<p>I am pretty sure that I'm committing to Georgia Tech, but my one hesitation is that every where I look people are talking about how challenging and rigorous it is. Don't get me wrong, I like a good challenge, but I also want to have time to pursue interests outside of school work. Georgia Tech engineering students, how much work are we talking here? I think 3-5 hrs of outside work a day in doable, but 6+ per day seems like a lot. Do you have time to join clubs and go out on weekends? I'm up for a challenge, but I don't want to be a slave to my studies. </p>
<p>@andnowwhat123 Please explain why the greek organizations are so active and why they have so many non-academic activities on campus if they don’t have time for it? That campus is just as vibrant as most other selective schools, private or public (you think only liberal arts and non-STEM majors are responsible for the vibrance?). It’s very obvious that people have time to do stuff. Also, it’s not that Tech is especially challenging among selective schools so much as your course schedule will be challenging because you are at a selective school doing engineering. Just like students doing STEM at other selective schools, if you manage your time, you’ll do fine. You visited right? What did you notice. I used to go there a lot and have/had several friends there and they seem to be fine. It seemed no different from what I experienced. Sometimes academic work is intense and others it isn’t depending on how I manage it or what part of the semester it is. Also, better to have a higher workload at times than exams that seem sometimes beyond your grasp and little graded work (or even small quizzes) to support you (as you’ll see if you have take the intro. physics and math sequence at Tech).</p>
<p>Also, Tech’s retention rate wouldn’t be so high if it made it impossible for students to “have a life” so to speak. From what I’ve seen, you’ll live and likely thrive if you do it right. </p>