How much do you study per week?

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dazzi45
Just to any Uni students here, how much do you study at home per week?
Everyone's been telling me 40 hours but its sort of freaking me out for certain reasons, mainly because its my first semester so I don't know what to expect, the fact that I only have 8 contact hours per week, and Its simply impossible for me to do 40 hours of study per week :S not as in I don't have time but I just can't do it, I'd rather quit uni.

How much does everyone else do?
 
I'm in a notoriously tough program right now. I work to pay my bills during the school year between 24 and 32 hours a week in addition to a full course load. Every waking moment outside class and work, I'm doing nothing but schoolwork. 7am-11pm every day of the week, take out hours for sitting in class or working for pay.
 
40 hours is just rediculous. I'm surprised you were told that. I have always been told study at home the amount of contact hours you have. So you should be spending about 8 hours to study at home.

I definitely don't recommend what I did but my study involved spending 2-3 days to read the text book/lecture notes a few days before the exam. Apart from that I didn't do much unless the subject had ongoing homework.

Ideally all you should need to do is this. Each week read the relevant chapter you are studying and do any required homework/assignments. Thats it. By exam time you should know each subject like the back of your hand. You basically want to be able to get to class and at least have some idea what lecturer's are on about.

Don't stress. Uni isn't so bad. By the way what are you studying?
 
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Well it depends what course you are doing.

I'm doing a BA in Photography, and have 10 contact hours a week. They say I should be doing like 20 outside per week, but I never need too...
 
Norwegian universities FTW!

I worked around 300 hours in the summer to build up a nice budget so I don't have to worry about my bills like last year. I always do my work at university with my mates, and around 18:00 I go home, buy food, cook the food with the radio in the background and relax the remaining day. Last year was said to be a very hard year, but I managed pretty well. Even though I work a lot and I'm generally the one to explain my mates how it works, I always disappoint myself during the exams. For most courses I worked as hard as I could and only got a C in some of them where I was expecting a possible A. Oh well, I went out of first year at Uni with 2 Bs and 4 Cs which puts me in the average group. I really liked my results to be a bit better, but since I put everything I had in it I'm assuming I'm no genius.
 
It depends on what classes you are taking as someone mentioned above.
But what will really help you through college is if you take good notes, I will recommend getting yourself a recorder as well. It helps when studying your notes and listening to the lecture.
I did not spend too much time after school studying, 2-3 hours max per day, but listening to the lectures did help a bunch.
Good luck on your first year!!!! 👍
 
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With mostly science/math/engineering courses on my schedule, I probably averaged 20-30 hours per week doing homework, projects, and studying. I didn't have to work on weekends, which helped distribute the load a bit. But really, you'll figure out what works best for you, and you'll reach a balance between school, work, and studying. Most of the scare-stories of university have some merit to them, but it's usually exaggerated.
 
I probably put in a good 20 hours. Mostly on the weekends though because I have no life.
 
Well I've talked to some other people and they're all saying 2 hours a day.
But I have to be honest I don't think its learning that content that will *word I cant use....* me up, I think it'll be the essays :(.
I have literarly spent 30-40 hours on a single essay this last week now and I am not sure what is expected....
Did anyone else feel the same way with their first lot of assignments? I just don't know what is needed to pass and I'm just constantly changing the essay non stop pretty much.
 
That depends if I have work that needs to be done, or irrelevant side jobs that people chose to beg down to me "Please sir" that I may accept if I have the caring touch at the particular time.
 
When I was in high school I only ever studied for one class, AP Physics. Other then that I never studied and graduated with like a 3.95 or something equally ridiculous. That's not to say I wasn't busy. I was the editor of our school newspaper and I would often spend long nights at the school working on a deadline.

When I got to university it was more or less the same way, I had to study a little bit but most of the time I could just pay attention during the lecture and get between a 3.0-4.0 in my classes. This is, once again, not to say I wasn't busy. I did do quite a few archaeological digs which took up a ton of free time during school.
 
I have ~20 hours lectures a week. On top of that I should be doing a couple of hours a day we-writing up and re-reading notes. On top of that I have assignments and project work which can be nothing one week, or 6 hours a day for a fortnight.
 
Outside of lectures? I probably do 2 hours a week. It's not enough to be where I should be, sadly I lack the motivation to do anything about it. If I can up it to 5 hours, then I would imagine I will sail through next year.
 
None out of none hours a week. I'm basically in the same boat as Joey was. Outside of a couple of classes in my first year and one last semester, I've pretty much sailed through college with 3.0-4.0s just by paying attention in class. I've basically kept busy by doing various extracurriculars. It also helps that I genuinely enjoy doing assignments, so long as they don't involve math.

40 hours seems far too high, in any case. What they suggest at my school is that for every hour you spend in class, you spend an hour studying outside of class (not including time spent doing homework and such). That seems far more realistic, at the very least.
 
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I'm starting school again this fall so I'm going to have to figure out my schedule again in order to fit everything I need to into the day. Thankfully I'm able to use the resources available to me, especially the internet, a lot better than I was able to back then. I imagine I'll need to do quite a bit of studying for my math classes because that's a language I've really forgotten here in the last few years.
 
It depends on the major and courses you're taking. In the first two years it wasn't really all that much. I could do most of my reading on the train. The only problems I had is there was one class that I didn't bother to go for an A and another that had very long assignments, but they came once every 2-4 weeks. The next semester is when I finally had a class that was difficult and time consuming.

This semester, which I started this week on Monday, I'm taking 6 classes. I'm probably reading 2-4 hours everyday plus time spent reading on the train and during lecture, so I might be nearing the 40 hour mark.
 
dazzi
Well I've talked to some other people and they're all saying 2 hours a day.
But I have to be honest I don't think its learning that content that will *word I cant use....* me up, I think it'll be the essays :(.
I have literarly spent 30-40 hours on a single essay this last week now and I am not sure what is expected....
Did anyone else feel the same way with their first lot of assignments? I just don't know what is needed to pass and I'm just constantly changing the essay non stop pretty much.
Click to expand...

Let me ask you this. What do you want out of your degree? Do you want to pass or do you want to be getting 80% + in every subject?

In terms of assignments, look at the basic criteria and answer it. Ask how many references you need and what style referencing is accepted. Getting the bare minimum references required, making sure you reference correctly, answering at least the basic points of the question should net you a fairly easy pass. If you want to be getting 80%+ though you should probably look at x1.5 to x2 the references your tutor says.

I don't think you answered yet what course you are doing either? It may help understand what is required from you. Every course is different and requires different amounts of work. Though I think 30-40 hours is overkill. How many words is it? I'd have said 10-15 hours max is all you should be spending and that would be for a fairly big essay.

Also two more things

1 - It is much harder to do well in uni than high school and the transition is difficult for a lot of people who are very likely to fail at least 1 subject the first semester.

2 - Don't feel pressured that because you decided your course that now you are stuck with it and it is what you must do the rest of your life. Heaps of people don't know what they want to do in their life and your experience in your course can turn you off doing it. I had always been a math/science person in high school. Started engineering in Uni to drop out a few years later and take up business instead. I'd never done a single business unit in my life so had never considered it.
 
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Remember how I said I only do like 20 hours a week? Well, I've been doing calculus all day long today. Tomorrow will be all-day organic chemistry and O.Chem lab prep, and the next day will be all-day biology.

I wish the calculus would go by a little faster. I spent most of my day just learning a new calculator...

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Im studying a bachelor of Arts which will take me into a master of teaching (primary) I chose primary over secondary mainly because I don't want to deal with fools non stop.
It's certinaly not my passion I guess I am at uni for the sake of it, and for the sake of a secure job that pays ok.
If I was going with a passion I'd be doing 3D animation as I love cartoon's etc, however here in Australia jobs in that area are close to nil and that passion is something that Uni doesn't really exsist for its sort of what you master alone and push it into your portfolio. So my dream is to work for Disney one day :) but that will never happend hahah the same way I never had a chance to even race go karts even though I loved cars since I was about 3.
 
Being an Electrical Engineering major I cannot afford to not study. First two years I spent about 12-20 hours a week on HW and study.

Now that I am in classes where I am designing and building computer processors and programming micro-controllers, that number has ballooned to 40-60 hours per week. That number sounds really high, but when you really enjoy what you are working on and you are working with friends it goes by much faster. Senior year this year and Senior Design I starts next semester, so I will not have a life outside of school for the next 3 semesters! haha
 

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