It's not too difficult to go to graduate school, but it doesn't mean you can sit back and relax after entering school. American graduate schools are usually very strict with students and have a heavy academic burden. Although many courses start from scratch, the teaching progress is very fast. A week's teaching content is often equivalent to one or two months' teaching content of the same course at the undergraduate stage. In addition to assigning students a lot of reading tasks, teachers also require students to submit papers. A research method course has six exams, big and small, and two papers to hand in. Faced with such a heavy academic burden, students naturally dare not take it lightly.
Experts say that research and teaching assistant (TA or RA) is an important aspect of postgraduate study. They should not only read books and write papers, but also help their tutors with projects and correct their homework. Many graduate students are so busy all day that they even have to take the laboratory and office as their home.
"In the United States, the training orientation of master students and doctoral students is completely different. Masters focus on cultivating advanced applied talents from all walks of life, while doctors focus on cultivating talents specializing in scientific research, and it is even more difficult to get a doctorate. Doctoral students should not only publish a certain number of papers in authoritative academic journals, but also obtain convincing original research results. Due to the flexible academic system, many people have to wait five to six years to get their degrees.