I am a bit surprised (unpleasantly) by this. When I was attending highschool (4 schools, in 3 different states - MS, IL, TX, in 4 years) I never had that light of a load. There was never less that 6 full classes per semester and a minimum of 7 hours per day.

Of course, in college you were considered full time if you were carrying 4 classes (3 credit hrs each), but I had no problems continuing with 6 (18 credit hrs per semester). And none of that took into account extra-curricular activities, such as my theatre work which sometimes required as many as 10-12 hr shifts.

If you are only expected to do 1/2 to 2/3rds the work we did 20 years ago, its no wonder when some people start work after finishing school these days in the U.S. they seem a bit lazy to the older generation.

But friends here from Japan for graduate studies, tell me that the workload there is really not as hard as Americans seem to believe. Its more competition and discipline at the lower levels of the system that sparks the reputation for their system being so hard. I am not sure who to believe, but logic tells me its somewhere in between to two impressions.

Prolly just me.... but throughout my high school career, especially my senior year, i never did any homework. I slept in EVERY single class. I NEVER studied. My averages ranged from 60-high 70's (i relied on the final exams to pass the class x.x''') i skipped third period so that i could have an extended (2 hour) lunch at olive garden.....
during my senior year, i arrived atleast 30min - 1h late, and i ALWAYS left about 1h 30m early (late to teh first class, skipped teh last one, and ditched the middle class for lunch)
>.>''

and the only reasons why i didn't graduate with a proper degree is because the school actually screwed my over by cancelling the chinese language course in my senior year =.='''
*you need to 2 consecutive years of the same language to graduate proper*

oh and i was also in the 4th quarter as well xDDD
lmao

>.>'''

on top of all that, i was recognised, by both the teachers and the students, as one of the more intellectual persons.
.... perhaps it's because i'm asian :cool:
or perhaps i was surrounded by idiots....
no idea really >.>''
was too busy trying to sleep to give more than two shts about anyone else
>.>''