<p>At the moment I'm a high school senior. After lots of thought over a few years, I'm absolutely positive engineering is what I want to pursue and I will not settle for any other degree, no matter how hard the road gets. Because of this, I've begun putting in massive amounts of time to my homework. For example, I have a chemistry test coming up this Thursday over 80 pages. I create a thorough outline of each page I read, then study my outlines and do practice problems the night before. My outlines are very detailed so I create them extremely slowly. Saturday and Sunday I did 5 hours of work each day and covered the first thirty pages. I plan to put in approximately the same time per day (on top of other assignments) until the day of the test. At the moment, I have no trouble doing this, as I know it'll help me achieve my goal if I do well in math/science classes in HS. However, I've heard about people just suddenly losing all motivation in school and suffering a horrible drop in GPA because of it. This is the last thing I want to happen. My question is, can the large amounts of work I'm doing (if they continue) eventually wear me out during my engineering education, leaving me unable to perform well?</p>
<p>You sound exactly like me. I’m at a CC, transferring to the Uni next semester for engineering. I have a General Chemistry class and a Intro Physics class. I also have two online English classes (Written Com 2 and Technical Writing). I put forth a lot of time and effort when it comes to my classes, especially math and science.</p>
<p>Every time we’re assigned problems to do from the book, I go home, read the book chapter, write out the vocab words and define them from memory, and then read the whole chapter one more time before doing the problems. After doing the problems, I go back through and recheck my answers for two reasons: as MORE review, and to make sure I didn’t mess any up. The physics class has labs, and I’m even worse when it comes to lab reports. That’s just for one class.</p>
<p>I often worry that this isn’t always going to be possible when the classes get more difficult. But hey, it pays off right now. I never miss anything, and if there are bonus questions, I get them too. I got a 122% on my last physics test, a 100% of my last physics lab, a 115% on my last chemistry test, and a 100% on my last chemistry lab. The only bad that comes of it is having people either constantly give you dirty looks when they get a glance at your grade, or having them ask you to tutor them every day.</p>
<p>Just keep doing what you’re doing now. I can’t tell you if you’ll always be able to do it that way or not, but as long as you don’t burn yourself out (I think learning is fun, and would probably be a professional student if I could), keep it up. I personally believe it’s great to be that way.</p>
<p>There is most certainly such a thing as working too hard. You really can’t put in that much work in university because you have too many things to do at once.
You definitely run a risk of burning out if you work too hard. Difficult work is rather unpleasant, and you will regret it if you put in too much.
My suggestion is that you put in the minimum amount of effort you can to get the best result you can. Put in more than that, and you’ll have trouble. Perfection is quite the killer, and if you pursue it you WILL burn out.</p>
<p>I agree with NeoDymium. It’s a great habit to be on top of things. But as NeoDymium said it will burn you out. I’m taking engineering in college right now and the best thing is to develop an efficient technique for getting things done. My advice is to prepare for exams well in advance by short review sessions to make sure you know what’s going on especially in more difficult classes. Make sure you know everything that you’re learning and not to wait until the night before the exam to finally learn how to do it.</p>
<p>As a few above me said, make sure you get your work and studying done, but don’t over do it. I also agree with NeoDymium with going for the minimum effort that produces the greatest result and I agree with kaligleean in trying to be efficient. You need to figure out the most efficient way to teach yourself material when you are preparing for exams. You need to try to really make connections when you are in the classroom so you won’t have to study much when exams come around. </p>
<p>I am a third year engineering student and, for me, paying attention in class and making the connections is like most of the battle. Then when exams come around, I only make a summary review sheet, make sure I understand how to derive various equations and maybe do a couple hard practice problems. This usually leads to spending maximum 3-4 hours preparing for any exam, including finals. This works for me, but may not for you or others. So figure out how you learn things most efficiently and always try to get the most work/studying out of the way with the time you have. What you are doing now will not allow you to get much done in college, especially if you want to be involved.</p>
<p>College is a whole different gear. If you’re in high gear in high school then you’re going to burn out in college. However, if your still in low gear and just like putting in the time then you’ll be okay. GL.</p>
<p>Thanks for the responses. I should have mentioned that the chemistry class I’m speaking of is AP chemistry and the teacher literally doesn’t teach us the material. We have the entire class to use as we please but we’re expected to know it when test day rolls around. This 5 hours per night for 4 nights in a row isn’t usual. For a physics or calc exam, 4 hours total is the normal amount, and that produces good results. I’ll have to work on finding that balance for chemistry though. Outlining is taking a brutally long time. Last chapter I decided I wasn’t going to spend the time making an outline so I underlined in the book, re-read it, and did a few practice problems. I ended up scoring ~4% points lower than usual (95 to a 91), but still kept myself in the A range. Not to mention, underlining plus rereading takes probably one fifth of the time.</p>
<p>Also, for those of you who are in engineering school or have graduated, how did you/do you prepare for exams? A previous poster mentioned how he/she prepped which peaked my interest. I’d like to maximize my efficiency prior to college so I don’t have to fumble around with different methods of studying when it counts.</p>
<p>On average how many hours a week do you spend studying & writing papers (All classes)?</p>
<p>Working too hard and/or being a self-perfectionist is almost surely a recipe for disaster. Especially if you’re an engineering or science major. As to when the disaster occurs, it could happen while you’re in college, or at some point in your career. But it will happen eventually. Constant over-achieving can also cause a lot of health problems, which is just not worth it in the long run.</p>
<p>Working efficiently is key… do the bare minimum to achieve your goals and then stop. Relax and have fun after that. It’s a work-life balance thing and it is CRITICAL to maintaining your mental stability and motivation through college and life. Engineering should be moderately challenging and fun, but not overbearing. If it starts feeling like a big hassle, or that you’re just doing it because you know it’s the right thing to do, you need to step back and re-evaluate what you’re doing, and why you’re doing it.</p>
<p>Hi John,</p>
<p>I am a high school senior like you and I also tried “perfectionist” approach and it started to fail for me when I entered senior high school. It is much better to set a bare minimum first and then try to improve it while getting appropriate rest. For example if you have one month for a 2500-word paper, the best way to tackle it is to write a first draft during first week, forget it for three days, work on refining it for next week, again forget it for three days and the cycle repeats. This is much better than trying to write a perfect essay during the first try when you usually end up with one paragraph of 200 words after 3 hours of work which can be frustrating haha. When it comes to learning for tests, I simply attend classes, pay attention, do my homework and during a week before the actual test, quickly make a review and solve more difficult problems from college-level textbooks. This has worked fine for me and I have never felt that I worked too hard, I have not even lost one minute of sleep or fun.</p>
<p>Soso, I’d say about 15-20 hours. Usually I do 2-2.5 hours of homework per weeknight plus the extra two hours or so of work when I have an important (to me, as in math or science) test the next day. Plus the work on weekends, I’d say it averages to about 18. In no way is the 5 hours per night including weekends on a single subject representative of my normal habits. </p>
<p>I’ll try to find that “bare minimum for maximum results,” but that seems like it could get tricky.</p>
<p>Edit: I think part of the problem with overworking at some times is due to the fact that so many people consistently say how difficult engineering is and only borderline geniuses can succeed. I try so hard is some subjects to attempt to ensure my success. I think that if engineering turns out to be easier than I’ve been told, I’ll find it much less of a challenge to adjust my habits.</p>