<p>Trying to obtain information to help DD narrow the list of colleges before regular decisions come out in March. One important issue is how much the level of work load varies at top colleges. She wants to obtain a good education and be challenged, but not so buried that she has no time for an internship or a little fun. She will be a Computer Science major.</p>
<p>The 7 schools she is still considering are:</p>
<p>As a baseline for comparison, MIT students report an average of 26 hours per week of homework, based on a student survey in The Tech. To me, 26 hours sounds reasonable. My question is: Are workloads/homework levels at all of these schools are fairly similar, or whether some are significantly higher or lower?</p>
<p>Any thoughts or comparisons would be appreciated. </p>
<p>At any school, workload likely varies considerably depending on which courses one takes. For example, among CS courses, courses with programming assignments or design projects tend to be much more time consuming than theory courses, which are like math courses (although some students find theory and math courses more intellectually difficult).</p>
<p>Good luck getting reliable data based on the same measurement standards. MIT’s “26 hours” must be an overall campus average based on the survey responses. Expect it to vary greatly from major to major, year to year, and course to course. </p>
<p>Also, it is hard to get a reliable comparison unless you and your identical twin of similar academic ability and motivation go off to attend different schools in the same major and choose the most similar courses and then compare workloads.</p>
<p>A student who does undergraduate at one and graduate at another might have some basis to compare, but the “introductory CS for CS majors” course may seem easier at the school attended as a graduate student, from the point of view of a TA who has a bachelor’s degree in CS, versus an entering frosh starting his/her CS courses at the undergraduate school.</p>
<p>I would also appreciate informed opinions about the relative workload and experience at these schools.</p>
<p>I know that she will be bored and unhappy without a real challenge, but also wants to enjoy the college experience beyond the classroom. She also prefers more hands-on, and collaborative assignments/experiences to just book learning and memorization. </p>
<p>That 26 hours is funny. The students meant 26 hours a day. 26 hours a week of homework adds upto a 40 hour week. Lots of people have plenty of fun on 40 hour work weeks, but MIT engineering students are not among them.</p>
<p>Note that MIT credit units appear to be theoretically equivalent to number of hours per week spent on the class, including both in-class and out-of-class time.</p>
<p>Note that <a href=“Registration & Academics | MIT Registrar”>Registration & Academics | MIT Registrar; says that 3 MIT credits = 1 semester hour, as commonly used to designate credit units at other schools. This is in line with the typical expectation that 1 semester hour of classes at most schools theoretically means 3 hours of work per week over a semester, although actual workloads are likely less at most colleges these days.</p>
<p>MIT defines a full time student as one taking at least 36 units (= 12 semester hours), though presumably one would want to average 45 to 48 units (= 15 to 16 semester hours) to complete a bachelor’s degree in 8 semesters.</p>
<p>I was basing the 26 hours per week at MIT on this survey in The Tech. You are correct that 26 hours is the overall average, but Computer Science is Course 6, and students reported 27 hours in that major. </p>
<p>Here is the link. You have to go to the drop down box on the left that says “Work” and select the question about “How many hours of homework do you do per week?” The average is 26.2 hours and CSEE is 27 hours.</p>
<p>That survey lists the highest homework majors as 11 (Urban Studies and Planning), 17 (Political Science), 4 (Architecture), 22 (Nuclear Science and Engineering), and 1 (Civil and Environmental Engineering).</p>
<p>The lowest homework majors are 15 (Management), Other, 21 (Humanities), 18 (Math), 24 (Linguistics and Philosophy), 5 (Chemistry), and 7 (Biology).</p>
<p>Any CS majors out there that attended any of these colleges that thinks that the 27 hours or homework per week on average sounds surprisingly low or high in their experience?</p>
<p>I know somebody who attended Cornell majoring in CS, he spent 27 hours a week on homework. Unfortunately, even putting that much time he could not pass the upper level CS classes and ended up changing his major to Information Sciences. He was in CAS not CoE for CS major.</p>
<p>Anyone with a parent trying to figure out how many hours are involved isn’t getting into MIT! MIT admissions weeds out offspring of those types. lol lol lol and yeah, its 26 hours a day and more on weekends!</p>