7 Differences between College and Graduate School

Over the last 22 years, I have been the director of training programs in which I mentor undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate students.  Mentoring and guiding students is my favorite thing to do at work.  I have served as mentor to hundreds of students over the years.   
Many college students ask me whether they should go to grad school.  I never answer that question.  It is a big decision for them to make.  I do tell them what they can expect in grad school that will be different from college.  This can help take some of the shock out of this transition and help students prepare for what's to come in graduate school, for those who decide to go that route. 
Here are 7 differences between the college and grad school experience:

1. You have to be self-motivated:  There's generally no "homework", quizzes, and few exams in grad school classes.  Some classes may only require a final paper or exam.  Although that may sound good to you, it is a major adjustment for college students. Because there is less interim feedback, some students find it difficult to gauge whether they are learning at the right pace in a course – until it is too late.  To succeed in grad school courses, you must find your own self-awareness of how much you are learning every day without the external pressure of frequent exams.
2. You must learn how to learn: Although some graduate courses may use textbooks, many also include original materials such as peer-reviewed articles as the main information sources.  To be able to extract the relevant knowledge from original research articles can be difficult for college students who may not be very familiar with this type of source.     
3. Learning from experts rather than teachers: Seminar-style courses can be tricky for students transitioning from college to graduate school.  These kinds of courses may have a course director who may teach a few of the lectures, but then schedules presenters who are experts in specific topics to give lectures as guest speakers.  Students need to adjust to this because the series of lectures and seminars can feel disjointed and discontinuous.  Another common difficulty that students face with this kind of course is that lecturers vary in their style and the presentations can vary in didactic value. It is up to you, the student, to piece it all together.  
4. Fewer classes per semester: I have reviewed some undergraduate transcripts that make your head spin.  There was the student who double-majored in Africana Studies and Fermentation Science, and the young woman who attempted to improve her low GPA in the sciences by taking credit classes in aerobic exercise.  You don’t get to do this in grad school.  In graduate school, you take fewer classes per semester and the classes are more focused towards training you with the knowledge and skills you need for your specific career.
5.  Digging deeper: Fewer classes doesn't mean more idle time.  In graduate school, classes tend to focus on more specialized topics, like anthropology or microbiology and get into the more intricate details of the theme.  If in college you did a flyby, in grad school you do a deep dive exploration.
6. One big huge project: Most graduate programs require a long-term scholarly project that students must complete before the degree is granted.  This can be a thesis, dissertation, scholarly paper, research project, etc.  Completing a dissertation requires a different kind of relationship with a professor.  The teacher becomes more like a mentor who guides the student through the process of inquiry.  The student then becomes more like an apprentice, working on some aspect of the mentor’s research.  Some college students never experience a mentor relationship until they get to graduate school and this can be a very difficult transition.  
7. A different kind of fun: The graduate experience can be very different (more subdued, less say...) than college life.  You will find that most students in grad school have a strong purpose to learn and less time to party.  It may not only be because the students are older, or that they are all nerds.  It is also because in grad school it is nearly impossible to cram for an exam the night before a test or to come hungover or sleepy to a graduate class or to a meeting with a thesis mentor.  The learning needed to succeed in grad school requires consistent discipline and self-directed study.  Although you can still have fun in grad school, the stakes are high and it is very difficult to get away with just a passing grade because you will need to acquire this knowledge for a job or a career.

The bottom line is, successful graduate students need to be motivated and driven from within.  It can be hard to transition into this model because students may be used to periodic assessments and short deadlines where they know how they are doing along the way.  In graduate school, a long time can pass before you realize that you are not learning all you need to learn or that you have not done all the work needed to complete a dissertation.  That is a rude awakening to have after years in grad school.

Graduate level education is certainly not right for everyone.  It is definitely not right for students who simply go to graduate school as a way to delay a career decision.  Graduate school is a huge investment in time and money, so students need to be aware of what to expect.  If you are not sure, work for a year or two and then decide and prepare for a very different school experience.