<p>Hey, as a top college, how much work is there? About how many hours a night do you spend doing work? I know it depends on your courses, but based on experience and observation, how much would you say is “average?”</p>
<p>Also, is there a competative atmosphere at Bowboin, or is there more of a laid back attidtude?</p>
<p>Any replies greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>The school is not competitive at all. Most people are laid back about work, but work really hard. People often form study groups or attend review sessions together. Both humanities and science majors get alot of work. On average, I have about 3-6 hours of work per night (as a science major). During midterm weeks, I might spend as much as 8-10 hours studying for one subject (this could be over a period of a few days). But in general its laid back. Just to warn you, some cases are very hard (however not all), but don't let that discourage you because professors take that into account at the end of the semester. You will also really apperciate all the material you learn as a result of your hard work.</p>
<p>As a Bio / CS major, I have probably 0 - 1 hours of work a night, closer to 15 minutes average?</p>
<p>It really depends on personality, how fast you work, etc.</p>
<p>Yeah, I'm a Bio/Gov major with a math minor at Colby, a very similar school, and I find my work comes in waves. Sometimes I'll have 15 minutes of work, and others, 4-6 hours per night (fairly rare). Anyhue, I think it relaly depends upon the professor and subject, though.</p>
<p>I agree with the "work comes in waves" thing. Sometimes, I just have econ reading that I, umm, put off...and sometimes I have a bio lab write up and an econ problem set and a physics problem set and a french paper to write which takes, obvioulsy, significantly longer. I guess if I were on top of things all the time (and you won't be, as much as you'd like to be, I promise) I should probably aim for about 2 hours every night just to keep up with readings/going over notes, etc, etc, but there are some nights that I definitely decide to just sleep or something and others that I have to make up for it by starting my work at 4 pm and finishing it at 4 am with not many breaks in between. I guess the point of this is that time management is more important than any perceived workload as far as I can tell..</p>
<p>Most of the work isnt in the high school style "tonight you do this for next class". So how much work you have per night varies depending on how you proportion your work. Big procrastinators, like myself, end up with waves.</p>
<p>15 min? I don't believe you. Not unless you're a C-student or something. I think Bowdoin is at least as tough at Smith. At Smith most people who have 3.6 GPA and above (what you need for most top grad programs) study most of the time, like at least 6-8 hr/week for every class.</p>
<p>I have 3.6 and above. And yes, I work 15 minutes a day on average (believe it)</p>
<p>you take slacker classes? and you understand the difference between a typical day and "average" right? Because "average" would include like midterms and those days you have to do a bunch of work to catch up...</p>
<p>I do not take slacker classes. I work fast, and I take a lot of courses with problem sets and computer programs, which I can do fast. I don't study for tests really.</p>
<p>Occasionally I'll have a paper due and it will be a 3 hour day.</p>