<p>My son is considering going into engineering (probably mechanical, perhaps civil).</p>
<p>I saw this article about the average amount of time spent studying, which said that engineers average 19 hours/week, and people in other majors average 14 hours of study time per week:</p>
<p>Both of these figures seem very low to me. When I was in college, it seemed like the engineers put in endless hours, and only the clowns put in as few as 14 hours a week in any major.</p>
<p>Can any of you engineers tell me what is typical for you?</p>
<p>If you can mention your schools and engineering discipline, that would be helpful, also.</p>
<p>That is an average… you can’t infer a whole lot from an average. How well is the average engineering student doing? How rigorous is the average engineering student’s school? What classes are they taking, and how many at a time? How many weeks do they have where they can take it easy, while having other weeks where they’re chugging red bulls and studying 16 hours all day on the weekends just to stay afloat? It will definitely vary by a lot from semester to semester, and student to student. One semester you might have 2 humanities electives, another you might have 17 credits of all engineering and math/science classes. You also have to consider how the study was done. If you’re just reading that and having a “kids these days” moment, you are probably not being fair. Also, they can be pretty liberal about what the classify as engineering… Also, 4 hours of studying can feel like 8, especially when your friends are waiting for you to go out, so make sure you’re being reasonable about how you remember your studying back in your day.</p>
<p>You also have to take into consideration what that survey regarded as studying…</p>
<p>Boondocks, I agree with you that 19 hours seems low. My S puts in 35-40 study hours per week. He really focuses when he studies and has a 4.0. I put in 35-40 also, not as focused, many years ago, for a science degree. Part of the reason, along with the difficulty of the courses, is that many courses have labs, so there are lab reports, lab quizzes and lab tests. So a lab course can easily have the work load of 2 courses!</p>
<p>I like the way Carnegie Mellon measures their courses to give you an expected amount of workload. Simply broken down, 1 CR = 3.0 Units = 3 hours per week spent between class time and homework. Example: for a 12.0 unit class, equal to a 4 credit hour class, you should expect to spend 12 hours per week between lectures and homework - so if your lectures added up to 4 hours per week, you can expect 8 hours of homework. Of course these are averages, and a 3.0 unit lab usually means 3 hours of work outside of any in lab work per week, but across all the courses in a given semester, if you are signed up for 51 units, 17CR, you should expect to spend, on average, 51 hours per week between classes and homework. I have found this metric of 3 hours per week per credit hour carries over nicely for STEM programs in any school (also works for rigorous humanities courses). This is especially handy for figuring out how many hours you can put into things like clubs and/or part time jobs. It also works well for predicting workload in summer courses - if this metric is designed for a 15 week semester, then for a 6 week summer class, multiply by 2.5.</p>
<p>@KamelAkbar, regarding, “If you’re just reading that and having a “kids these days” moment, you are probably not being fair.” I wasn’t reading this as “kids these days.” I think that the students today work as hard or harder than in my day. The difference is that we were able to get away with a higher level of stupid pranks than I think is tolerated today, fortunately (some of my friends were allowed to get away with things that would mean expulsion or might even land them in jail today).</p>
<p>I’ve never heard of engineers doing as little work as is mentioned in that survey, which really makes me wonder about its validity, and you people seem to be telling me that the survey is not accurate.</p>
<p>Anyone else who wants to contribute, please do so. </p>
<p>My son is also considering engineering technology. Is that a comparable level of work?</p>
<p>My engineering son thinks that he spends more time studying than his business major friends but it really hasn’t been that horrible for him. He still seems to have time for all the fun stuff that kids do in college.</p>
<p>In terms of studying as something different than homework and class, I don’t spend 19 hours a week. A lot of time spent in Engineering is working on projects and problem sets. I probably spend about 50 hours a week between class, homework, and studying.</p>
<p>Boondocks, try your hardest to get him to start in engineering, not engineering technology. Generally, kids “drop down” to engineering technology. If he majors in engineering technology, he will be working for an engineer.</p>
<p>I’m probably close to 50 hours a week between everything. I’d say the time I actually spend studying is ~3-4 hours a week, most of my time is spent on problem sets and lab reports.</p>
<p>To add to this, it’s also going to be a function of the program your child is in. Studying 19 hrs/wk doesn’t mean success. Your son will be competing for grades against the other engineering students in his class if he goes to a respectable engineering school. The professor will only hand out a percentage of A’s, B’s, etc per semester. The school I went to (Georgia Tech) was full of kids that did nothing but study. Many being much smarter than me. Because of this I had to study even harder to get the grades I was happy with. So it’s not really how <em>well</em> you know the material, it’s how <em>well</em> you know the material compared to your competition. Acing a test at one school might translate to a C or worse grade at a more competitive school.</p>