<p>(Yes, I know. However long it takes to learn the material...)</p>
<p>I saw an old thread on here with this question, and almost everyone seemed to say they were studying like 10 hours per day. Then I read somewhere that computer science majors study on average for 18.2 hours per week. (Forgot exactly where I saw this, but I think this study also said that the average engineering student studies 19ish hours per week - but then again, it was also said that a quarter of engineering students went to class with unfinished homework, so yeah...)</p>
<p>Basically, I'm interested in majoring in computer science and am even open to the idea of maybe going to graduate school, but I also want to have a balanced life. While I know it would be tougher (at least for me) than majoring in sociology or social work, I also want to have enough time to join a club or two that's unrelated to my major, spend an adequate amount of time with my family during breaks, and get a work study job during the semester.</p>
<p>So, how many hours do you tend to study per week outside of class as a computer science student (including studying for tests, doing homework, reading assigned material, etc...)? Do you find that you have enough free time to have a balanced life?</p>
<p>As a freshman CS student at a Top 50 US News with lots of prior experience:
CS First Sequence Class: 3-4 hours per week spent on homework sets, no time elsewhere
Discrete Structures/Math: 2 hours a week</p>
<p>So I only spend about 6 hours a week outside of class. My partner for homework has no experience and does the same except about 3 hours of tutoring a week plus 3 of practicing tasks from the book. He is getting a good handle on the info and will be caught up to me by the end of year 1 if he continues. So, 12 hours a week for him.</p>
<p>I would expect it to increase as the classes get harder and I’m taking more CS courses. I would put it around 6 hours per class, so thats around 18 hours out of class for a junior/senior year schedule of three CS classes.</p>
<p>Keep in mind, this doesn’t include other classes. I have about 4 hours for the freshman writing course, 3 for Calc 2, and 1 for my CS Intro 1 credit class. So I have a total workload of 14 hours of work as a freshman, and probably around 20 hours as an upperclassman.</p>
<p>10 hours per day is ridiculous let alone near impossible. You can easily have a social life. I spent all of Thursday and Friday night at concerts or partying followed by a movie marathon last night until 5am. I’m taking a break from an essay right now and should be done before midnight and be right on track with schoolwork after three nights of all party/social life. </p>
<p>It just takes proper planning and awareness of workload.</p>
<p>CS courses with programming assignments should be considered above-average workload courses (similar to courses with labs or term projects).</p>
<p>Discrete math and CS theory courses should be considered to have similar workload as math courses. These are generally relatively low workload, unless you find them intellectually difficult (some do, since logic, proofs, and theory may be more intellectually difficult than calculation emphasis found in math courses from high school to frosh/soph college level).</p>
<p>My kid just got an assignment in her CS class last week that was due in one week and took her 19 hours to complete. She said other students put in comparable time. It was assigned during midterms week, too. She didn’t get much sleep last week. But it depends on what school you go to.</p>
<p>at my school, the intro to CS class (which is what i’m taking right now as a first-quarter freshman without programming experience; there’s an honors intro course offered to people who’ve done some programming before college) is a very small time commitment. there are readings, tutorial videos, and small programming projects assigned, but it’s all pretty straightforward.</p>
<p>my linear algebra class is a much bigger timesuck, and the same seems to be true for those taking calculus right now.</p>
<p>if i were to put a number on it, i’d say it takes me about 1 to 1.5 hours to get through the reading/video assignments and the accompanying “labs” that they want you to try out, and that’s twice a week (once before each class meeting). the project that was due last week took me about a 4-hour sitting from start to finish. so that’s about 7 hours a week, and sometimes it’ll be more or less, but that’s a good estimate. i’m taking another class that isn’t officially a cs course but it’s basically a programming class in javascript, and that takes even less time per week. hope this is a helpful reference point!</p>
<p>It depends on the school and of course the assignment. Mine often called and said she might not be able to turn in a quiz that’s worth 2% of her grade. She was kind of depressed and almost gave up. Then on other assignment she had to spend more time testing her code. Big project. It turned out that was how she got top grade on one big assignment. So the time varies depend on how thorough you do the work. And that’s just for one CS class. Double the work if you have 2 CS classes. My guess is on average 10-20 hours per week for programming.</p>
<p>In my current course load I’m experiencing similar study times as most of the ones mentioned here, but I have to comment on the discrete math study time above.</p>
<p>PengPhils said 2 hours outside of class, be prepared for that to be much, much worse depending on the school/teacher and whether or not you mesh well with the material.</p>
<p>I will agree with @swflnoleleo5463 , I think I just mesh with the material well. I also heard the difficulty increases a lot in the second part of the class. So maybe double that in part two?</p>
<p>I don’t think I’ve spent that much time per week as a math/CS major, even at MIT. Currently taking two CS classes (6.034 - artificial intelligence and 6.046 - algorithms/analysis), and I don’t think I’ve spent more than 10 hours a week on those two classes. A lot of CS assignments I’ve been given are not too time-consuming if you really plan out how you structure your code and don’t spend hours debugging. However I’ve heard that other CS classes such as 6.005 are much more time consuming.</p>
<p>What we tell the freshmen come exam time: you can’t cram for CS. You just have to practice. You have to keep up with problem sets throughout the semester, and if you don’t: you’re screwed come exam time. The material always builds on itself. If you fall too far behind, you’re dead.</p>
She didn’t get much sleep last week. But it depends on what school you go to.</p>