What's the workload of a typical college class?

[LS21]

depends on major, classes, etc...very very variable.

sciences classes WITH labs = time killer.

MOST liberal classes = cakewalk. I literally spend probably 20 minutes PER week outside of class studying or doing "homework" and still get A/B easily... for MOST classes. though I had 1 or 2 that required extraordinary amount of work.

generally, and its a very accurate generalization, engineering and sciences take a shitload more time

 

[Soccerman06]

I had best results doing a chapter of this book one night and taking notes on it, then maybe a math/physics/chemisty section that night, and just do that 3-4 nights a week to get all your work done. That should be more than enough until a test when you really only need to cram for a few hours.

 

[Bibble]

How much time you spend depends entirely on what % of your homework you actually do. For example, I had to read Aristotle (Nichomachean Ethics I think) for a class my freshman year. When I read it word for word it took forever (like 6 hours a week, including time where I fell asleep while reading). If you power read (skimming and slowing down during important parts), things go much faster. If you buy used books the important stuff will be highlighted for you and you can just read those parts.

I'm a political science major and take a lot of social science and humanities classes (poli sci, history, IR, philosophy, etc) and I generally spend 2-3 hours a week for each class on homework. Again, this is entirely dependent on the difficulty of the material (John Stuart Mill's On Liberty took me many hours) and your ability to power read.

I do not consider papers/studying to be normal homework. You work a lot harder during midterms/finals than the rest of the semester.

 

[uberman]

3 hours homework for every 1 hour of class. Always box in the instructor so they can't give you anything but an "A." The most important thing is your permanent school record in order to keep all doors open.

 

[AccruedExpenditure]

Originally posted by: Ns1
what homework?

cram 24-48 hours before tests

do papers the night before

drink/party/etc all other days

This
-AE

 

[PrinceofWands]

Originally posted by: Bibble
How much time you spend depends entirely on what % of your homework you actually do. For example, I had to read Aristotle (Nichomachean Ethics I think) for a class my freshman year. When I read it word for word it took forever (like 6 hours a week, including time where I fell asleep while reading). If you power read (skimming and slowing down during important parts), things go much faster. If you buy used books the important stuff will be highlighted for you and you can just read those parts.

I'm a political science major and take a lot of social science and humanities classes (poli sci, history, IR, philosophy, etc) and I generally spend 2-3 hours a week for each class on homework. Again, this is entirely dependent on the difficulty of the material (John Stuart Mill's On Liberty took me many hours) and your ability to power read.

I do not consider papers/studying to be normal homework. You work a lot harder during midterms/finals than the rest of the semester.

Yeah, but it was worth it, wasn't it? At least I thought it was. I know, I'm a geek.

 

[ChaoZ]

I never really had that many classes that gave out homework. It's only usually in classes that requires math and English classes. The rest is just reading textbooks to get ready for exams.

 

[Brainonska511]

Depends on the class.

I've had reading 2-300 pages a week in some intense books for a few classes. Some have had problem sets that can take 30 minutes to 4 hours.

 

[bobsmith1492]

What class???

Honors classes = read 3-4 hours a week plus 3-4 big papers (several hours of thinking, a few hours of research, and ~5 hours of writing).

Engineering 101: CAD + technical drawing class = 10 hours/week slaving over green paper for a 3-credit-hour class and never actually doing it right.

Engineering 324 - junior project, 4 credits: 4 hours/week for the lab, 8 hours/week for homework, 15 or so hours twice in the semester to study and review for tests; halfway through the semester, the project begins: then it's an extra 10 hours/week planning which accelerates to 20 hours/week in the last month and then it's 40+ hours/week in the last couple of weeks for building, testing, debugging, and frantic code writing where you realize you should have done code ahead of time...

Engineering senior project: 20 hours/week for 2 months, 40 hours/week for a month (planning phase complete): 20-30 hours/week for 2 months (build phase: circuit layout, coding, prototyping) then 40-50 hours/week for another 2 months before finally finishing.

Ah, good times.

 

[Gooberlx2]

For GEs I did about 1/2 hour per week per credit. For core courses it was 1 hour per credit, labs were more and particularly tough courses even more.

 

[finite automaton]

I don't put numbers to any studying that I do. I study until I am comfortable with the material or I have to take the test.

 

[SludgeFactory]

High school is more immediate and laid out for you on a platter, I don't remember thinking more than a day or two ahead on getting a lot of my stuff done. College assignments were often more open-ended and given weeks in advance. Tests generally require more than 30 minutes of breezing through the notes, you may even spend multiple days studying for one <gasp>. You can and will screw yourself over if you can't coordinate and plan a few things on your own and choose to procrastinate on everything. That's how you flunk out.

A lot depends on your major, and how far along you are to some extent. Your workload can be anything from a total joke to a nightmare. Generally as you get deeper into any curriculum and into more advanced classes, you get more projects, papers and time wasters.

If you're planning to be a stereotypical ATOT engineer, expect a serious HW set 1-3 times a week with each 100/200 level engineering, math, physical science lecture class, @ generally 2-4 hrs per HW assignment. As you get to Jr year, the load of homework problems eases up (somewhat), and the joy of engineering labs really sets in. For a whopping 1 hr credit, you can end up expending 6-10 hrs a week on each Jr/Sr level lab, by the time you've analyzed your data and written up a 10 (or 30) page lab report. This is why engineering majors bitch about how bad they have it.

One thing about engineering is that all the homework forces you to stay up with the material to some degree, so you can't really get *too* far behind. Studying for the tests is mostly going back through the old HW, reworking a little of it, and generally making sure you remember how to solve the problems. Unlike certain humanities/social science/business classes, where slacking for weeks and then cramming like mad for 1-2 nights seems to be the status quo.

 

[Ricemarine]

Uhh, for community college at least...

For the sciences, practice problems (15-60 problems, varies by class) which are recommended, and really really should be mandatory, some assigned homework, midterm, more practice problems and homework, another midterm, a bit more and a final. By going through around 1 chapter a day, the rule of thumb is two hours outside of class per hour of lecture. But of course, a lot slack off and don't do the work or find the workload a bit easy and probably end up going by the one hour per credit per week rule.

More or less, the recommended work is there for you for you to do on your own, group work is for projects/labs. Plus, the professors can easily tell who isn't doing their work and who are. Chemistry and Physics labs takes 2-4 hours to do, but from my experience, chemistry was the only one that wanted lab reports for the labs, while my physics professor made us write it all out in our journals.

For history and English though, reports, short essays, and possibly big projects are very fun (sarcasm).


An example of such is my Calculus 3 course. Most was review the second time around, and so I ended up slacking off a bit. The first test I scored an 82%. The second test I decided to slack off because I THOUGHT I knew the work, and got a 66%. The final I studied for around 5-7 hours and got 100%. In the end I got a 3.3, which I'm content with.

 

[Ns1]

Originally posted by: Ricemarine
Uhh, for community college at least...

For the sciences, practice problems (15-60 problems, varies by class) which are recommended, and really really should be mandatory, some assigned homework, midterm, more practice problems and homework, another midterm, a bit more and a final. By going through around 1 chapter a day, the rule of thumb is two hours outside of class per hour of lecture. But of course, a lot slack off and don't do the work or find the workload a bit easy and probably end up going by the one hour per credit per week rule.

More or less, the recommended work is there for you for you to do on your own, group work is for projects/labs. Plus, the professors can easily tell who isn't doing their work and who are.


An example of such is my Calculus 3 course. Most was review the second time around, and so I ended up slacking off a bit. The first test I scored an 82%. The second test I decided to slack off because I THOUGHT I knew the work, and got a 66%. The final I studied for around 5-7 hours and got 100%. In the end I got a 3.3, which I'm content with.

while I was in CC I got homework sometimes

after I transferred to a uni I got homework never

 

[PHiuR]

cram before the big day for the class.

paper/exam/etc...

 

[ArmchairAthlete]

For me it varies way too widely to come up with anything. Could be not bad, could be TONS of work... but some courses will be infamous for how much work they are.

 

[duragezic]

It depends on a lot of things but I would say 1-3 hours outside of class per week per credit hour. So I think for most people, and to do well (learn the material and get a good grade), expect roughly 25 hours per week outside of class with a full load. Roughly a minimum of 10 hours per week and a max of 50ish.

The vast majority of the time I spent way the hell less than that but on the other hand a tough semester or just a few tough projects and it wasn't unheard of that I was spending 30-35 hours outside of class plus about 15 in class time.

It just varies a ton and you'll find out a LOT of different things about all aspects of college that can change that but I figure if the average college student thinks of their schooling as roughly a full time job, they ought to do well.

 

[FleshLight]

For math/chem/physics there's usually 1 hw assignment (usually not mandatory) per a week with 1 quiz a week.

For some literary/writing classes, you can write up to 30 pages a quarter depending on the class.

For history classes, usually 1 hw assignment due with a quiz every week.

For engineering, 1 hw assignment a week and 1-2 projects per quarter.

 

[imported_Imp]

Highschool was mainly bs homework that took half an hour each. Maybe some easy reading, but most of it was done in class.

College is beaucoup reading as in a few chapters every week, then on to a whole new book every few months (talking about social studies courses here). Engineering is taking notes in class, trying to figure out what the hell the notes mean at home, then comparing it to the $100 textbook, then trying examples to see if you get it. Do this a few times every week for every course. I had no off days in college. Everyday was catch-up. The projects are the major killers though since you have to find a couple hours a week, in addition to all your other work and courses, to finish it. Glad that's over.

 

[pray4mojo]

do absolutely nothing until the day before you have an exam or something due. allow 2 days for finals.

 

[Bignate603]

For my ME degree there was weeks that I put in well over 40 hours outside of class...

 

[TallBill]

In my first year and a half and community college I work about 25 hours a week and put barely any effort into school work and have a 3.75.

 

[chusteczka]

Originally posted by: uberman
3 hours homework for every 1 hour of class. Always box in the instructor so they can't give you anything but an "A." The most important thing is your permanent school record in order to keep all doors open.

:thumbsup:

 

[Toastedlightly]

for engineering, I have ~40-50 hours outside of class a week studying and doing suggested problems w/ an 18 credit load. So the 3 hour outside is actually a nice estimate.

 

[alkemyst]

depends on you more than anything.

By the time high school was over I had read enough to get me through my Junior year of biology and chemistry without much effort.

Reading classes always are a time sink...much of the time if you know enough though you can get by without a lot of it.

Really depends a bit on the teacher as well. Some have you read a ton of BS so they can have a 1 question pop quiz each class with some obscure detail that you'd only know by reading the junk yet provides nothing worth remembering.

If you make friends on campus you can find the teachers to avoid.