How many hours per week did you study at university?

[D.P.]

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?

There are 24*7= 168 hours in a week, - 60 hours of work and - sleep at 8hrs a day leaves 52 hours a week to do household chores/shopping/cleaning/shower/cook/eat and entertain.

Typically would leave around 5 hours a day for other things.
I never watched TV, I rarely if ever slept more than 8-9 hours a day.

I did have time to do exercise every second day, go to the bar with friend couple days a week, occasional bit of clubbing, skiing most weekends in the winter, few hours of gaming, watch a movie or 2 a week.

During the vacation periods I would do less except the summer before final year when I worked on my final year project, and typically spring break was busy finishing course work and starting exam revision.



During my PhD I would have to work longer hours to make progress. 70 hour weeks without the long undergrad vacation periods was the norm. In fact summers were the busiest times when students were gone and you could concentrate on your own work.
The last 15 months of my PhD I worked 70 hours a week at least (some weeks clocked over 100 hours...) with about 10 days off in total including weekends.

I'm now working and do about 46-48 hours a week, much better

 

[D.P.]

I only had wednesday afternoons off from 2pm (not 11/12 like the majority of the uni)

Rest of the time was 9-5.

KaHn

I seemed to always have tutorials Wednesday afternoon and would finish at 6pm when all the sports clubs had finished and were in the bar. Was annoying because there were lots of sports clubs I wanted to join but could because I would miss most of the training.

 

[D.P.]

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.

Plenty of people will have 9-5pm Monday-friday pretty much filled with lectures and lab session, let alone study time on top of that!

 

[Evoss]

Majority of degrees/uni's will only take marks from second and third year. Generally weighted at 25% for 2nd year and 75% for third year.

You are forgetting about the placement year, where 1st year counts towards what placement you can get.

 

[Souleh]

Some serious study folk in here, making me feel bad. Guess im THAT guy??

For the people saying they did ~70 hours a week, what sort of line of work are you in now and is it paying off?

I dunno how you do it. Im doing my degree (Final year hons beng software engineering) and working 35 hours a week at my former placement company and have been offered a job there after graduation - SAP partner company. This makes it harder to keep focus on the degree if honest but its a nice reflection on the work done.

Whilst the work is hard ive been fortunate enough to average marks of 60%-80% so far.

 

[D.P.]

I should add that my 60-70 hour weeks helped me get a double first and I don't think anyone else on my courses who got a first did less than 50 hours a week. A lot of my friends got firsts up near enough (some poor guys getting 68% etc.) and we would often be in the computer lab 9-5 on a Saturday etc.

There is a fairly large difference in work required to go up each grade though. I could have probably got a 2:2 by doing 20 hours a week, 2:1 doing 35-40 hours a week.
I always found exams and course works were easy for the first 50% of the marks, and then quote tough for the next 20%, and the final 30% usually verged on the insanity levels. Trying to answer some of that 30% took a majority of revision time for example.

And that is more or less how the examinations should be made out, majority finding a 2:2 fairly easy, good effort put in to get a 2:1, and exceptional effort to get a first. In theory only the top 5% of students should receive a first, and considering most classes have only 10-40 people and to get a first you need to get a first grade in a vast majority of classes then it can often be the case that no one gets a first.

For me, I was the first person dong my exact joint degree to get a first for several years, but it wasn't a common joint degree so is not so surprising.

 

[D.P.]

You are forgetting about the placement year, where 1st year counts towards what placement you can get.

Related to this, I got an internship with sun microsystems in California for a year based mostly on my grades form 1st and second year combined (Scottish 4 year degree). So although my first years did not count to the degree grade they made a big difference. Sun, and several other companies (city group, IBM, various investment banks i can't remember), just looked at the top 10-15% of students based on their combined 1st and 2nd year grades to interview.

then there is the whole foundation of knowledge. The second year will assume perfect knowledge of all first year material, and so on. If you scrape a pass in first year then you are only setting yourself up for failure in second year. yes you can buckle up and learn everything you should have learned in first year, but why not do it when you had the time!


You also have to be careful on getting into honours degrees. For me i needed to obtain 60% or more in all exams to be able to do the subject at honours level. That is not easy without putting in some effort.

 

[Dave]

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.

It's more to do with the subject; when I was an undergrad I usually had 9-5 in the department, doing lectures, seminars, labs and tutorials (Chemical Engineering) with a couple of hours off for lunch and break. In the third and fourth years when I had research projects going on I'd be in the department all day and would have to do a bit of work in the evenings too to catch up with revision and coursework. That was at Sheffield; here in Cambridge the undergrads seem to work quite a bit more (evening supervisions, more set tutorials & work) although I suppose that term time is shorter here so they have to make it up whilst they are here.

 

[Mean Mr Mustard]

9 hours a week in lectures. Rest of the time was supposed to be spent reading, ect.

If I'd done a course which required 30+ hours a week in lectures I'd have had no problem at all but I couldn't discipline myself to do those 9 hours a week. Needless to say I ballsed it all up and got a pass without honours in the end.

 

[Judgeneo]

Standard week for me currently 20-30 hours lectures, 10-20 hours study + the occasional 16 hour mammoth session (currently in one now, this assignment is killing me).... So 40 hours a week standard?
edit: Its hardly 9-5 though, 9-7 on monday and tuesday with no breaks nearly kill me. But I have become rather efficient and cycling to and from cost-cutter.

During exam time though, this will double to triple.

I did less last year, and more in my first year. I would do about 60 hours a week standard in first year I think.... Competition does that to you

At university your life will revolve around three things:
1) Working
2) Sleeping
3) Socialising
I have time for 2 of the 3. Today, its sleep I miss out on, next week its probably socialising.

 

[Dr House]

We had classes from 7.30 to 2 pm. After that I did not do too much.

However come exam time at the end of the year I would study for 11 hours per day 6 days a week (we don't have classes during exam period), this was for 4 months of the year.

 

[bhavv]

Related to this, I got an internship with sun microsystems in California for a year based mostly on my grades form 1st and second year combined (Scottish 4 year degree). So although my first years did not count to the degree grade they made a big difference. Sun, and several other companies (city group, IBM, various investment banks i can't remember), just looked at the top 10-15% of students based on their combined 1st and 2nd year grades to interview.

then there is the whole foundation of knowledge. The second year will assume perfect knowledge of all first year material, and so on. If you scrape a pass in first year then you are only setting yourself up for failure in second year. yes you can buckle up and learn everything you should have learned in first year, but why not do it when you had the time!

You also have to be careful on getting into honours degrees. For me i needed to obtain 60% or more in all exams to be able to do the subject at honours level. That is not easy without putting in some effort.

It depends entirely on your degree, on most the first year is only the equivelent of a foundation course, or a recap of what you already did at A Level. Most honors degrees only require a 40% pass rate to be able to complete with a third pass, needing to maintain 60% and having the first year count towards anything at all is not the normal procedure for most undergrad degrees.

 

[Judgeneo]

It depends entirely on your degree, on most the first year is only the equivelent of a foundation course, or a recap of what you already did at A Level. Most honors degrees only require a 40% pass rate to be able to complete with a third pass, needing to maintain 60% and having the first year count towards anything at all is not the normal procedure for most undergrad degrees.

However, employers still have access to your academic transcript. Are you going to hire the person with 45% first year, or 65%?

 

[Nitefly]

However, employers still have access to your academic transcript. Are you going to hire the person with 45% first year, or 65%?

Swings and roundabouts really, I personally wouldn't care as to what anyone or in there first year, it's not a very good demonstration of ability.

 

[sigma]

I don't know how some people can get top marks with little to no effort.

For example, one module's core reading for the first week of the term (so not even additional reading) was 5 chapters for my course.

I got crucified in one 2nd year exam because I "did not add any value" to what we were taught in 2 out of 3 questions so got minimum marks in that section! He said that nobody answered the questions properly!

Other examiners expect us to reference sources in exams too.

I've no idea how someone would be able to do any of that without putting some effort it.

 

[physichull]

20 plus hours for a physics degree but that pales into insignificance compared to the amount of hours i now work in full time employment. Im amazed that I found uni to feel like such long hard hours now...

 

[Goates]

In my 3rd year of a History BA and I am in 2 hours a week. Looking like I am going to get a 2:1 and really when I look back I haven't been bothered by deadlines or anything even with my relaxed attitude. This has been my busiest time probably and that is only because of application forms, assessment centres and interviews. Worst thing is I had a year of full time work before starting and the amount of contact hours has always been pretty ridiculous.

 

[Xordium]

What the heck man, did you do a degree in one year or something?

Medicine. I knew what I wanted to do and where I wanted to be and I was reliably informed to get there then that's kind of what I had to do. Not everyone did that much but they never really ended up anywhere.

 

[alx]

I should add that my 60-70 hour weeks helped me get a double first and I don't think anyone else on my courses who got a first did less than 50 hours a week. A lot of my friends got firsts up near enough (some poor guys getting 68% etc.) and we would often be in the computer lab 9-5 on a Saturday etc.

There is a fairly large difference in work required to go up each grade though. I could have probably got a 2:2 by doing 20 hours a week, 2:1 doing 35-40 hours a week.
I always found exams and course works were easy for the first 50% of the marks, and then quote tough for the next 20%, and the final 30% usually verged on the insanity levels. Trying to answer some of that 30% took a majority of revision time for example.

And that is more or less how the examinations should be made out, majority finding a 2:2 fairly easy, good effort put in to get a 2:1, and exceptional effort to get a first. In theory only the top 5% of students should receive a first, and considering most classes have only 10-40 people and to get a first you need to get a first grade in a vast majority of classes then it can often be the case that no one gets a first.

For me, I was the first person dong my exact joint degree to get a first for several years, but it wasn't a common joint degree so is not so surprising.

Agreed, spot on in my view.

 

[nex20]

My uni, only the final year counted towards my degree. In my first and second year, the amount of time I spent outside of lectures working must have been near 45minutes. In final year it was probably about 6/8hours a week. More when I was doing my final project.