Being in Fisher as a Graduate v. Undergraduate Student
If you have been following along with my blog posts than you’ll know that I am a combined BSBA/MAcc student, meaning I attended Fisher as an undergrad for my first three years of college and am now taking my upper level accounting courses in the graduate program to get both degrees at the same time. This means that I have experienced Fisher as both an undergraduate and graduate student.
Overall, the experience in Fisher as a graduate student is pretty different from undergrad. There are a lot of perks but also difficulties that come with the step up to graduate school.
Some of the perks include printing, lounges, more study rooms, and smaller class sizes. Graduate students get 750 pages of free printing, whereas in undergrad you only get 500. This increase is really nice because I would always have to start rationing my printing at the end of semester but now I have more than enough. When you are a graduate student you have access to the Graduate Lounge on the second floor of Gerlach Hall. The lounge has two refrigerators, two microwaves, and lots of seating with access to outlets. The seating options in the lounge are great because there are plenty of spaces to sit alone and study or work with a group. I love sitting in the lounge between classes to eat lunch, study, or work on group projects. It’s normally pretty busy around lunchtime but I’ve always been able to find a place to sit. If it is too busy or too loud though, I will head down to the Grad Pad in the basement which is a smaller lounge with about three tables and a printer. Graduate students also have exclusive access to reserving the study rooms in Gerlach Hall so I have rarely ever had a hard time finding a room to book to work on group projects. As an undergrad I only had access to the Mason Hall room reservations and they would frequently be booked. Finally, my favorite part of being a graduate student is the smaller class sizes. Besides my core MAcc classes, most of my classes have less than 30 people and a lot of them are the same students from my other classes. This has allowed me to form great relationships with my fellow classmates and has made coming to class not only informative, but also fun.
Even given the perks, there are still a few difficulties that come with the move from undergraduate to graduate studies. The first is that there are a lot of group projects, these can be really enjoyable but finding time to work on the project as a group can be difficult and there have been weeks where I have had group project meetings every day. One thing that is nice about this is that there is a lot less busy work for classes than in undergrad. I only had a few assignments to turn in last semester, most classes are composed of group projects, papers, and exams. Another difficulty is the expectations the professors hold us to. We move through material very quickly and are expected to retain a lot. This is challenging but also very rewarding because you will learn a lot in a short period of time as long as you stay on top of the material.
Overall, being a graduate student at Fisher is much different than being an undergrad, but most of the differences are good and even the ones that have difficulties with still have a lot of upsides.
