With the spring semester well underway, juniors reflected on taking classes at Queens College (QC) for the first time during the fall semester in a survey. Of the 65 juniors that attended at least one QC class, 27 of them submitted responses to the survey. 

When asked to describe their overall experience, the vast majority, 21 of the 27 students that completed the survey, claimed that it was enjoyable to some extent, while the other six students had a mediocre stance about it. Reasons for their responses varied, but students mostly attributed it to how they felt about their professors. Twenty-four students saw their professors in a positive light.

“The professors will help you if you ask for help,” said Runyang Lei. “If you don’t understand anything they will explain it to you again.”

In addition to their opinions of professors, just being on campus affected how they rated their overall experience.

“I like the feeling of going into the campus and being among the college kids,” said Zion Algu. “I also feel more motivated to do well in these classes since it weighs more compared to my high school classes,” she said.

But despite the upsides, many students talked about the negatives as well. One of the main struggles most students faced was juggling the heavy workload from college courses with the workload from their high school classes.

“The combination of academic workload and high school assignments can be overwhelming at times, particularly because I tend to procrastinate,” said Yingying Yang. Yang also commented that the experience has made her “rethink college life.”

And other students just didn’t like the courses.

“I like the experience of going to the college for classes but I don’t find the current classes I’m taking very interesting,” said Andre’ Richardson.

The final question asked students about the difficulty of the course material. Seventeen students felt neutral about it (not too easy or too difficult) while the other 10 were mixed between easy and difficult.

Junior Ethan Yakubov thought it was easy and compared the college and high school courses.

“I do believe the course load at the college is definitely more than in QSI,” said Yakubov. “As long as you stay on top of your work it should be easy not to fall behind.” 

“I wouldn’t say the work is easy because it isn’t, but I wouldn’t say the work is difficult because I’m able to complete it without much real struggle,” said Yang. “It’s just the amount of work being assigned is way too much and my attention span isn’t good enough to complete the work quickly.”