Since many of you are planning to study at a college or university in this country,you may be curious to know what you usually do in a typical week,how you can get along with your fellow students,and so on.These are the questions I want to discuss with you today.
First,let’s talk about what your weekly schedule will look like.No matter what your major may be,you can expect to spend between four and six hours a week for each class attending lectures.Lectures are usually in very large rooms because some courses such as introduction to sociology or economics often have as many as two or three hundred students,especially at large universities.In lectures,it’s very important for you to take notes on what the professor says because the information a lecture is often different from the information in your textbooks.Also,you can expect to have exam questions based on the lectures.So it isn’t enough to just read your textbooks;you have to attend lectures as well.In a typical week you will also have a couple of hours of discussion for every class you take.The discussion section is a small group meeting usually with fewer than thirty students where you can ask questions about the lectures,the reading,and the homework.In large universities,graduate students,called teaching assistants,usually direct discussion sections.
If your major is chemistry,or physics,or another science,you’ll also have to spend several hours a week in the lab,or laboratory,doing experiments.This means that science majors spend more time in the classroom than nonscience majors do.On the other hand,people who major in subjects like literature or history usually have to read and write more than science majors do.

由于你们许多人都计划在这个国家的学院或者大学里学习，你们很可能想知道，在普通的一周内，你们通常做些什么，如何与你们的同学相处，等等。这些就是今天我想同你们讨论的问题。
首先，让我们谈谈你一周的日程是个什么样。不管你的专业是什么，你每门课每周要花4到6小时去听课。听课通常是在很大的房间里，因为有些课程，例如社会学或者经济学的引论，常常会有多达二三百名学生听课，特别是在规模大的大学里。在听课时，记下教授所讲的内容对你很重要，因为讲课的内容常常不同于你们的教科书中的内容。而且，你还渴望得到根据讲课内容所出的考试题。所以，只读你的教科书还不够，你还得去听课。在普通的一周内，你还将为你所上的每门课进行几个小时的讨论。讨论课是一种小组会的形式，通常是30名学生以内。会上，你们可以问与讲课、阅读以及家庭作业有关的问题，在规模大的大学里，通常由称作助教的研究生来指导讨论会。
如果你的专业是化学，或者物理，或者另一理科，你还将在实验室里花几个小时做实验。这意味着理科专业学生比非理科专业学生花在教室里的时间多。另一方面，像文学和历史专业的学生，通常比理科专业学生阅读和写作多。