, are unaware of workloads and expectations for other classes, and seldom collaborate, even within their own departments. Many college instructors are adjuncts (part-time on short-term contracts), meaning they only teach 1 or 2 classes, do not have an office on campus, and are only present for the classes they teach- and are not able to get involved in many campus activities.

Demonstrating learning: Bloom’s taxonomy reimagined

A taxonomy is a way of organizing something, in this case- levels of learning. In Bloom’s Taxonomy, learning progresses from the basic level of knowing to the highest level of creating. Bloom plots learning as a sequence where you demonstrate your knowledge at each level through specific activities.

Bloom’s Taxonomy

If we reimagine this taxonomy for college, it becomes less step-by-step and looks more like this, where the foundation is knowing followed by and understanding and using knowledge as explained (by faculty, readings, or other resources) and then a space where you increase your knowledge and skills, followed by three more ways of using what you know- any of which you could be asked to use in a college class.

The first 3 levels (know, understand, use) are what you, as an adult in a learning environment, are expected to do. You are responsible for ensuring you know what the content is, that you can understand and explain it, and that you can use that information to complete coursework.

The next 3 areas (analyze, evaluate, innovate) refer to ways you can demonstrate your mastery of topics beyond using the material in classes. For example, you might:

The mismatch between expectations as a student and the requirements of a course can cause frustration, confusion, and low grades. I’ve seen many students get upset because they think they are doing what is expected when working at the level of “know” when they need to be at “analyzing.”

Understanding the depth of a class

College classes are often numbered, starting with 1, 2, 3, or 4. These numbers often correspond to the year you could take them- for example, a 100 or 1000 course in the first year and a 400 or 4000 course in senior year. With that in mind, you’d think that the content is harder. Actually, it might not be for many colleges, the course numbers reflect the depth and breadth of the course, not the difficulty level.  Let’s look at this in more detail.

A  100/1000 level course is often very wide (breadth, the variety of content it contains) and quite shallow in how much it covers each topic (depth, the level of detail it goes into on the topics in the course). So, a 100/1000 course might cover many topics at a very introductory level, introducing key theories, ideas, people, concepts, and skills. At the end of an introductory course, you will have a foundation of general knowledge to move more deeply into the ideas covered- but you likely will only know a little about any topics.

For example, a 100/1000 level psychology course will teach you the basics about key theories in psychology, vocabulary, skills, and ideas you need to understand what psychology is, as well as the key people in history. With so much to cover, you’ll learn just enough to get started and move on, but not much about any topic in depth.

In fact, if you look at a syllabus from a course like this, you will likely see topics changing each week!

Other introductory or survey-style courses could be found in Sociology, English, Science, Anatomy and Physiology, Music, or Art—all providing an overview of the subject at the college level. It can be tempting to think you can skip these courses, especially if you’ve learned a bit about the topic in high school, but the material covered in college will be deeper than in high school and will help you see the topic in a new way.

A 200/2000-level course has less breadth and is likely to cover fewer topics. Instead, 200/2000 courses cover a smaller list of topics in more detail for each one. Instead of switching between topics each week, you’ll find that your topics are more likely to build on each other to create more depth in your understanding.

For example, if a 100/1000 level Music course was about the history of music, what it is, and how it shapes culture (quite wide, with a variety or breadth of topics), a 200/2000 level Music course might discuss one area (for example, Music in the United States) in more detail. A 300/3000 Music course could cover a specific type of music (for example, Jazz).

A 400/4000 course would then be even more narrow and more deep in its coverage. So it might cover a specific composer or musician, music from a specific time period, or a specific outcome or role of music.

Things to know about college

College learning is different from learning in other areas, including high school or career/workforce learning. Although there may be similarities in some areas, do not underestimate the workload, depth, and expectations of college.

College learning

In many ways college may seem familiar since you’ve been learning throughout your life. College itself may feel like high school as it uses many of the same foundational elements. Even so, college learning is different and knowing these differences can help you to assess your learning and progress towards your goals.

Memory and learning

Memory and creating memories are critical processes for life and learning. Memory supports learning by storing information and retrieving it when needed. However, memory itself is not learning—just as memorizing (knowing) something does not mean that you understand or can use it.

There are 3 main processes in memory:

Encoding- your ability to take in information through reading, experience, and listening- is affected by many things. Imagine if you encoded every experience, everything you read or experienced. Your brain does not do this- in fact, it is highly selective in what gets encoded and what does not. Things that encourage encoding are:

• The length of the material (it is harder to encode long material)
• How organized and clear the material is (it is easier to encode organized and clear material)
• How familiar you are with the material (it is easier for your mind to encode things that are connected to what you know)
• The situation you are in when you heard, experienced, or read the material
• Your physical, mental, and emotional state when you heard, experienced, or read the material
• Motivation (why it is important to you and how you’ll use it)

Once information is encoded, it is stored (retained) so that you can use it. During this process, your memory decides if the encoded information needs to be held in short-term (temporary) memory or long-term memory. Your memories are organized so your brain can retrieve them, with short-term memory items disappearing shortly after use and long-term memories staying in storage for when you need them.

When you need a memory, your brain then retrieves what you need. When you are cued to a memory by seeing, hearing, smelling, or feeling something, your mind is able to recognize the stimulus and then retrieve your memory. This recall is usually fast- especially if it’s for recognition (identifying something familiar to you). For full recall, your brain works fast but needs two steps: searching and retrieving items that match and then choosing which one fits what you need.

This process is not perfect, as you likely know from experience. We forget so much of what we hear, see, experience, or read- and some is stored so deeply that it takes a great deal of time to retrieve it (have you ever experienced remembering something after sleeping? That’s the retrieval process taking time as your mind locates and sorts through deeply stored memories).

How to support your memory:

• Repeat what you want to remember.
  • Do this at different times, in different places
  • Take breaks between repetitions
  • Quiz yourself
  • Use an active process that requires you to think about the material or use it
• Review and revisit materials you need frequently over time. Memory degrades (is harder to access) the longer it sits unused. This can be as simple as thinking about what you know.
  • Give yourself frequent, small tests (what we test ourselves on, we are more likely to be a retrieve and use)
  • Space out your reviews over time
  • Practice your skills together, not one at a time, by creating a challenging activity
• Pay attention to your mental and physical state when you learn, and try to match that physical or emotional state when you want to recall that information.
• Consider your existing knowledge and beliefs related to the material (the schema or mental framework for the ideas) for your materials, and consider the way that what you are learning confirms or contradicts what you already know or believe and push yourself to be more flexible in your thinking.
• Chunk your information together into blocks that are related in a way that makes sense to you.
• Make sure you sleep when your body and brain demand it- during sleep, your brain organizes information and material, which in turn supports retrieval and recall.

You probably noticed that supporting your memory sounds a lot like study strategies- and that is because “knowing” or being able to recall and retrieve information is the foundation for learning.

College learning requires self-regulation

What is self-regulated learning?

As an adult, you have the ability to regulate your own learning (self-regulated learning, or SRL). This means you can intentionally decide how you want to engage (or not engage) in your learning process.

Healthy self-regulated learning includes your ability to:

• Transform goals and work to be done into manageable tasks
• Use skills to complete tasks
• Decide what learning efforts and methods you should use
• Make decisions on what to do or not do regarding learning based on the outcome

Healthy self-regulated learning means that you intentionally decide and adapt your learning activities to your goals. As part of this process, you:

• plan and determine what you need to do to meet your goal
• perform and apply learning methods you believe will be successful
• monitor how you are doing and make adjustments when needed to your learning process, conditions, motivation, or access support

Adding in a final step- reflection- creates a process where you manage your learning and continue to learn about yourself and what works for you.

SRL can be used in an unhealthy way, too

Since self-regulated learning is about you deciding how you want to engage or not engage in learning, you could find yourself using these strategies and making decisions that won’t lead to your success. For example, you might choose to procrastinate instead of working, could significantly underestimate the time or difficulty of an assignment (for example, a paper, reading, or exam), or take on too much work (overcommitting), which allows you to blame your performance on the amount of work you had to do, setting up self-fulfilling prophies by deciding you won’t do well before you even start, and making excuses before you begin.

These types of academic self-handicapping strategies can be used to protect your emotions and ego from discomfort. By setting up reasons why you could fail, you are more likely to fail while deciding on how you’d explain that failure to yourself and others. This momentary protection comes at a high cost, limiting your ability to live the life you want.

The SRL cycle

SRL is not a specific skill or task—instead, it is a cycle of behaviors you use to understand and direct your work. It focuses on YOU understanding yourself and the work you have to do in the specific class environment. As a cycle, it is continuous, helping you understand your work, performance, how you learn, and what you need to do your best.