What the heck man, did you do a degree in one year or something?
How many hours per week did you study at university?
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What the heck man, did you do a degree in one year or something?
I did around 40-50hours a week in the first years including lectures, tutorial, homework and studying. In my last year it was more like 60-70 hours a week. Exam period would push this up to 65-80 hours a week but I purposely did not try to overwork for exams and get brain freeze. Of course when things like the final year project was due there was the odd week pushing 90 hours.
Ohhhhhhh! Phew, got worried
(several of my masters tutors take IR as gospel which has left some awkward conversations)Depends on degree and university. You can easily have 20-30 a week of lectures, tutorial and lab sessions with the same again needed to complete course work more time on top studying.
I had around 15-20 hours a week of lectures and would put on the same time again of study (if I had a 2 hour lecture I spent 2 hours in the evening or next day going through the material, reading the extra references and making sure I understood the content).
I'm studying Economics and Politics, international relations was my favourite module last semester.
I'm slightly older than the majority (22) with a mortgage and long term girlfriend so I don't really get into the typical drinking/partying side of things. For me, I'm at university to learn and better my career prospects so doing well really matters.
I do get slightly annoyed by the lack of enthusiasm most students seem to have. A lot of people I speak to see uni as an inconvenience that gets in the way of their life. If you don't want to be here then nobody is forcing you.
You'll find that. But as second year starts and weeds out all the people who would rather spend time partying you'll notice a huge change in attitude.
I think what I find difficult is switching off from university. Whereas a job has set hours and tasks that need doing, you can put as little or as much into university as you like. I feel guilty gaming on the pc for an hour even though I've spent 9-5 at uni.
I can't imagine putting in 60 hours a week, how did you find time to do anything else?
I can't imagine putting in 60 hours a week, how did you find time to do anything else?
Soldato
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You can't get through Mech/Aero/Civil/Medical/Elec Engineering without putting extra hours of your own time.
No it doesn't, I continue working from homes on an evening when i'm not doing something out of the flat. It all depends on job/career and if you like it or not. I did 12-14hr shifts for 8 weeks (7 days a week) not that long ago.
KaHn
Soldato
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We did a solid 9 to 5 each day bar wednesday afternoons off.
I guess each evening there was a couple of hours work, 2-3 each evening.
Busy enough really.
I guess each evening there was a couple of hours work, 2-3 each evening.
Busy enough really.
Probably should be studying now, but I'm drinking and going out in an hour and a half First year so don't really care. No revision gone to about 25% of the lectures, 76% in one module 64% in the other so far, so I'll back myself to be fine.
WinRAR
First year so don't really care. No revision gone to about 25% of the lectures, 76% in one module 64% in the other so far, so I'll back myself to be fine.WinRAR
I'm 3rd year with 12 hours a week, putting in maybe 6 hours extra a week, probably should start putting in more. Can't believe people are putting in 9-5 days, maybe I just don't care enough about the subject I'm doing?? Attendance for a lot of my seminars is like 50%, sometimes less, so I'm not sure whether its down to my uni, down to my degree, or whether they are catching up and putting 10 hours in even though they skipped it.
How do you find CS at Queens? I'm going either going there or to Manchester next year.
I also massively depends on your aptitude for the subject, my gf at uni was working 9am-~10pm every day and then less in the holidays but still a pretty full on week. She got a 2.1. I did about 9am-2pm but including napping and also got a 2.1
But now I regularly clock 60+ hour weeks.
But now I regularly clock 60+ hour weeks.
Man of Honour
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While it may be a bit annoying having the "kids" around who don't really care that much it can also work in your favour - some of the people with the best marks in my course were those who were mature students, principally because they'd kicked about life a bit more and decided that this was something they really wanted to do.
As for how much time I put in - beyond actually going to near enough every lecture (my average attendance over all classes was probably 99% every year) I didn't do much apart from looking over the relevant cases the night before class and then a few heavy days come exam or coursework time. It's not going to work out well for everyone and I'm not suggesting it as a good way to study but you've got to learn what works for you and that seemed to be the way that I got on with best.
I'd worked out that I'd rapidly hit the law of diminishing returns so even if I was capable of getting a better mark the reward wasn't worth the expended effort - I'd found a suitable balance for me between getting a reasonable degree and leisure time.
It's not necessarily that they care more about the subject (although that's certainly possible) but some subjects simply have many more contact hours than others - engineering for instance is typically a degree where you will be in university for more hours than say sociology or in my case law.
Undergrad: Ranged from around 12-15 hours a week most of the time to the occasional few days of 40 hour weeks when stuff had to be handed in. Also similar amounts of time a couple of weeks a year when on field trips.
Masters: Base case of around 35 hours a week, with regular periods working up to 80 hours a week...
Now I have a full time job and love it... 37 hours a week and I get paid. So easy.
Masters: Base case of around 35 hours a week, with regular periods working up to 80 hours a week...
Now I have a full time job and love it... 37 hours a week and I get paid. So easy.
Sounds like your are doing plenty to me. I didn't put nearly enough in, outside of lectures and seminars I did a few hours a month at best, not per week. Other than a couple of days before an exam I really didn't do much at all in my own time, I did the work I had to do for essays and presentations etc, but that's it really.
As it happens though I actually missed a first by just 1 mark, however because I handed everything in 2 weeks late I lost a mandatory 20% of the grade, so was awarded a 2:2 in the end, I imagine if I hadn't screwed up like this I could have appealed and secured a 1st. I just can't believe how stupid I was though. I never expected to do as well as I actually did tbh, looking back on it I deeply regret being so lax with handing everything in, I don't really know why I did it tbh, it seemed like a good idea at the time because I worked out that aslong as I got x in my exams I could hand everything in late and still get a 2:2 ...well I was right, but what a dumbass thing to do. Still that was 7 years ago now, so no point in fretting about it, you live and learn. If I could do it all again 'properly' ...I would.
As it happens though I actually missed a first by just 1 mark, however because I handed everything in 2 weeks late I lost a mandatory 20% of the grade, so was awarded a 2:2 in the end, I imagine if I hadn't screwed up like this I could have appealed and secured a 1st. I just can't believe how stupid I was though. I never expected to do as well as I actually did tbh, looking back on it I deeply regret being so lax with handing everything in, I don't really know why I did it tbh, it seemed like a good idea at the time because I worked out that aslong as I got x in my exams I could hand everything in late and still get a 2:2 ...well I was right, but what a dumbass thing to do. Still that was 7 years ago now, so no point in fretting about it, you live and learn. If I could do it all again 'properly' ...I would.
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Probably... I did a year of engineering and then an earth science and and none was as hard as A levels
20-30ish I had but even then the first year was laid back compared to A-Levels. Later years probably more difficult though!
Going to sound like a hateful prat, but I found that undergrad really was easy enough that you could do nothing all term, knock out the odd essay the night before and cram from other people's notes for about a 10 days at the end for exams and come out with a first. And this was studying biology at Edinburgh, which is a pretty decent department.