<p>I know there must be disparities between different types of engineering, but I'm still curious.</p>
<p>How many hours a day on average do engineering students study in their freshmen year?</p>
<p>How many hours do engineering students who take courses that are usually for sophomores study every day?</p>
<p>dunno, I know I am not doing any tonight though.
Last night and this past weekend was a different story though</p>
<p>I personally study anywhere from 10-40 hours a week, usually 20. Depends on the course load and how quick you are to understand material, really.
Weekends are usually the bulk of the work, for one reason or another (not just procrastination).</p>
<p>Echo what NeoDymium said. About 15-20 hours per week, up to 30+ during last two weeks. I schedule my week such that [(3<em>study hours</em>credit hours) - lecture time], not counting lab time for or against that, so about 30 hours per week set aside for studying with a mixed 15 credit load. I usually end up only needing half that to 2/3 of that (spend the rest of the time procrastinating - like reading CC), but I have a MechE friend I study with sometimes who would take up to 60 hours per week if he had the time because he has trouble learning the material.</p>
<p>This is only through 200 level courses. I assume that 300-500 level work will eat up any slack in my schedule, especially since I won’t have any more fluff classes (mixed blessing being done with GenEd’s). As such, I’m not going to reduce the time I set aside to work in the library or other quiet space.</p>
<p>Make sure you get enough sleep, drink enough water, and eat at regular times. It’s the god’s honest truth that lack of sleep or hunger will destroy your concentration. If you’re out all night and dragging the next day, take the time you would have used studying to take a nap, you’ll get more accomplished and make way less mistakes on assignments. Speaking of which, it’s past my bedtime.</p>
<p>I think another factor is how many hours you’re taking. Clearly you’d have more work to do if you’re taking 12 hours as opposed to 19. Also, like the others said, it will depend on the classes and how well you pick up on the content. That said, I study about 20 hours per week.</p>
<p>In 2003, 18.5 hours per week (presumably meaning out-of-class studying), according to [Why</a> College Students Leave the Engineering Track - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/why-students-leave-the-engineering-track/]Why”>Why College Students Leave the Engineering Track - The New York Times) . In contrast, social studies majors has 14.6 hours per week of study time. But all majors studied considerably less time in 2003 compared to 1961, possibly because of technological improvements that improved studying efficiency (try writing a paper or lab report by hand or a typewriter versus editing or word processing software on a computer, or searching card catalogs versus web search engines for reference books and articles).</p>
<p>More information at [THE</a> TEACHING ECONOMIST](<a href=“http://www.cengage.com/economics/mceachern/theteachingeconomist/issue_39/index.html]THE”>THE TEACHING ECONOMIST) and <a href=“http://www.econ.ucsb.edu/~babcock/college_time_use_6_08.pdf[/url]”>http://www.econ.ucsb.edu/~babcock/college_time_use_6_08.pdf</a> .</p>
<p>If we assume 15 hours per week of in-class time, that makes a total of 33.5 hours per week for engineering majors, which is less than the nominal time of 45 to 48 hours per week for a 15 to 16 credit unit nominal full time course load.</p>
<p>The undergraduate deans and advisors at my school tell us that you need to study 3 hours per week for each credit hour, but that’s pretty unrealistic. I’m also sure nobody here studies that much, and I should know as I’m taking about the maximum credit load.</p>
<p>Anyways, realistically, as a freshman taking 17 credit hours (Gen Chem, Calc III, Physics I, Intro to CS, and 2 other filler/no HW classes), I probably spend about 15-20 hours a week studying. “Studying” encompasses doing homework and practice problems, because the best way to study for engineering is to solve problems. It’s not like history (got my AP credits for those, thank god) where you sit in a chair for 5 hours at a time cramming/memorizing for an exam. You can try and cram for engineering exams, but you’ll probably just end up memorizing some formulas and a couple isolated examples.</p>
<p>Basically, do the homework, which should be similar to the exams unless your professor is a jerk, and then a few nights before the exam, do the problems that weren’t assigned for HW/get problems from other resources. You might want to read over the textbook chapter quickly (especially if it’s a memorization heavy subject like orgo), but most of your time should be spent doing what you expect to see on the exam. It takes different people different amounts of time to feel comfortable with the material, but there are only so many variations you’re likely to see on an exam.</p>
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<p>That 3 hours per week per credit unit is supposed to include both in-class time and out-of-class time, so a normal course load of 15 or 16 credit units is supposed to correspond to 45 or 48 hours per week total, not 45 to 48 hours per week out-of-class time.</p>
<p>Be aware that courses with labs, computer programming, or term projects are often more workload than other courses, even if the credit unit values are the same.</p>
<p>Some classes do legitimately require 3 hours/credit every week, but it’s usually just a few. But for a technical 3-credit class, 5 hours of class+study time is usually the right number. Add anywhere from 50-100% to that number if you’re not quick with the material, a category that includes most people. Labs are more work than their worth in credit hours, as a general rule.
Most students shouldn’t have more than 30 hours of out-of-class work except on the weeks of many deadlines and exams (these do happen though).</p>
<p>As a Computer Science student at the Engineering school in Stony Brook University, I study about 8-10 hours per day. Based on my encounter with my friends in the program, they all feel the same way. What’s interesting is despite studying all day I still feel as if that’s not enough. Our classes are just kick ass, and the program makes focuses more on building stuff. If I show you the kind of pain we go through in our CS program(it pays off anyways)you might understand what I mean. I guess that’s the reason Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft so actively recruit here for CS grads.</p>
<p>So ‘hours’ strictly depends on your program, and the quality of it.</p>
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<p>per day… Solid studying for 8-10 hours per day…on top of classes? So you are saying you are either in class or studying between 76 and 90 hours per week? How many hours are you taking because this is not normal. I went to UNC, ranked 20th for CS, and knew quite a few people that completed it just fine.</p>
<p>I would say that about 50 hours per week, including class time, is normal for a descent engineering load.</p>
<p>Chucktown, your department probably doesn’t focus on projects, if you think studying 8-10 hours is abnormal – it’s really not.</p>
<p>Here, visit:
[CSE</a> 219 HWs Page](<a href=“http://www.cs.sunysb.edu/~cse219/hws.html]CSE”>http://www.cs.sunysb.edu/~cse219/hws.html)</p>
<p>and keep in mind this is a 200 level CSE class, and take a look at HW1. Upon reading the essay, ask yourself how long it will take you to complete the assignment. Remember, this is just HW1. A good rule of thumb is HW1 is the easiest, HW2 is twice as hard has HW1, HW3 is twice as hard as HW2. HW6 is the hardest, where you build your app to be compatible for game engines.</p>
<p>Don’t even get me started on 300 level classes like CSE308. Just because a school is ranked top 20 doesn’t mean you will go through the same pain that others go through. I can challenge any Princeton, Columbia grad that our CS department is more than likely more painful than theirs, and in terms of ranking, they are way ahead of us. Before you mention quality of students, our department is known to kick their butt, and gone as far as going to the world finals in the ACM. I have a friend at Columbia and even he is shocked at the amount of work that we have to do. I mean, seriously, that 219 class will weed out all the students who can’t take the pain. It will force you to study for at least 10 hours per day. In fact, it might take you 5 days to just simply understand what the hell is going on in the code, before you can add and debug. Also, remember, you are under a time-limit.</p>
<p>In conclusion, 8-10 hours per day is about perfect for someone in a quality program.</p>
<p>About 4 hours per day–on top of classes. </p>
<p>Roughly 28-30 hours a week.</p>
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<p>They explicitly stated 3 hours of study time outside of class. They even went through a breakdown of how we should spend our time in order to prove that you could spend 60-68 hours/week on academics and still have time for other activities.</p>
<p>In my opinion, 8-10 hours a day is too much, and I don’t really see how it’s necessary. Unless you’re being assigned a ridiculous amount of homework, all of which is graded, you shouldn’t really need that much time to learn the concepts. Assuming you’re taking a 4 year path, the only reason I can see for studying that much is to compete with other students on a curved exam. I believe learning is devalued at that point, however, because it becomes less about the subject and more about chasing a number (GPA) that will lead to another number (salary) or name (grad school). </p>
<p>I do understand why people do it, though. I’ll probably end up doing it myself at some point. But if we’re talking about an average student, that much work is going to result in an extremely low retention rate.</p>
<p>Yeah, I keep my GPA above a 3.8, go to a high quality program, and I do study a lot, but if I had to study that much… I would have to re-evaluate my study habits… YMMV. All work and no play, for me, means burning out after a while.</p>
<p>It all depends on projects, projects, and more projects. If you department, like ours, focuses on projects, in nearly every single CSE class, 8-10 hours might not even be enough. Evidence can be provided if necessary. It all depends on the quality of your program. Some focus on theory, others focus on PROJECTS!</p>
<p>Students who ask “how many hours are spent studying” may not be happy with Engineering/CS majors. Basically you spend most time in class or studying. Perhaps it is better to ask the question in reverse… "How much time time do you have left in the day to eat / sleep / play "?</p>
<p>Good question, I don’t even know how much I study now. </p>
<p>Probably a lot. It sure feels like whenever i’m not studying I’m either on my way to studying or thinking about the next time I will need to study. </p>
<p>It’s fun though! Engarneering Rulz!</p>
<p>We did a survey in our Engineering class. The average time spent per week for all classes was 25 hours with a standard deviation of 9 hours. Most people within one deviation made about a 3.0 - 3.25.</p>
<p>The disparities will depend much upon the student, the school, and the semester’s course mix.</p>
<p>And yes, projects and lab are time consuming! One semester DS said he only had about 15 hours of sleep during his last week. It was one of the few times he actually slept on the plane ride home 
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