<p>Im trying to decide which major is right for me, so I'm trying to get a feel for the amount of work required for some engineering majors, mainly electrical, chemical and mechanical engineering.</p>
<p>To give a background for my academic capacity, I took Honors Physics, and get around a B+ with around 4 hours of studying a week, and a A- in AP calculus with a little more, about 6 hours a week studying. My high school is moderately difficult in a suburban upper middle class community.</p>
<p>It really varies, but when I did an overnight visit it seemed that for most engineering majors it leveled out to about 3 hours of studying a day. So roughly 20 hours of studying a week. Those were just estimates students gave me though and they may have exaggerated a bit.</p>
<p>Hmm...as a parent reading this, I am wondering if they are understating how much they study. That does not seem like much to me. They are supposed to be fulltime students, after all....</p>
<p>It really does vary a lot. I'm a sophomore physics major myself, and I probably average about one-two hours a day, mainly working on homework. This semester has been the most challenging yet so I probably average 3, maybe 4 hours a day. On Wednesdays I usually have a lot of homework due so its not uncommon that I get together with some other guys and we start working at 4pm, have dinner, and then continue working till midnight or later on quantum physics. </p>
<p>Another thing I will say is that in my freshman year it seemed the engineering majors had more work then me, I am pretty sure they "haze" the freshman a little bit in the engineering department, which I've heard is common. They were always complaining about IEA (intro to engineering analysis), which didn't look to hard to me, but apparently a lot of people struggle through it. CAD also look very time consuming. Not having to take CAD is one reason I'm glad I didn't go into an engineering major.</p>
<p>Totally depends on the person! Huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge variations! I know people who study all day every day and get 2.5s and I also know people who do everything the night before and don't do anything beyond the bare minimum and get 3.5+.</p>
<p>My son is a first year chemical engineering major at RPI. (He has sophomore status at this point, actually, due to AP credits added to 17 first semester credits.) He has described the work load as heavy with about 3-4 hours of homework each night following a day that typically involves an average of 4 hours of classes or labs. (The number of hours vary by day of the week but it averages around that much). He says he always spends a few hours on Saturdays working on projects (CAD projects this term) and he puts in a few hours on Sundays, especially Sunday nights to prepare for a heavy class schedule on Mondays. </p>
<p>Last term, he learned quickly to put sufficient study time in for mid term exams etc. (In high school, he did well without much exam prep time.) His first semester grades turned out to be very good but he worked hard for them. He learned a lot about time management. He is about to register for classes for next fall and is putting together his class schedule so that most days have the same number of class hours and classes are back to back as much as possible. (He does not like having an hour or two off between classes, would rather get them all done in one time block and have large blocks of time for homework, fun stuff etc.) </p>
<p>I have never thought of my son as an academic grind;he really enjoys his down time and likes to find time each day to hang out with his friends. But engineering majors have a lot of work to do so it seems time management is key so that there is still time to have fun.</p>
<p>Anyway, that is just his experience in his first year there.</p>
<p>It all depends on the person and the classes. Right now, I have three classes that give regular homework (one of which is both a programming assignment and written homework). Last semester I had just one class with regularly-assigned homework (and two others with 3 or 6 assignments each). </p>
<p>This semester is a lot more time consuming.</p>