Does anyone else find their master's course more demanding than undergrad?

I sailed through 3 years of my undergraduate degree.

To be frank, it was piss easy for me compared with most of my peers who struggled exponentially.

I then took a working gap year and realised that a job is definitely more demanding, but can get tedious quicker than education.

I am now in my spring semester of my STEM master's course and it is probably the most demanding thing I have done since I left high school at 16.

No time to socialise; no time play video games; no time for side-projects; no time to get an active sex life (in my personal case) etc.

Heck, I stopped reading philosophy books for 2 months before Christmas break because I was working on my assignments until I slept.

Or maybe you are too insecure to contribute anything productive to the discussion.

Or maybe you are too insecure to contribute anything productive to the discussion.

It's just how what you wrote came across, no offence.

Masters are meant to be harder (in theory), since they are a Level 7 qualification. However what makes them even harder is more content squeezed into 9 months, with higher pass marks (50 usually), less coursework (no free lunch son) and less babysitting by lecturers. Also the classes are more international which means it's harder to make friends and work together on problems.

Standards between universities vary a lot as well, if you go from a BSc at Brunel to a MSc at Cambridge, you will be shocked at the difference in workload and difficulty in content.

Hope that helps.

Yes, you explained it accurately. The pass marks are indeed 50% (compared to 40% for undergrad) and since this is a conversion course for a different field, the learning curve is tremendous. The social aspect you mentioned is also true regarding international students and there are quite a lot of language and cultural barriers. People seem to stick with those who are most 'like them'. I also went from a laidback University to a Russell Group university for my master's and have noticed a significant difference in overall quality.

At first, I thought it was just me struggling, but from what I have read, heard and what you wrote, the increase in workload and stress is commonplace for MSc students.

I found the opposite to you, I found that my master's degree was easier than my undergraduate degree, for many reasons. My undergraduate degree was incredibly demanding (in terms of number of assignments, exams, placements, contact hours etc.); I also didn't enjoy the majority of the content, which made assignments more challenging and unmotivating. I loved my master's degree though, as I actually enjoyed the content and assignments, and I found that the workload was significantly less demanding.

I realise that I am an unusual case, as typically people experience a step-up in workload/expectations, and usually a dip in grades too initially.

Yes, you explained it accurately. The pass marks are indeed 50% (compared to 40% for undergrad) and since this is a conversion course for a different field, the learning curve is tremendous. The social aspect you mentioned is also true regarding international students and there are quite a lot of language and cultural barriers. People seem to stick with those who are most 'like them'. I also went from a laidback University to a Russell Group university for my master's and have noticed a significant difference in overall quality.

At first, I thought it was just me struggling, but from what I have read, heard and what you wrote, the increase in workload and stress is commonplace for MSc students.

Standards in universities vary a lot, I would not go to a russell group university for a masters if I didn't have a high 2:1 or 1:1. You also need to be prepared to work a lot harder at a russell group university, or risk not getting your masters and either a postgraduate diploma, postgraduate certificate or nothing at all.

50 is the pass mark and that is hard to get when there is no coursework and the modules are math high, think masters level econometrics or masters level analysis.

Is Exeter a Russell group university or not? If so how long has it been in that group?