<p>Hi I'm pretty sure I'm enrolling to WUSTL, but I have one thing to clear up....</p>
<p>From reading various CC boards, I am pretty scared about WUSTL's academics. I read a lot of "I study 6+ hours every day" and that scares me a lot, for obvious reasons.</p>
<p>Is WashU that academically stressful that 6+ hours of studying a day is normal/necessary? That sounds kind of ridiculous....</p>
<p>I undersatnd a couple hours a day of hw/study..clarify for me please?</p>
<p>Well, 6 hours study seems like fine to me since I spend 13 hours to study every day in HS here in China</p>
<p>well… it really depends on the subjects you’re studying.
Bio/chem are generally harder (general biology and org chem in particular), and business school workload are okay in the beginning and become tougher and more time consuming as you go to 3rd and 4th year. The others I’m not so sure.</p>
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<p>@Soundwave,
Does that include time spent in classes, or are you saying that you study for 13 hours outside of school?</p>
<p>well, yeah. I assume they count.</p>
<p>And I don’t think it’s possible to study 13 hours outside school… Or maybe superman who doesn’t need sleep can.</p>
<p>Depends on the courses and the school. Architecture/art will have you staying up all night all semester. Business school is a lot less work. Artsci is really subject dependent. Engineering is somewhere in the middle. </p>
<p>Really depends on the professor though. I’ve taken 400 level courses where I spent about 20 hours outside of class the entire semester and gotten an A, while spending 5-10 hours a week on a 200 or 300 level course and gotten a B.</p>
<p>Ah, thanks for clarifying that 13 hr mess green and soundwave…</p>
<p>By 6 hour studying, I mean sitting quietly with only your books without any distractions.</p>
<p>If its 6 hrs a day combined studying and class, no problem.</p>
<p>Yeah, I can’t say I’ve ever spent 6 hours/day studying (not including classes), unless I was preparing for a test or two. The workload is perfectly manageable, as long as you don’t procrastinate (and you WILL). The exception to this rule may be someone with a loaded premed track (i.e. Bio,Chem,Chem Lab, Physics, Math all at once). I had a few friends who went through that, and it’s a fair amount of work. But again, everything is manageable if you give yourself time to do the work. The hard part is finding it.</p>
<p>@mike1123</p>
<p>Three science courses in one semester?! thats insane. i mean i have a friend at minnesota who is also taking bio/chem/and physics, but she is suffering and she was top 10% in my school. i hope i dont end up with three sciences, in addition to the chem lab, during my first semester at washu… (math is manageable right?)</p>
<p>Anonymous- unless you test out of chem/bio/physics, all of the bme’s take those three plus a math during spring freshmen year.</p>
<p>It’s really not that bad.</p>
<p>I am also worried about the intensity at wash u as far as workload goes. I still have the option to go to vandy or UVa (Waitlist), so i would like advice asap. I am a prospective bme, but 50% chance of changing into artsci majoring in some sort of premed major (possibly something like PNP (philosophy, psychology, neuroscience)). also business looms in the background.</p>
<p>6+ hours isn’t a lot considering you have only 2 classes a day, each about 1-2 hours each. So that’s about 4 hours right there. And besides class, all your time in college is free; you choose how to use them. Even if it’s 6+ hours outside of class, you still have like…11+ hours of free time.</p>
<p>quite frankly, you wanna keep yourself busy because the most tragic things (failing, suicide, etc.) that happen to students are caused by failure to manage their time. College tests you to be successful independently. But if you’re already quite busy with studying, you won’t be tempted to blow off your time.</p>
<p>I also wanted to mention that a lot depends on the number of classes you take a semester.
Freshmen year, first semester, I recommend 4 courses max. You’ll get an idea of how college is, learn your studying habits, learn to be independent, learn what is expected in each class. If you managed to get into Wash U, 4 classes is very manageable. You will of course come across freshmen taking 18 units (6 classes), but there really is no reason. Some thrive under these sorts of conditions, others crash. </p>
<p>At this point in your life, you know your limits. Speaking from personal experience, I took 4 courses my first semester (Econ 4011 - Intermediate Microecon, Math 233 - Calc 3, Math 217 - Dif Eq, CSE 131 - Comp Sci 1 – I also took Phsyics 117 the previous summer to get accustomed to the university). I ended up with a B-, 2 B+, and an A. I did underestmate the amount of work I needed to do, but learned for future semesters and did much better.</p>
<p>Your first semester of college is there to learn about yourself - if you’re worried about courses just take 4. Take courses you’re interested in so they’re less boring. etc. etc.</p>
<p>As for DarkKnights comment…I would ignore it. Wash U has consistently been rated one of the happiest colleges in the campus, and in 6+ years I haven’t heard of one suicide. If you do your work and don’t slack of, you won’t fail either. </p>
<p>I guarantee you (well pretty much) that you won’t fail if you show up to class. This is another thing you want to learn early - SHOW UP TO CLASS. It gets very tempting to miss your 9 or 10am classes occasionally, but it will always come back to bite you in the ass. </p>
<p>Don’t overwhelm yourself in terms of studying and taking classes.</p>
<p>I’m talking about college in general; it’s never too late for something tragic to occur. </p>
<p>And yes, show up to class; you’re paying money for college, unless you have a full ride, but you still don’t wanna waste classtime</p>
<p>but seriously, even with 6+ hours of studying (that’s probably including classes), you’ll still have a lot of free time</p>