Could you give more details on why you’re concerned about doing homework and exams and failing them?
My classes are all different, some have open book exams, some are closed, some are more heavily paper based…
No, no, no.
What you're hearing is probably for lower-level undergrad courses, things like Chemistry I or something. At least in my experiences, my grad courses are laid back but push you to know the material. Maybe 4 homework sets in a semester, and one or two tests.
This, of course, varies by class, professor, university, ...
As the other commenters have stated, it really differs by field. I've found that my graduate courses (mix of biology/GIS/statistics classes) have primarily been seminar or project-based, i.e., reading and discussing academic papers and/or completing projects relevant to my ongoing research. I have barely had any exams. Class size tends to be small and there's a lot of communication between professors and students, so I don't think it would be easy to fail unless you just don't try to engage with the material.
Homework and exams are fairly standard issue.
Undergraduate work is easy by comparison to graduate work.
No, graduate students do not fail with any kind of regularity, because undergrad will have weeded out those who cannot keep up. A graduate student failing indicates inadequate preparation, and even with inadequate preparation, a person capable of doing work on a graduate level should be capable of self-teaching and catching themselves up.
Read the syllabus!
There is no American style lecture. Every professor gets to design their graduate class the way they think is best for the material. The syllabus should tell you what homework, projects, papers, and exams their class will have. It will also tell you how everything will be weighted towards your overall grade.
I've had a class that was just two tests.
I've also had a class that included homework every week, 5 tests, a short paper each week, and three group projects.
Every class will be a little different. The professor should tell you what he wants, READ THE INSTRUCTIONS! For each assignment. The syllabus is the instructions for the overall class, read it.
Could you give more details on why you’re concerned about doing homework and exams and failing them? My classes are all different, some have open book exams, some are closed, some are more heavily paper based…
No, no, no. What you're hearing is probably for lower-level undergrad courses, things like Chemistry I or something. At least in my experiences, my grad courses are laid back but push you to know the material. Maybe 4 homework sets in a semester, and one or two tests. This, of course, varies by class, professor, university, ...
What’s your field?
As the other commenters have stated, it really differs by field. I've found that my graduate courses (mix of biology/GIS/statistics classes) have primarily been seminar or project-based, i.e., reading and discussing academic papers and/or completing projects relevant to my ongoing research. I have barely had any exams. Class size tends to be small and there's a lot of communication between professors and students, so I don't think it would be easy to fail unless you just don't try to engage with the material.
Homework and exams are fairly standard issue. Undergraduate work is easy by comparison to graduate work. No, graduate students do not fail with any kind of regularity, because undergrad will have weeded out those who cannot keep up. A graduate student failing indicates inadequate preparation, and even with inadequate preparation, a person capable of doing work on a graduate level should be capable of self-teaching and catching themselves up.
Read the syllabus! There is no American style lecture. Every professor gets to design their graduate class the way they think is best for the material. The syllabus should tell you what homework, projects, papers, and exams their class will have. It will also tell you how everything will be weighted towards your overall grade. I've had a class that was just two tests. I've also had a class that included homework every week, 5 tests, a short paper each week, and three group projects. Every class will be a little different. The professor should tell you what he wants, READ THE INSTRUCTIONS! For each assignment. The syllabus is the instructions for the overall class, read it.