<p>Obviously, Carleton is highly respected and well-known for their exceptional academics, but I'm wondering if students are able to find a balance between studying and socializing. Or, does homework take up most of their time?</p>
<p>This is an interesting question. I’ve only been here a few weeks but I’d say it’s all about finding a balance. There certainly is an intense workload - I spent 5 hours in the library on the 2nd night of classes doing the reading. On average I would say to expect around 1-3 hours of homework per hour in the classroom per subject (obviously this varies per class). That being said, my floor at least is very social and we’re always having fun breaks and chitchats. On the weekends, people are extraordinarily social - at least right now, when it’s warmer out, there are almost always multiple parties, general hang-outs, comedy groups, dance parties, etc. going on.</p>
<p>I’m an athlete so I can’t drink 24 hours before a practice or 48 before a game. This effectively means that the only time I’m allowed to drink has been the past 2 Saturday nights, when we had Sundays off. However, I’ve gone out every single Friday and Saturday night, hung with friends, met people and even gone to the Cave, the student run pub/dance club thingy. The majority of the time, I can’t drink or party and I’m supposed to be in bed by 12, but I’ve always had a fabulous time. People also go out on Wednesday nights, but I have an 8 am lab on Thursday so I haven’t done that yet.</p>
<p>People I’ve met here are generally very smart but also very friendly and social. Everyone is pretty casually accepting of the workload - people do homework a lot, but they aren’t judged for it. People usually just sympathize and then get to their own work. Hope that helped!</p>
<p>I have only been through a week so far as well, but to answer your question briefly: yes, people definitely find a great balance!
Every single person I’ve met is involved in at least one or two extracurricular activities, and many times it’s more. It’s definitely not an overwhelming amount of work as long as you manage your time at least somewhat responsibly.</p>
<p>From what I’ve seen, there is always some kind of event going on if you seek it out, though a lot less on weeknights obviously. A lot of people socialize while studying - there are a lot of study groups in the library and the floor lounges. (But if you like studying alone, you can definitely find a place for that too) Like reesezpiecez said, it’s very casually accepting - you kind of just say “I’m going to go do work now, see you later” and go.</p>