I just wanted to know what I should expect on average.
Easy weeks, when I don’t have much homework or any exams: ~1 hour/day, more on weekends
Hard weeks, when I have an extensive lab report due along with two exams and two types of problem sets: 4 - 5 hours/day, more on weekends
Chemical engineering, rising junior
(Counting “studying” as anything school-related, like homework; I don’t study for real unless an exam is coming up)
Math w/ Computer Science major
Time spent doing HW or studying generally ranges anywhere from 3 to 8 hours per week per class, depending on the week
What do you mean by study? You might want to state that more specifically. Do you mean reviewing the material covered in class and readings so you know it…as in being prepared for a test or simply mastering it at a high level. Or do you want information about how much time students need to devote to the requirements for each class outside their course time. That would include “studying” but also researching for papers or completing problem sets, etc.
Studying definition: devoted time and attention to acquiring knowledge on (an academic subject)
All of that counts as studying. Don’t make it complicated.
I’m a rising junior CS and math double major, music and dance double minor.
I typically spend about 2-5 hours a day on hw and most days have at least 2 hours of rehearsals/lessons/practicing (I have about 14 hours a week of music rehearsals and lessons, and I practice individually about 9-15 hours a week). HW varies a lot depending on whether I have problem sets and programs due for CS and also if I have a composition due for music theory classes.
6 hours a week if I don’t have an exam. If I do have an exam, up to 18 hours a week depending on the difficulty of the class.
The US Government expects that for a given hour in class, you have 2 hours outside of class for “student preparation”…e.g., homework or reading the chapter. The best thing to do is to read the chapter before the lecture and then do the homework after.
I study 25 hours a day. True story.
I don’t study that often on a “normal” week – I’m a Political Science and Religion double major (I can always feel the STEM judgment from folks here whenever I type that out…) The nature of my coursework means that I usually only have 2-3 essays a semester, plus a midterm and final exam.
On weeks where I don’t have an essay due, I only do course readings; I read pretty quickly, so I can complete all the readings, for all of my courses, for the week, in a 3-4 hour time frame (I dedicate one night to doing the week’s readings each week.)
For weeks where I have essays and exams due, I usually study/work 6-7 hours a night. Writing essays, especially ones that either require multiple sources, or have 10+ page minimums, can take up an entire day of concentrated effort. Exams typically require that I reference multiple course readings, so I usually have to go back and read them over to solidify the important aspects of it (specific theories, arguments, allusions, etc.)
Do you count working on projects for class as studying? For the purposes of this post I will, partly because that’s what typically takes up most of my time outside of class, and partly because in my project-based classes doing the projects is the best way to learn the material.
I’m a graduating senior double majoring in computer science and linguistics.
Linguistics classes only take up around 2-4 hours per week in problem sets and readings if there’s no essay due. Usually if there’s an essay due that’ll jump to around 6-8 hours in a given week. I can’t remember the workload ever being heavier than that.
CS is the killer in the project-based classes. In my most intensive class, me and my partner kept track of how long we spent on one of the projects and it came out to around 30 hours that week for that one class. The other projects took that much time on the low end, with one taking more like 40 hours out of our week. In a more typical project-based class, I would say that I work on projects around 10-15 hours per week depending on the class and the project. For the classes that aren’t project-based, I probably spent around 6-8 hours per week studying the material and doing the homework.
It honestly depends how heavy that week is. I’m an enviornmental science major + poli sci minor. The heavist week I’ve ever had (Bio midterm tuesday, 5 page Natural Sci paper due wednesday, 10 page Bio research paper due thursday, 15 page IR paper due friday), I studied an average of 6/8 hours in the week previous and day before my midterm, and worked on all of my papers which added up to a bit more than 10 hours altogether.
Normal weeks, however, I’m not too busy and average like 2/3 hours of studying a day. Some weeks my only studying is reviewed my bio notes or something.
It’s all about time management and how well you can figure out when to do what. Once you crack the code you have way more free time.
I am a rising sophomore and accounting major. I would guess that I study anywhere from 1-2 hours per day in a normal week, and probably 1-5 hours each for a typical exam.
CS, less than a half hour of studying per day, probably 2-3 hours a day average on projects and homework.
The time does not matter, the reason surely does. It’s up to your interest in the particular topic. Though I am not enrolled for any undergraduate program, on an average I study anywhere between 10-15 hours/day. If you can just throw your watches away and do what you like to do.
@fadingphysicist That’s all well and good, but trying to gauge what to expect on spending time in college is important to many. Not everyone is a pure academic who loves studying, and many have a lot more going on that they also enjoy. A varsity athlete will probably not want to spend every waking minute off the field studying - they are going to want some time to socialize and relax so they can avoid exploding from stress.
You don’t need to throw away your watch to enjoy studying - I often limit my time doing things I like because I have other things I like that I want to balance with it.
@PengsPhils Sorry if I offended you, “throw away the watch” was a way to express what I meant. I agree that my opinion does not match for any athletic careers. I described my life, though I agree that most of the times I don’t get a chance to be involved in other activities, but in the end it comes to the same point, do what you enjoy doing.
The traditional measurement for studying is spending three hours out-of-class time per one hour of in-class time. At a full load, class and study time is about equal to full-time work.
i usually dont study much at the start of a semester. i usually start studying a week or two before an exam or quiz by going over practice problems on our lecture slides. ive never really tracked how much time i spent doing this though. sometimes id study for several hours at night. sometimes i dont study. just depends on the material and class. there were days where i would spend all of my afternoon studying on the weekends (5+ hours? of course that time is a bit diluted with some random internet browsing occasionally. need breaks.)
it depends on what works for you and what you need. i had a classmate who studied a lot too, sometimes i think he would study more than me to be honest, but he ended up with a C and barely passed our chemistry class. i felt a bit guilty that i got a B even though i think he put in a good effort. so it just really depends on you. some people need to study a lot to barely get a C and some need to study a little to get an A.
some math professors tend to assign homework problems. i never did that type of homework. i only went through some homework problems a few days before a test (and got a B in the class, so i could have done more to get an A). though there are some who do all the problems and get a D. this is like health. you would listen to your body for signs that you’re not feeling well or that you may menstruate soon, right? you listen to your body and realize you need to sleep or eat or drink water or use the bathroom. you need to have that same level of consciousness when it comes to your grades. however, if you understand something in lecture, don’t think you shouldn’t study. attempt any practice problems your professors give you (if this is for a math/science class) and try to gauge yourself. try the hard ones. sometimes we may understand something really well when we’re following along in lecture but then when it comes time to do stuff on our own we realize we rely a lot on the material given and stuff like that. just try to get to a level where you can recognize what you need to do to approach and solve a problem. not all problems have the same approach but the more you practice, the more you get a hang of how to approach a problem regardless of what it’s asking.
it’s not about how many hours you spend studying, but about how smartly you study. an athlete that practices with bad form will end up getting accustomed to that bad technique and when it comes time to perform they will rely on that bad training/technique when the stress of a competition or game arrives. it’s the same way with a test. if you study, but always look back to your notes on multiple occasions on every problem you feel slightly unsure of, you won’t really develop an intuition for the subject and when the stress of an exam comes, you probably won’t do as well. im not saying you shouldn’t look at your notes, you should. but when you do practice problems and stuff like that, try to do stuff on your own first. once you’re lost, then go look for a way of solving it. then solve it again without looking at your notes and try to understand where you went wrong and why the correct way is correct. be efficient.