<p>i've heard from several people that the workload at rice is much heavier than any other prestigious college and that u r busy all the time. is this true, and also is rice engineering renown nationally or just in houston?</p>
<p>Hey westsidewolf,</p>
<p>I can't speak for other colleges, but most students are very busy all the time. However, it's not just homework and help sessions, it's extracurriculars, intramural (or college) sports, and other activities. Rather than think of it as being busy, think of it as being productive ;).</p>
<p>As far as workload for science/engineering majors, you can expect between 1-4 problem sets (or possibly more, if you have a really bad semester) due each week. Each problem set can take from 1 hour - 12+ hours, depending on your skill in the subject, how well you know the material, the prof's expectations of his/her class, and other variable factors. However, unless the problem set requires you to work alone, you can ease the work along by working in small groups and socialize/bond with others at the same time. If you put care into picking your schedule each semester (though as an engineer you don't have much control over this) and manage your time well, you can still do all your work well and have time left over to sleep/have a social life (most of the time....during midterms/finals, things get crazy).</p>
<p>Rice engineering is pretty renowned in the nation. Many foreign students are also drawn to Rice by the strength of our science and engineering programs, along with other factors.</p>
<p>thanks great post</p>
<p>I'd tend to agree with Emilia for the most part. As an academ (someone in the social sciences or the humanities) you have a lot more options for how to set up your schedule, so you can set it so that you have a really intense workload or a more relaxed one (most Rice students lean towards the more intense one though). Depending on how you manage your time, you usually end up with periods without that much going on, followed by periods with lots of work, where you will feel like you're busy all the time and overwhelmed by work, but those periods don't last forever.
And as to Rice's reputation, it doesn't have the name recognition nationally that you would have with some other schools, but among people who matter (people deciding to hire you or admit you to their grad school) it's well known and respected.</p>
<p>As an engineering school, Rice has an excellent national reputation.</p>
<p>im an academ at rice with average grades (a's an b's) and i waste ALOT of time. then i spend about maybe 2 weeks out of the semester working my butt off, sleeping maybe 3-4 hrs a night, and sometimes not at all. this is how most of my friends are too. If you want stellar grades, then, yes, you probably need to work constantly or be really good at time management, but otherwise, the workload is not too bad.</p>
<p>I'd say that the workload is pretty heavy, but we still have fun. I think the workload has more to do with the general overachievement of Rice students--we give ourselves heavier workloads than we really need. Some people sign up for 18+ hours a semester because they think some class would be fun. Then there are also the people who have 18+ hours because they legitimately need that in order to graduate in time. Don't worry about the workload; if you get in, you should be able to handle it.</p>