Undergrad vs. grad school

I was just wondering what some of the differences between undergrad and grad school were. I know some of them but still want to know if it is true it is way more stressful than undergrad and if you are still able to make friends or not, as well as others. Just like to know.

I found grad school to be more demanding and stressful that undergrad. The academic expectations are higher, as you might expect. I made a few friends in grad school but did not socialize with them as we were all working, some of us had families ... just busier in general.

I remember a friend from law school saying first semester that he thought it was just like college. I found it to be much more stressful, mainly because the material was much harder. It was easy to make friends though. I had no mental health issues during law school, thank God.

I did grad school online rather than in person and my impression is that people have their lives already and are truly only there for their present lives. I was in an education department course and thus most of those in it were already teachers who were required to take courses or wanted a higher degree for more pay or to change fields within education, etc. That being said, being online, people did not necessarily live anywhere near me so it would have been harder to do anything socially anyway, even if anyone had wanted to.

As far as how hard it is, often these days one is working full time and going to school and that definitely makes studying hard. There is no additional help anymore, one is supposed to figure things out on one's own, they don't "hand-hold" at all anymore, explain things, it is mostly just reading and writing and almost one-on-one between what you are learning and yourself; other people and "opinions"/discussion aren't quite as important. Usually one has to get an "A" or "B" to move on (but in my experience that is what they usually give out because most who are there were chosen to be there in the first place and have the experience) so there is that pressure, there are no excuses or extra time, etc. anymore, you have to work "full out" all the time.

It really depends on your program and what university you are at. When people apply for PhD level graduate programs in the US the universities sometimes fund a short list of applicants to fly out and take a look at the program and meet the graduate students over a couple days. This is precisely so the prospective students can get a general sense of how friendly the department is etc. It varies a lot by program and what university you are at - and that is just within a particular field (e.g., a specific field's PhD program).