<p>How many hours per day do you have: 1) Classes 2) Homework 3)Freetime.</p>
<p>I would really appreciate if you could walk me through a typical day at a competitive college.</p>
<p>Thanks :)</p>
<p>It depends on your classes. Some require a lot of outside work/studying, some require barely anything outside of class.</p>
<p>This is the amount of time I personally spent for each of my classes spring quarter last year:</p>
<p>Intro Software Development (TR, F disc): As a known weeder class, this class had a ton of work. Two hours working on a project each day was a pretty low amount to be working on stuff (me and my partner usually spent 2-4 each weekday, depending on the project), and on weekends we’d usually end up putting in between 6-8 hours of work to get everything working exactly as specified. The first several weeks took about 10 hours total for each project, but it stepped up a lot in the end. This class had 3 hours of lecture and 1 hour of discussion, but in practice the lecture time was better spent meeting up with your partner to get work done.</p>
<p>German 3 (MWTRF): As a language class, there was a lot of work in the form of reviewing grammar and vocabulary. This one met for an hour each day, and would take about 10-20 minutes each day for homework. Beyond that, I’d spend about an hour each day reviewing, sometimes longer depending on what material was covered.</p>
<p>Religion Today (TR, F disc): This one required next to no work. Three hours lecture, one hour discussion, between a half hour and an hour for readings each week. Maybe add about 20-30 minutes before an exam to look over stuff.</p>
<p>Calc 2 (MWF, T disc): Three hours lecture, one hour discussion (which I admittedly skipped a couple times because my TA wasn’t the greatest). The amount of time I’d spend on this class depended on how long it took for me to get the material; I’d keep doing problem sets until I could do several of a certain type of problem in a row and get them correct while using the correct method. I usually did this on a lecture day, then did more review problems on days I didn’t have lecture to make sure I understood a concept. For the sake of discussion, let’s say I averaged an hour each day on problem sets.</p>
<p>So, approximate totals for each day last quarter (allowing for 8 hours of sleep, even if that didn’t end up happening at times):
Monday: 2 hours in class, ~5-7 hours reading/reviewing/homework. ~7-9 on class-related stuff. Counting sleep time, ~15-17 hours, leaving 7-9 hours for other stuff.
Tuesday: 5 hours in class<em>, ~4.5-6.5 hours reviewing/homework, ~9.5-11.5 hours on class stuff. 17.5-19.5 hours counting sleep, leaving 4.5-6.5 hours for other stuff.
Wednesday: Same as Monday
Thursday: 4 hours in class</em>, reviewing/homework same as Tuesday, 8.5-10.5 on class stuff with 5.5-7.5 hours for other stuff.
Friday: Same as Thursday, just different classes.
Weekends: 6-8 for the software class (varied by week), any other general catch-up.</p>
<p>*Note that a lot of times me and my partner would skip the software class to go work on the project (professor was confusing), so that’s 1.5 fewer hours of class time that ended up being put towards homework.</p>
<p>Of course, with the free time that’s not counting in stuff like eating and actually getting to class. You can definitely multitask, but I added those up without factoring in stuff like reading while you eat. As you could guess, there were also times where what would normally be free time was used towards more class-related stuff. This is just a general overview.</p>
<p>Wow! That was very helpful! I really appreciate your input. </p>
<p>Would you say that your workload is relatively rigorous/average/relaxed? (I hope not relaxed, because it does sound like a lot of work :P)</p>
<p>I wouldn’t call it overly rigorous, but I would say that it’s on the rigorous side of average (balanced out by a class where I hardly did anything). All the classes I’ve had that take the same amount of time outside of class as the software class were, well, CS classes. It’s definitely not relaxed, so don’t worry about that :)</p>
<p>Now for what I’d consider rigorous…one of my roommates had two lab classes, calculus, and a writing-intensive class this past spring (she was writing a paper every couple weeks). Plus a credit-bearing research position. To me that sounds ridiculous, but I’m also not interested in what her classes were in. It doesn’t seem as bad if you’re interested in the classes, as she was with her classes and I was with mine.</p>
<p>I had a vigorous courseload, even freshman year. All of my upperclassmen friends had harder and more time intensive schedules. I had about three or four hours of class a day - four or five hours one day a week if I had lab - and so I had a lot of what you would call “free time”. However, my free time was spent either studying or doing work, without variation. The difficult part really is just to get yourself to get started on all your work. It is very easy to get distracted - going somewhere with friends, playing FIFA, etc. - and once the work piles up, it gets even harder to get started. And if you want to maintain high grades, believe me, you need to get started as early as you can and keep at it. </p>
<p>Also, a lot of the “homework” you’re assigned is either not due or worth a very small percentage of your grade, so it’s also easy to just not do it. But if you don’t, you won’t be getting any evaluated practice for the exams and they become that much harder for it. So your “homework” really is to work and study when it’s not mandatory.</p>
<p>It depends on your major and the classes you take. I major in optical sciences and engineering so I take nearly all math, physics, and engineering courses. It is a very difficult load of classes. Classes take up anywhere from 2 hours to 7 hours a day. I have multiple breaks between classes from 1 to 3 hrs. long when I spend time doing homework and studying. I spend quite a bit of time studying and doing homework, sometimes up to 20 hours a week. But I always make it a point to have a few hours of free time during the week and on the weekend when I am not in class or working.</p>
<p>As a freshman, I had anywhere from 4-8 hours of class time, an average of 2 hours studying, and not much free time during the week because I play Ice Hockey but lots of weekend free time to be hung over ;)</p>