How rigorous is workload at Penn? Like how many hours do you spend each day studying outside of your classes? homework, assignment etc. And how hard are exams? Are they tests like A B C D E, essays, oral tests? or all of them combined?
“How rigorous is workload at Penn?”
Pretty rigorous.
“Like how many hours do you spend each day studying outside of your classes?”
DD is a CIS major in engineering. On a non-test week, she says she spends about 40 hours on homework. It takes longer on a testing week. The most time consuming of these are the programming assignments. CAS and Wharton students typically have less homework than engineering. That is not including about 20 hours of classes, recitation, and labs.
Additionally, CAS students do not usually take as many classes.
“And how hard are exams?”
They can be quite difficult, or fairly easy. It depends on the class and professor. Tests can be given in any format. Exams in most classes are curved, so performance compared to your peers is important. The most challenging aspect for students is often prioritizing their studying. If you have four exams in one week, how much time should you allocate to each one? It is easy for a student to get caught relatively unprepared for their last exam. Fortunately, all students face the same dilemma.
One cannot say that unless you’ve been a student at all 3 colleges.
Homework can be lengthy depending on the subjects. Homework can include individual projects, group projects, research, presentations so one cannot say which is “more” or “less” because they are different. Some research papers take a long time and CAS students may have more reading assignments.
All 3 colleges have recitations and labs in addition to class hours.
@cbreeze true but everyone knows engineering takes the cake in terms of workload and difficulty. Wharton tends to be a but easier because the subject matter is easier but it still very competitive and obviously you have to work your ass off to do well and this is also true for many majors in the college. I am doing a dual degree engineering wharton and a minor in the college and there is no doubt that my most challenging classes are the engineering ones.
This is a myth spread about by engineering students. You find it challenging because everybody around you is that much better.
How about astrophysics, biophysics,chemistry, molecular life sciences, math, all majors in CAS.
What is a dual degree engineering and Wharton? Do you mean M&T?
Are you a Wharton student?
@cbreeze I will admit that my comments were an oversimplification. It does depend on the specific major. The hard sciences students in CAS often do have just as much work as the engineers. In general, the more technical and/or quantitative, the more time consuming it is.