Is online college easier now?

[Vle045]

My high school teachers always gaslit us with horror stories about how hard college supposedly was and how we were not nearly prepared for the amount of work it would take to even pass English Lit 101. "You'll have to read Chaucer for 6 hours every day just to make a B! You have NO IDEA what you're in store for!"

I've taken probably 15 credit hours worth of lit. I hold an English degree. Never had to reach Chaucer once. To this day I don't know if they were just gassing us up or if the rigor of my HS teachers really was significantly harder back in their day. The truth may be somewhere in the middle.

I suspect they were remembering the kind of studies they had to do as English majors in their upper division or graduate courses and convieniently forgetting that most of their students would never have to face that. Though I don't doubt that some of the most onerous requirements may well have been dropped or softened. Certainly, there are a lot more easy to access study aids for tough subjects like Chaucer than there used to be.

Ohhh yeah... I had to memorize the first 18 lines of the prologue Canturbury Tales in high school (1991).  We all had to take turns reciting it to the class.  (Remembered with the help of Google)

Whan that April with his showres soote 
The droughte of March hath perced to the roote, 
And bathed every veine in swich licour, 
Of which vertu engendred is the flowr; 
Whan Zephyrus eek with his sweete breethe 
Inspired hath in every holt and heethe 
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne 
Hath in the Ram his halve cours yronne,
And smale fowles maken melodye 
That sleepen al the night with open ye-- 
So priketh hem Nature in hir corages-- 
Thanne langen folk to goon on pilgrimages, 
And palmeres for to seeken straunge strondes 
To ferne halwes, couthe in sondry londes; 
And specially from every shires ended 
Of Engelond to Canterbury they wende, 
The holy blisful martyr for to seeke 
That hem hath holpen whan that they were seke.