5 ms·

I think the most important data point here is the average of 12-14 hours spent studying per week, including "academic" socializing. Of course you're not going t

by lmartel 12y ago

I think the most important data point here is the average of 12-14 hours spent studying per week, including "academic" socializing. Of course you're not going to accomplish much in that time; most employers would fire someone putting in twice that much time for slacking off. The rhetoric for as long as I've been alive (I'm college-aged) has been "get a degree, get a degree" and as it turns out getting a degree isn't very hard. We need to either make it harder or somehow change the rhetoric to "learn something."

Swizec 12y ago
That's usually 12-14 hours of studying on top of 30-40 hours of classes. At least that's what's expected. What usually ended up happening for me was blowing off 30-40 hours of classes a week, doing some 10-20 hours of studying (including homework and such), and having a near full-time job. Then followed by some 15 hours of studying per day during exams. But I never graduated. So that probably wasn't the best strategy. Although I did get a bunch of solid work experience in my field.
- lmkg 12y ago
  > That's usually 12-14 hours of studying on top of 30-40 hours of classes. That sounds like an extremely unusual balance of classes vs studying. An 'average' class-load is something like 12-18 credit-hours. That's supposed to mean 12-18 hours of in-class instruction per week. I'm quite curious how you ended up taking 30-40 hours of in-class instruction, and if that was normal compared to your peers. I was told in orientation (in 2003) to expect 2-3 hours of outside work per classroom hour, and my experience matched that. If these students are facing the same expectations that I faced, then they're getting a 1:1 ratio of classroom:outside hours, which is underworking by a significant factor.
  - Swizec 12y ago
    I don't remember what I was told in orientation, but most classes ended up having 2-3 hours of lectures and 2-3 hours of tutorials per week. You were expected to take 5 classes per semester. This gives you a minimum of 5(2+2) = 20 and a maximum of 5(3+3) = 30 hours of classes per week. Which means my original estimate was wrong, but coupled with holes in schedules, potentially taking extra classes in a semester (I think the max I ever did was 7) you easily ended up spending 30-40 hours a week at school if you were going to all your classes. That's how it was at my run-of-the-mill European public University. But I did always get the impression studying in the US was much easier.
    - hueving 12y ago
      Sounds about the same. You are just including tutorials which aren't usually included in regular credit hours in the US. Those would be in the "2-3 hours per hour in lecture" block.
      - Swizec 12y ago
        Well when you have mandatory presence at tutorials you tend to count them :)
  - girvo 12y ago
    Interesting. For the first couple of years, thats exactly what my (double, granted) degree was here in Australia.
  - VLM 12y ago
    I wonder if that is counting lab time. In the hard sciences those can be a killer. "Quantitative Chemical Analysis", that lab seemed to go on forever. Electronics labs were the roughest because they were open and if you "got it" you were done in an hour, or if not, well, that might be a very long day for you. I distinctly remember a microcontroller class where I had 9 years of in family experience (Motorola 8 bit) and I'd be outta there in a half hour but there would be classmates putting in 8 hours because they didn't really understand imperative programming or whatever. In the olden days computer science programming was done in labs because few people had the precise combination of machine / OS / compiler / IDE to match the class requirements, things are a little better now...
onetimeusename 12y ago
I am partial to trying to get people to "learn something". My belief is that when something is known as being hard, a teacher can get away with being mediocre or inept because bad ratings and students failing or low averages can be hand waived away as them not trying hard enough in the "hard" course. I also think the attitude that degree = more $ is at least partially to blame for less rigor. If people think this way then naturally just showing up to class and receiving the diploma are most important and if we are honest that might explain the existence of majors that are not rigorous at all like the ones mentioned.
watwut 12y ago
14 hours a week is 2.8 hours a day (ignoring weekends) on top of classes you spend in school. We had at least 4 hours a day of lectures during first year. That amounts to 6.8 hours a day not counting countless hours during exams time. It is not that little given that most people are unable to focus fully without breaks, so they have to happen too. In addition, you do count unproductive time in work (pointless meeting, small talk with colleague) as a work time. Most people can learn only so much withing a day and can focus only for so long. I would guess that 6.8 hours can be quite close to the point where your focus run out and you are bound to waste the additional time by staring on book (as opposed to learn from it).

by lmartel 12y ago

Swizec 12y ago

That's usually 12-14 hours of studying on top of 30-40 hours of classes. At least that's what's expected. What usually ended up happening for me was blowing off 30-40 hours of classes a week, doing some 10-20 hours of studying (including homework and such), and having a near full-time job. Then followed by some 15 hours of studying per day during exams. But I never graduated. So that probably wasn't the best strategy. Although I did get a bunch of solid work experience in my field.

lmkg 12y ago
> That's usually 12-14 hours of studying on top of 30-40 hours of classes. That sounds like an extremely unusual balance of classes vs studying. An 'average' class-load is something like 12-18 credit-hours. That's supposed to mean 12-18 hours of in-class instruction per week. I'm quite curious how you ended up taking 30-40 hours of in-class instruction, and if that was normal compared to your peers. I was told in orientation (in 2003) to expect 2-3 hours of outside work per classroom hour, and my experience matched that. If these students are facing the same expectations that I faced, then they're getting a 1:1 ratio of classroom:outside hours, which is underworking by a significant factor.
- Swizec 12y ago
  I don't remember what I was told in orientation, but most classes ended up having 2-3 hours of lectures and 2-3 hours of tutorials per week. You were expected to take 5 classes per semester. This gives you a minimum of 5(2+2) = 20 and a maximum of 5(3+3) = 30 hours of classes per week. Which means my original estimate was wrong, but coupled with holes in schedules, potentially taking extra classes in a semester (I think the max I ever did was 7) you easily ended up spending 30-40 hours a week at school if you were going to all your classes. That's how it was at my run-of-the-mill European public University. But I did always get the impression studying in the US was much easier.
  - hueving 12y ago
    Sounds about the same. You are just including tutorials which aren't usually included in regular credit hours in the US. Those would be in the "2-3 hours per hour in lecture" block.
    - Swizec 12y ago
      Well when you have mandatory presence at tutorials you tend to count them :)
- girvo 12y ago
  Interesting. For the first couple of years, thats exactly what my (double, granted) degree was here in Australia.
- VLM 12y ago
  I wonder if that is counting lab time. In the hard sciences those can be a killer. "Quantitative Chemical Analysis", that lab seemed to go on forever. Electronics labs were the roughest because they were open and if you "got it" you were done in an hour, or if not, well, that might be a very long day for you. I distinctly remember a microcontroller class where I had 9 years of in family experience (Motorola 8 bit) and I'd be outta there in a half hour but there would be classmates putting in 8 hours because they didn't really understand imperative programming or whatever. In the olden days computer science programming was done in labs because few people had the precise combination of machine / OS / compiler / IDE to match the class requirements, things are a little better now...

onetimeusename 12y ago

I am partial to trying to get people to "learn something". My belief is that when something is known as being hard, a teacher can get away with being mediocre or inept because bad ratings and students failing or low averages can be hand waived away as them not trying hard enough in the "hard" course. I also think the attitude that degree = more $ is at least partially to blame for less rigor. If people think this way then naturally just showing up to class and receiving the diploma are most important and if we are honest that might explain the existence of majors that are not rigorous at all like the ones mentioned.

watwut 12y ago

14 hours a week is 2.8 hours a day (ignoring weekends) on top of classes you spend in school. We had at least 4 hours a day of lectures during first year. That amounts to 6.8 hours a day not counting countless hours during exams time. It is not that little given that most people are unable to focus fully without breaks, so they have to happen too. In addition, you do count unproductive time in work (pointless meeting, small talk with colleague) as a work time. Most people can learn only so much withing a day and can focus only for so long. I would guess that 6.8 hours can be quite close to the point where your focus run out and you are bound to waste the additional time by staring on book (as opposed to learn from it).