I always hear people say that college is way harder than high school. How much harder is that though (in your opinion)? I passed through high school pretty easily (except math… i barely passed and one year half the class didn’t so I blame the teacher :)) ). I know that college requires a lot of studying, which I am more than willing to do. I don’t really understand the whole one hour in class = 2-3 hours of outside of class thing works though (probably cause of my math skills :)) Wouldn’t that mean that if you have three classes a day that you should study for 6 hours everyday (or 9 hours if we go by 3). That seems a little excessive to me (again could be bad math or wrong interpretation). I know students probably don’t really follow that, but since we are expected to I thought I would ask about it. How would I have any time to do clubs or eat or anything for that matter? Obviously people do those things, but things just don’t make sense haha.
“How much harder is that though” Much harder, no hand holding.
Two to three hours of studying per one hour of class time is spread over the week including weekends. It is a rule of thumb and actual time may vary depending your abilities, the courses/subjects/major you are taking, and your overall goals. Some people have to work more hours than the rule of thumb, and some less.
There are many ways to find help if you need it: academic advisors, professors’ office hours, tutoring, counseling, career services, residential advisors, etc. For the most part, these things won’t be forced on you and you’ll have to seek them out for yourself, but they are there. In addition, many colleges are developing programs like first-year seminars to help freshmen adjust to the new academic expectations. Your classes will probably be somewhat easier in your first semester than they are the rest of the time.
With the 2-3 hours of studying rule, keep in mind that that’s usually not all in the form of actually sitting down and studying. It’s also factoring in things like doing required readings, homework assignments, practice problems, etc. At least, that’s how I’ve always thought of it. And I’ve found that it’s a pretty accurate estimate when thought of as general preparation as opposed to sitting down and studying. Classes with around that amount of work were what I considered standard, classes with significantly less I considered light, and classes with significantly more I considered heavy.
Any expected prep time not taken up by doing assignments and such for the class, I would recommend using it to review material. My advice is to do the recommended amount of hours until you get a feel for the class. From there, adjust up or down as needed. Better safe than sorry! And eventually you’ll develop an intuition on the classes that will require more or less studying for you personally.
As a college student no one will be looking over your shoulder to make you do the work. You will be free to flunk out on your own.
Like everyone else said, the 2-3 hours rule is more of a general idea of how much you might need to study. I’m not going to lie, I’ve done well in classes with less studying, and I’ve struggled in classes even though I studied much more. It depends on what you’re taking and what your personal strengths and weaknesses are academically.
Honestly, the “hardest” part was really just getting into the habit of setting up my own study schedule. You really have to be willing to schedule out when you will study in between classes, club meetings, and other activities you’ll participate in. Once you establish a schedule though, I found it pretty easy to stick with it. One thing that really helped me was using the app “My Study Life.” It lets you input your classes and assignments, and it actually sends you notifications to remind you about when assignments are due.
One of the biggest challenges for college students is time management. The first thing that will be obvious to you is that your schedule is nothing like high school. You might have only 2 or 3 classes a day, with big chunks of time in between. There may be some days that you only have 1 class. It’s easy to look at that schedule and think that you have LOTS of free time. In truth, you do. Much more than you had in high school, and much more than you’ll have in the working world. But it’s a potential trap. You’re done for if you waste all your time during the day and hope to get your homework done after supper.
So as to this 2-3 hour rule … as others have said, it’s a guideline. But it’s a good place to start. When you get your schedule you should look at the gaps that you have and plan your study schedule. You should plan to get most of your studying in during the week, and then use the weekends for extra studying on topics that are more complicated, or for studying for tests or for additional time for research projects and writing assignments.
Let’s say you have 5 3-hour classes every week, for a total of 15 class hours. If you plan to study 3 hours per class hour, you will need to get 45 hours of studying in per week.
Think about it this way. If you wake up at 8:00 am every day and go to bed around 11 pm every night, you will have 15 waking hours every day. On average you might have 3 hours of classes per day. If you plan to do 2 hrs. studying per class hour during the week, you’d spend 6 hours studying, and would have 6 hours extra for meals, exercise, ECs and socializing. That’s actually a lot of free time (especially since the socializing is usually during meals, exercise and ECs). If it’s a day when you don’t have any club meetings, then you might squeeze in another 1-2 hours of studying. Six hours of studying isn’t overwhelming if you break it up into 1-2 hour chunks throughout the day (2 hrs from 10-noon, 2 hrs from 4-6, 2 hrs from 8-10, for example).
If you do 2 hours per class hour of studying during the week, you can plan to do an extra 1 hour per class hour (if needed) on the weekend. You might find that doing merely 3-4 hours of studying on a Saturday and maybe studying 1 pm to 5 pm and then 7 pm to 10 pm Sunday is plenty. If it’s not, you have plenty more hours in the day on Saturday and Sunday to get caught up. The catch is that if you are not diligent during the week, it will be impossible (and miserable to try) to get it all done during the weekend.
If well-planned, your college “work day” will be far less demanding than a regular post-graduation work day and far more fun as well. You can also be far more successful than you imagine. With diligence and hard work, most students are capable of getting mostly As, if that’s what you prioritize.
Do your readings before class … sit up front in class … show up for special study sessions … occasionally visit your professors during office hours … develop and STICK TO a reasonable week day study schedule … party and socialize only AFTER you are caught up on your work … make sure you eat, sleep and exercise … and you will be very successful academically and you’ll have plenty of free time. Most students won’t have the maturity to do these simple steps, though, which is why most students won’t be pulling mostly As.
Oh … and the other key … is to be extra diligent at the start. If you start the semester off by being 100% on top of the assignments, you can always ease up if you find that you don’t need all of the alloted time to stay caught up. If you under-estimate the time required, though, it’s really hard to get completely caught up later.
Good luck!