<p>How many hours of homework/studying should I expect on average per day? With two classes per day. I know it varies, but would 2 hours (1 hour per class) be a normal amount per day?</p>
<p>It depends on your major and how efficient you are with your time. The school where my son will be attending says expect 2 hrs of studying for each hour in class. (keep in mind this is engineering)</p>
<p>Depends on how challenging the school is, the class is and expectations of the professors.</p>
<p>The general guidelines is 2 hours outside of class for every hour in class, but that will vary widely with the classes you are taking. Over the years I’ve had classes requiring anywhere from 0.5 to 20 hours of outside work per week, averaged over all weeks in the semester.</p>
<p>I am taking a semester average because college work may not come in nice little chunks like it did in high school. While math and science classes tend to have weekly problem sets, classes in the humanities and social sciences might have only reading assignments for 4 weeks and then a 15-page paper paper due in week 5.</p>
<p>You need to realize that the hours spent doing homework in college may be spent vastly differently than in high school.</p>
<p>Odds are you won’t have the every night busy work of high school, like answer questions 1-7, 13 and 16 at the end of chapter 12 in you biology book. It is more like, read these 250 pages in text A, read 3 related articles, and be ready for lecture next Tuesday…which will not review the readings, but use them as a basis or a comparison to what the professor lectures about.</p>
<p>So the work load will be variable…how much reading, how much lab time, how much research you need to do on your own, how much work you need to do on your own before you participate for X hours in a group project, etc.</p>
<p>The good thing is that in college you get a syllabus for the whole semester at the beginning and to a degree you can work at your own pace…you can often do readings ahead if you see you will be having a week with a lot of papers/projects/exams and that lets you pace yourself in a way you often could not do in highschool.</p>
<p>Nominally, a credit unit indicates 3 hours of work per week on the course, including both in and out of class time. So a 15 credit unit normal full time course schedule nominally means 45 hours total per week.</p>
<p>However, the average workload is probably really closer to 30 hours per week, including both in and out of class time.</p>
<p>Lab courses do tend to have higher workload than non-lab courses. So do courses with large term projects.</p>
<p>Ucbalumnus is probably right on. Expect a workload of about 30 hours a week if you balance your classes, i.e. throw in a fluff course when the others are killer. If you’re an engineering or some other type of major that follows a very rigid curriculum, you may have more.</p>
<p>And as mentioned before, homework is very different than you had in high school. Most won’t be turned in or graded. You’ll just be expected to do it in preparation for class.</p>
<p>My son spent about five hours out of class for every hour in class on Arabic - or so he claimed. I do know he had to spend a lot more time than most people in that class just to keep his head above water. He had another class that had so much reading that the class actually divvied it up and shared the outlines with each other, because you really couldn’t do it all. There my son liked the reading so he did do most of it in the end.</p>
<p>It does vary a lot. I did once hear a prof speculate a correlation to desired grade. (4hrs hw per class for A, 3 for B, etc)</p>
<p>While probably some sound numbers given, I think the most important thing an incoming freshman can do is prioritize and be mindful of time management. Until you know how long it will take you to truly slog through those 250 pages and several articles, do NOT procrastinate and then, actually calculate your time spent. It’s amazing how many interruptions can add up in a night in college. Plus, as someone else has said, you use time differently than in high school. You’ve got an hour between classes… will you choose to play video games or get a leg up on your problem set? All of this said, although S is a science guy, it seems like he is ALWAYS doing something in the lab or the science building in general and this has increased considerably since freshman year. I honestly think he should just find a cot and live there sometimes. But it does have an amazing view!</p>
<p>I think the 30 hours a week for in and out of class is kind of off. I spend 25 hours/week in class alone. I don’t even want to count the out of class hours…</p>
<p>This is a 57 unit course load (which at my school is supposed to mean 57 hours a week in class + lab + homework). On the credit hour system, I think it would be about 19 credits. It probably really depends on where you go and what you are majoring in.</p>
<p>"How many hours of homework/studying should I expect on average per day? "</p>
<p>Here is the rule of thumb: You treat it like a job . . . you work 8 hours a day. That means that if you have 2 hours of class, you study, read or do homework for 6 hours. If you have 5 hours of class, you do homework for 3.</p>
<p>8 hours is the average. You don’t have to do the full 8 hours on any given day, but you should average that much per day, per week. You can bust your little bottom on the weekends to buy a little veg time during the week, but that is the rule of thumb.</p>
<p>Just do it!</p>
<p>[url=<a href=“http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/why-students-leave-the-engineering-track/]This[/url”>Why College Students Leave the Engineering Track - The New York Times]This[/url</a>] says that the average total time spent on school work fell from 40 hours per week in 1961 to 27 hours per week in 2003. The chart shows out of class study time for various majors ranging from 22 to 30 hours per week in 1961, but only 13 to 18 hours per week in 2003 (add 12 to 15 hours per week for in class time, though perhaps more if lab courses are included).</p>
<p>^ Yes, but that included time spent on microfiche instead of using laptops.The time spent studying back in our day was completely different because we did not have present day techonology.</p>
<p>I think that a student in a strong program in science, math or engineering should expect to spend 50-60 hours per week on classwork–plus additional time working in a research lab, in the last three years of the undergrad program. The estimates for 2003 must reflect the relatively small number of majors in STEM subjects, compared with some of the other areas. It would generally be unrealistic to expect to devote a total of 30 hours per week to studies, as a physical scientist. </p>
<p>Freshman year could be different, because students come in with widely varying levels of preparation, and a well-prepared student who did not or was not permitted to leap ahead may need less time that year, but probably not in subsequent years.</p>
<p>I think that wellthatsokay’s time estimate is probably good for anyone at Caltech, MIT, or another university with a demanding program. The claims about Math 55 at Harvard involve weekly problem sets that take 50 hours all by themselves, for a single course.</p>
<p>This may explain the small numbers of STEM majors, but it would be good for students to know this, going in to the program.</p>
<p>Architecture students have about 25-30 hours a week in class (studio + other courses) and probably 2-3 times that in doing projects every week. Not necessarily ‘hard’ time all the time but quite time consuming.</p>
<p>Computer Science in the dark ages was like that also, these days with modern tools and laptops it should be a lot easier tho.</p>
<p>^My impression from my older son is that Comp Sci is still very time consuming, but it’s true that you don’t have to go into the computer lab at 2 in the morning to get a slot to test your program.</p>
<p>According to D. the amount of work varies greatly from major to major and specific classes. Some classes are very easy and very time consuming at the same time. English was like this for my D. Just too many boring books to read…at the same time learned nothing…
Any art/architecture…they will spend ton of hours in studio every week. My S. (Graphic Design) used to tell me that 40 hrs of studio/ week is pretty much a norm. But he had to take other classes besides art.<br>
CS used to spend many hours in lab that probably could be completed on-line at home. It will still take ton of times to de-bug your simplest computer programs…while getting used to various languages…
Pre-meds are definitely much more busy than Business majors and engineering is the hardest majors of them all. These are the ones that I am familiar, others might have different opinions based on their personal experiences.</p>
<p>OP: If you are concerned, you might want to spend the summer before college working on study habits. Many smart students coast through high school and get good grades and test scores without really learning how to study effectively. (I suppose students who have needed tutors and test coaching have a leg up on this one…) Look through books on study skills, and try to figure out which methods work well for you. You might give them a test run by signing up for one community college course over the summer, in an area that is new to you or which has been historically challenging and experiment with different tactics until you find one that works, or even set up a self-study program (if you are afraid of leaving a paper trail of a less than optimal experience.)</p>
<p>Sometimes aptitude for the subject matter figures into this. If you are interested in mastering subjects (from physics to foreign languages) in which your aptitiude levels are average for your school, expect to spend far more time hitting the books than many of your classmates, especially if you want high grades. If your aptitude levels are average, stay away from classes that attract high aptitude students who are ALSO prepared to work very hard, because they are taking classes in areas of passion - unless grading is known to be lax, AND you are able to keep up with your classmates enough to benefit from the class. </p>
<p>Also be wary of classes in subjects in which your aptitude levels are average or above, but in which your preparation levels lag behind most of the class. If you are aware that you will be going into this sort of situation, you might want to spend a few weeks beforehand getting up to speed with preparation as well as scout out tutoring or help center options before you need them.</p>
<p>Frazzled kids complained that the comp sci classes were very time-consuming, and that many students who did not seem to spend that much time yet got good grades, either had extensive experience prior to taking the class (but were not permitted to move to the next level) OR cheated (got someone else to write some of the code, de-bug, or go beyond permissible guidelines in helping), since homework counted for a large part of the grade.</p>
<p>The issue of making students with lots of prior experience re-take basic courses was actually a huge issue for Frazzled kids in intro STEM courses, both when they were bored in these classes and not permitted to move ahead (since they were eager to learn new material rather than just accumulate a bunch of A’s) AND when they were competing with classmates with far more experience who set the curve, pace, and level of instruction.</p>
<p>The only way to get hold of thinking process required in writing software is to spend considerable time writing/debugging computer programs. Prior or current or whenever experience, grades are important, but if a kid does not enjoy this process, he will not enjoy his job. Do not look at others, do not be frustrated, have fun with it, because it is a great fun - have been doing it for over 30 years and still remember leaving Computer Lab past midnight night after night, not only NOT having prior experience in CS, but NOT even having prior experience typing (yes, had to take typing class concurrent with my computer language class, so what, it just made it more interesting). And even that long ago, we had few kids coming with CS background obtained in HS. Cannot look at others, got to use your own whatever, like brain, hard working ethic, persistancy, it will all be very useful at your job and it will produce an A in class also.</p>