Who here finished college in 4 years?

[Quicksilvre]

I'm going to a top 50 college in a tough major (math) and carrying a chronic illness. I'm on schedule to graduate in four years even though I missed a full semester to medical leave. My GPA is 3.21 right now and will probably be around 2.8 or 3.0 when I graduate.

[CalledDownLight]

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i went to a small decently regarded liberal arts school.

almost no classes had attendance requirements except in seminars it'd be a bit awkward to not go since you are one of ten.

90% of professors used powerpoints for class and those were all available online.

tests- the night before, print out all the powerpoints, look over them, read some things from the book, good to go.

papers- night before, load up Word and google, type paper from 10pm-3am, go to bed, good to go.

group projects- split up over email, do your small part, good to go.

and i had a 3.7 going into senior year. people a lot dumber than me did this same thing and still pulled 3.0s

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I wish all my teachers did that/we didn't have class requirements. I can miss at most 2 classes in each of my classes (yes, including the 8 am one) before each additional absence lowers my grade half a letter. Most teachers use powerpoint, but I think it's just luck of the draw that I get a lot of the older ones who don't feel like putting them up online. I've even had a teacher delete crucial information from posted powerpoints just to penalize kids for not coming to class, despite having an attendance requirement.

I do the same thing with papers, although a lot of my course readings are 20-30 page pdf files that my teachers briefly discuss in class, but expect you to know damn well for tests, so I don't think I could constantly pull all-nighters with that much material staring me in the face without dying. So many teachers here introduce new material in class, but still expect you to know all the outside reading material it's sick. I would have agreed with your methods for getting by in years past since that's how I did it too, but now that all my classes are 400+ level, I doubt it would work for me anymore.

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ratemyprofessor is your friend. If your major is so small that only one teacher teaches a class every semester and it is required then that sucks and there's nothing you can do. I have waited for easier profs and the ones that don't take attendance and post stuff online several times before taking a required econ course. For electives in my major, I just refuse to take them if the prof sucks, grades difficult compared to other profs, or requires attendance. My school does pretty well about having teachers post pretty much a complete syllabus online before registration starts so you know exactly what will be required in terms of attendance, grade breakdown, textbooks, how he/she does notes, and whatever else you need to know before you choose to take the class. I spend a lot of time looking at classes and comparing workload and weighing that with the chances I'll like the content and professor so that when it comes around to actually taking the class its not very demanding or stressful.

Out of curiosity whats your major? It seems like you are in a lot of smaller classes so I'm assuming its not a big social science like history, econ, psychology, or sociology.

[Riverman]

WTF @ all the "How can you not go to class and still get good grades!!!!!! posts.

Maybe its just a difference in schools, but I went to a top 5 school and people routinely got As in classes that they didn't attend except to take exams and turn papers in.

[divides_by_zero]

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WTF @ all the "How can you not go to class and still get good grades!!!!!! posts.

Maybe its just a difference in schools, but I went to a top 5 school and people routinely got As in classes that they didn't attend except to take exams and turn papers in.

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To be fair, these ARE kids that got into a Top 5 school.

[capone0]

I had a buddy at Cornell that went to 2 classes in a semester in CS and got into Columbia Law and he already graduated after only taking 3 years at my school.

[kkcountry]

i should graduate in 4 years (accounting) even though i only had 4 hours of AP credit, i'd probably stretch it out to 5 years if my scholarship wasn't limited to 4 years.

[XXXNoahXXX]

I wish I could have stayed 5 years and since I was on all scholarship and fin aid it wouldn't have costed much more, but I realized that all my friends would be gone and it wouldn't be the same.

[wstaffor]

I finished my undergrad and masters in Econ in 4 years.

To each his own, but my initial assumption about someone who took longer than 4 years to finish UG is that they are a total [censored].