<p>Five</a> colleges where students study - College, Inc. - The Washington Post</p>
<p>But students at those colleges with the hardest working students today still work less than the average college student in 1961.</p>
<p>Those five colleges list weekly study time of 18-20 hours per week. The average college student in 1961 studied 24 hours per week. Add 15 or so hours in class to get total workload.</p>
<p>[Is</a> college too easy? As study time falls, debate rises - The Washington Post](<a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/is-college-too-easy-as-study-time-falls-debate-rises/2012/05/21/gIQAp7uUgU_story.html]Is”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/is-college-too-easy-as-study-time-falls-debate-rises/2012/05/21/gIQAp7uUgU_story.html)</p>
<p>Note that in the most common system of counting course credits, one credit unit is supposed to indicate a total of three hours of work per week (in and out of class). So a normal 15 credit unit semester is supposed to mean 45 hours of work per week. Students in 1961 likely came pretty close to this, but students today appear to work much less.</p>
<p>There is this chart by major also:</p>
<p>[Number</a> of hours students study - The Washington Post](<a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/number-of-hours-students-study/2012/05/21/gIQA3viTgU_graphic.html]Number”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/number-of-hours-students-study/2012/05/21/gIQA3viTgU_graphic.html)</p>
<p>What seems odd is that math is one of the higher workload majors, despite its lack of time consuming labs (which increase out of class time doing lab preparation and write up as well as in class time in lab). Computer science is listed as a lower workload major, even though computer science courses with programming assignments and projects could be much bigger time sinks than math assignments (although math assignments can often be more intellectually difficult).</p>
<p>Physical education being much lower than biology seems odd, since physical education is just a subarea of biology. Or do a lot of colleges offer a watered down version as an easy “jock” major instead of a rigorous academic major?</p>
<p>Technology has made some school work more efficient–word processing over writing and typing papers. Online research etc.</p>
<p>I was wondering whether technology might explain some of the reduction in time spent. I would imagine that you could knock off an hour two for every paper that you write in college–maybe more. My D pointed out that research can also be done much more quickly with Internet resources, and the ability to search within documents. And could it be that some of the more time-consuming college courses are now being completed in high school through AP?</p>
<p>I did find it significant that the schools where students seem to spend more hours on academic work were schools where students tend not to have jobs.</p>
<p>cross-posted with barrons</p>
<p>How narrowly do they define “study”? In computer science you spend time reading the text and studying for exams, but a lot more time is spent doing the homework/labs. I have degrees in both biology and CS and did not find CS to be any less time-consuming ;-)</p>
<p>I have read that the volume of required reading, and required writing assignments is MUCH less than it was before. Professors complain that they get criticized when they try to hold kids to a higher standard, and it shows on professor evaluations. Kinda sad!
If I find links to the articles I will post them. And then there is the book “Five Year Party” that covers this topic in depth.</p>
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<p>While the number of AP tests has increased, much of the increase has been “AP lite” courses that are either not commonly accepted or accepted for only a semester (human geography, statistics, environmental science, psychology, computer science A, etc.).</p>
<p>Also, many biology and chemistry majors are pre-med, and many of them repeat their biology and chemistry AP credit because they would rather try for what they think will be an “easy A” instead of taking more advanced biology, chemistry, and biochemistry courses to fulfill pre-med requirements, so they do not actually skip those time consuming lab science courses. Physics (and engineering) majors often do not skip introductory physics either, because physics C is not commonly offered in high school, and not all colleges accept even physics C.</p>
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<p>You mean the book described here? [The</a> Five-Year Party](<a href=“http://www.thefiveyearparty.com/]The”>http://www.thefiveyearparty.com/)</p>