Davidson College

Date: Sep 14 2003
Major: Psychology (This Major's Salary over time)
Everyone, Davidson's workload isn't all that bad. Granted I didn't graduate as Valedictorian, but I managed to squeak by with a "B" GPA and end up with a decent job right after graduation. I seriously doubt that MIT's, Harvard's, or Stanford's workloads are any easier than ours. Behold the confounding effect: maybe they have it "easier" because they work more efficiently and are just plain smarter than us? And the bit about Davidson being ranked as the "hardest" working school. That's just based on student survey data (whichever school's student body reports the highest average number of hours studied per day "wins"), and I think we're just inflating our own numbers just to make us feel better about ourselves (kind of ironic at an institution where grade inflation doesn't exist). I'm sure a lot of people at Davidson have worked just as "hard" to find something to do on campus or worked just as "hard" to socialize on the first floor of the library.

If you compare us to other schools, OK, maybe we don't have the same grade inflation as like Duke. However, they don't have the same luxuries as we do either. I mean, even with all the work, we have a lot of take home exams (closed book, but we can work at our own pace and wherever/whenever we want to) and almost all of the final exams on campus are self scheduled, meaning we don't have to have back to back exams unless we feel like it. You basically walk into the main building on campus and tell them which test you want to take and in which room you want to take it in that day! And my friends, who study at these so-called "easy" Ivy League institutions, are quite flabbergasted at how often our professors let us hand in papers late with no penalties, re-take exams over the holiday breaks, etc. Such luxuries are unheard of at other schools.

Don't get me wrong, Davidson is filled with very talented individuals, and the faculty is great. But do take what the students and my fellow alumni say about the workload with a grain of salt.