Academics

Younger friends always ask me if college is hard; I say yes, but no. Yes it is hard in the sense that you are learning more material at a higher level. No one reminds you about doing your homework, extra research is needed without notice, and it can be harder to earn good grades depending on the intensity of the class. But, in a sense it is the same as previous schooling. You have nights where maybe you don't have any work to do, but you also have nights where you are up until 3am and very stressed. If you have good or decent time management skills, keeping your grades up shouldn't be so hard. A bonus of college is that you get to take classes in subjects you like, so it makes doing homework and studying for tests a bit more enjoyable. At Clark, the intensity of the class depends on the subject, professor, and your comfort level regarding the subject. My academic experience at Clark is definitely harder than high school, but I really enjoy what I am learning and have managed to stay on top of my work.

Academics is very dependent on your major. If you are interested in international development/relations, political science and geography are more rigorous than International Development & Social Change. The Psychology, Environmental Science, Biology and geography are all very strong programs. Classes at Clark are very discussion and participation oriented, but definitely whatever you make of them.

Your grade is how much you put in.

I personally sat in on a 200's level Sociology class and thought it was incredibly simple, but from what I've heard other classes are much more difficult. They offer some interesting and unique academic opportunities.

As always a broad spectrum of academic rigor is available, you may have one class that you can relax about in a semester but that will surely be offset by at least 3 others that have need for attention and interest. The structure of academic programing makes it so that you have a program of liberal studies (gen eds) but ones that you find interesting. This makes your schedule have nothing but interesting classes.

It depends on the major, but the academic is challenging and makes you prepared for future.