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<p>(Note that even engineering students these days have workloads less than the “standard” 3 hours per week per credit unit, although their workloads are higher than that of most other major groups.)</p>
<p>In some cases, the reduced workload may be due to improved technology. When I was in college, there was no web browsing or web searching or ordering a needed book or article for quick or electronic delivery. Looking for references for a term paper meant going to the library and looking in the library catalog to see what books or articles may be relevant, then finding each one in the stacks and looking through it to see if it is worth checking out and bringing home (if no one else checked it out). Writing a paper meant using the primitive word processing software of the time, or using a typewriter and correction fluid. When doing CS programming assignments, an entire class shared a computer that was orders of magnitude less powerful than a cheap computer in a student’s dorm room today, and one had to go to the computer lab to find a terminal to use the computer (or use a 1200 baud modem if you had your own computer and modem).</p>
<p>Of course, a student who is actually committed to being a “full time student” can choose to take overload schedules if s/he finds that s/he can use some of the extra time on doing academic things.</p>
<p>Still, it is a valid topic to research what factors have what amount of influence in reducing student workload these days compared to before.</p>
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<p>True, if it is now possible to learn the same amount of material with less work, then it would make sense from the student’s point of view to offer lower cost “compressed” degree programs. However, the barrier to this may be that grading and evaluating student work may not be that much less work for the instructors, since it takes the same amount of time to grade many types of assignments, projects, and test questions.</p>