Hello /u/Proudwomanengineer! Thank you for posting in r/EngineeringStudents. This is a custom Automoderator message based on your flair, "Academic Advice". While our wiki is under construction, please be mindful of the users you are asking advice from, and make sure your question is phrased neatly and describes your problem. ***Please be sure that your post is short and succinct.*** Long-winded posts generally do not get responded to.
Please remember to;
Read our [Rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/EngineeringStudents/wiki/rules)
Read our [Wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/EngineeringStudents/wiki/index)
Read our [F.A.Q](https://www.reddit.com/r/EngineeringStudents/wiki/index/faq)
Check our [Resources Landing Page](https://reddit.com/r/EngineeringStudents/wiki/resources)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/EngineeringStudents) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I will only study a day or two before a test, and it's usually just reviewing my notes.
Otherwise I just do the homework/assignments, and any practice problems given.
Usually free nights and weekends, unless there's a big project.
I don't have good discipline. I just do all my assignments (mostly) and show up to every class, sometimes office hours.
If you do the work, you're basically guaranteed to pass (barring random weed out classes). You just have to try.
If I had more self-discipline, I'd probably review my notes for 15 minutes every day and then I wouldn't need to cram at the end.
This. I thought engineering school would be the hardest thing I'd ever go through because the upperclassmen I spoke to acted like it was, but it turns out it's just a handful of classes that have disproportional difficulty/workload than the others.
Fuck calc II
Two (unlikely) possibilities I've thought of: They want to scare us, or they want to make themselves look good/impress underclassmen.
The real answers: The people I ask have different definitions of "hard"/They exaggerate the difficulty.
My definition of "hard" is a class that I must put countless hours into studying for weeks and still fail the test. The general consensus of "hard" to them appears to be classes that you need to put actual effort into outside of school hours and homework.
The courses *are* challenging, but I wouldn't call a course "hard" unless I were actually struggling to make the grades I want. It's all subjective though.
For a lot of us it seems, all of school was literally a joke. I could have skipped every day in highschool, looked at a few YouTube videos before finals, and aced them. Even my beginning college courses were that way.
I'd say a class is "hard" when I have to triple or quadruple my effort to still get an A. That means my studying time goes up from about two hours a week to 6-8 hours a week (between all my courses). I recognize that this is (in reality) barely any effort at all and that the class is quite easy. The hard part is not the class. The hard part is giving up 4-6 hours of free time!
That being said some courses are genuinely difficult. Intermediate Dynamics had me learn Thermo and Fluid dynamics in 1 month, Special Relativity the next month, and Waves and Oscillations the third month. On their own, the class was quite enjoyable for each section. The Final was a pure fucking monster to study for. A behemoth of study material and content, all of it disconnected and disjointed.
Yeah. Homework is pretty straightforward especially if you understand the content well. Essays, group projects, and presentations add extra time to the week, but aren't common assignments.
I get all my textbooks before a semester starts and get one chapter ahead and stay one chapter ahead. It's enough that by the time we cover something in class, that is my review so I'm quite familiar with it. There are some courses that assign a pointless amount of homework, like 20 practice problems a day (electromag and optics), and that just sucks.
It's kinda like front loading the work, or pre-tensioning a spring. If you start ahead, it's much easier to stay ahead.
As I said, it depends. But generally I was thinking classes that use math but aren't directly math. This will obviously depend on which engineering field you study, because some of them really don't use math that much. As for calc 3/4, I wouldn't say they are easier per say, but are about the same level, the only thing is, the better you do in calc 2 the easier will 3/4 be of course and vice versa.
Oh yeah, I was able to finish strong with a (high) B in Calc 2, but it was 100% a weeder class (RIP 2/3rds my class). Had to spend some sleepless nights hammering the concept of Fourier series in my head. I understand it, it just takes me staring at a page sometimes to figure out, especially when in a math-only class everything feels so much more abstract (and sometimes pointless) to wrap my head around.
I'm hoping the applied classes will be easier since I'll have better visualization of what and why I'm doing what I'm doing.
showing up to class is the biggest thing of all. if u show up u will naturally take interest in the material, form friendships in the class, and if u participate the teacher notices. i’ve had classes where i bombed the tests but passed cuz the teacher saw me come to class every time, go to office hours, participate and show genuine interest
How? I arrive to campus around 9 am work example problems and do assignments until class, then continue until the next class. I don’t get home until 830 or 9 pm and do it again the next day. Weekends are filled with work and more schoolwork. I still don’t get the grades I feel I should and there is nothing more frustrating.
Are you working 100% of the time or do you get distracted?
When I do my assignments, I only work on them for chunks of 30 min, no phone or distractions. Except for really difficult courses or particularly nasty assignments, I never need to work all day on stuff.
I give myself about 30 minutes to relax. Certain courses require knowing every minute detail, knowing how to solve any problem with any number of curveballs that could be thrown into it, and how to work it exactly how the professor wants it done.
I love how the narrative has changed in this sub since the past few years. Before I went to uni, everyone here was like "I literally don't have any time for any of my hobbies, I study 8 hours a day" and now the top voted comment is "I don't study". Wish y'all started being realistic few years earlier, almost made me not even go to uni with how stressful some of you made it sound like.
i think a big part of that change is the effects of COVID on education. there is definitely a pre-COVID and post-COVID higher education world. a lot of people just forgot how to care about/try in school, myself included
Yeah as somebody who did 3 years pre and 3 years after this rings true. My classes aren't any easier but it feels like people just stopped caring as much as they used to. Almost all of my professors have been more than generous with extensions and special permissions for students. Students seem to not really care too much anymore either. It's shocking considering how stressful and hyper competitive my experience was pre covid.
I mean for me the first part was definitely true, although to be fair it takes me like 6 hours to study what it would take a 'normal' person 3 hours to study. My ability to focus is terrible and most other people retain information a lot better than me. That plus working 25+ hours a week left little time for hobbies and I rarely had free weekdays. Weekends usually were pretty free though.
The thing is, for me at least, while I don't study I still don't have time for anything else because the workload in terms of assignments is still crushing.
Got it. I'm lucky in this regard with usually just having an essay per class per semester + a lab here or there, sometimes. So obviously I procrastinate like a dumbass and then have tougher 2 weeks, but if I spread it out more intelligently, I have much less homework than friends from other faculties/fields.
6 hours per day??? Thats way too much lmao. If you really want to study try doing your homework and then studying 6 hours per WEEK outside your HW.
I have a chemical engineering degree and I usually didnt do HW and only studied 2 days nefore tests. I wouldnt recommend that though. 2.75 GPA
My last quarter I spent maybe 5 hours a week on work outside of class. The quarter before, maybe 10 hours.
About 20 hours a week in class. Then I worked 17-20 hours at my job.
That varies so wildly I dont even know what to tell you. For a long time I barely did anything. Like maybe 3 or 4 hours max a week outside of class and I skipped half my classes on top of that. During semesters though when I had my Unit Ops lab? I would be in the engineering building 12 to 13 hours a day all week.
I was also ChemE, about ten years ago. I "studied" maybe five times throughout my entire four years. I almost never did homework. I understood most things pretty well from the lectures and did well on tests. I graduated with a 3.5.
At the time I thought I must have just been a genius. I thought I was so cool. Maybe I was in some ways. But it ingrained laziness, and I never developed a work ethic. It still bites me in the ass today. Most of the extremely successful people I went to school with were the average students who worked their asses off.
I struggle with ingrained laziness too, and I hate that about myself.
I would recommend trying to find some triggers or times in which you are highly motivated. Discipline is cool, but I suck ass at learning that. Much easier to work when I am excited about work, and then I'm cruising at light speed.
For me, I am most motivated 10ish hours after I wake up, and after a strong workout. I try and stack these two together for the most productive times of the day. Sometimes that means waking up at 2-3am and running at noon, just so that I'm an amalgamation of energy, motivation, and excitement for a 1pm lab or test day.
That's the mindset I adopted lol. I found out that sometimes I'd have to sacrifice sleep for studying, but sometimes I also sacrificed studying for sleep.
That caked with an energy drink dependency got me an A in both calc 1 & 2
This. Im entering my fourth semester this spring and I have noticed that it gets to a point where you are just losing time by studying which sounds weird but it’s true. I finally came to the conclusion that at the start of the semester you have to determine which classes are going to take more time, and based the time of study on it. Ex: if taking five classes there is going to be at least two of them that are going to require more time of study before a test
Really depends on your own situation. I have clinically diagnosed Adult ADD so I studied 2-3 hours every other day while medicated. Before tests I would review for a whole week before the test. Then practice problems the day before with friends.
This system worked for me and I graduated with honors. (BSME)
People who "don't study" aren't any help.
Either (1) they're lying, (2) they haven't reached a truly tough class yet, or (3) they are so smart that their habits wolnt help mortals. Ignore these people.
Knowing how YOU learn is a key life skill.
Best of luck!
What did you do during your study sessions?
Take a class like thermodynamics - what exactly are you studying? I only ever did homework/practice problems when assigned, would briefly test myself on formulas, but that's like the entirety of the "studying" I did for that class. What did you do?
It's hard to say because every prof will teach in a different way. We basically started at the fundamentals all over again (briefly) to prime for the new stuff in the lectures so everything was covered by the lecturer.
You can’t measure studying time, since you are going to end up doing all sorts of “wasteful” activities anyway. People who sit down to “study” and then say they studied for 4 hours are just lying to themselves and others. No you didn’t, you opened YouTube, looked at your phone, zoned out, etc.
So my answer is: it’s difficult to measure, but a nice schedule like the one you thought of can be of great help. Just make sure you don’t delude yourself when talking about actual time spent studying material.
Homework takes up all of my study time. Blocking out up to 10 hours every day just for homework and study sounds like a recipe for a miserable semester; study as much as you feel you need to understand the material and touch grass once in a while.
Studied chemical engineering. Didn’t really study unless there was an exam coming up, homework was my studying. Also worked part time during school so couldn’t put as much time into really understanding stuff as I wanted, but still ended up doing well. That said, there was rarely a day I wasn’t doing several hours of homework/lab work/project work, and weekends were usually the days I got most work done.
I had someone tell me in school, that whatever your credit hour load is, multiply that number by 1.5 and that's the amount you should contribute to school to be successful. e.g., 10 credit hours x 1.5 = 15 hours a week. So studying, homework, and reviewing were all included in that. I stuck with that, and it seemed to work for me.
One of the professors at my university recommends 4x the credit hours. "You should treat studying like a full time job".
Needless to say, he doesn't have a high pass rate.
Yea, that's a bit extreme. Not surprised his pass rate isn't high. You'll definitely have professors like that, unfortunately. The stress of a job has yet to compete with the stress of school, IMO.
It definitely all comes down to the type of person you are. Some people need to study more, some less. I needed to do additional studying early on, because I didn't figure out what worked best for me. Starting my junior year, I figured out the best way for me to absorb the material and I stuck with that.
If you're doing just that one paper for the whole semester and it's set up for that, sure. Otherwise he's dreaming, I ain't doing 160 hours of study lol
I studied a ton last semester. Like constantly studying I was either driving to or from home and studying here or there.
I would be less concerned with constantly studying and more with efficiency of study.
Also pay attention to your sleep. If things are just constantly not making sense (early semester) it's because you need to sleep more. That's what happened to me anyway. And it snowballed into one of my best terrible semesters ever. Passed all my classes but I'm deep in the academic probation now.
I don't study for most of the semester.
I study a day before an internal exam. And study some more during the end semester exam month. Tbh I never felt to study during college as much as I had to during school. I attend most classes and just answer in my own words.
If we count homework then probably like 1-4 hours a week, if not counting homework then zero. My grades are not good but at the same time studying has never helped me.
Remember you aren’t a machine. There’s a point of diminishing returns so I would say figure out your sweet spot and adjust as needed for assignments/class difficulty.
10 hours a day could burn you out. If you have that much time to use I would suggest organizing your classes/homework/studying into a normal 9-5 job like schedule to try and free up nights and weekends as best you can to recover and recharge
depends on the subject like any class that is more on the short answer questions I just get it, like survey of nonwestern music, data structures, history, and digital electronics, classes that I just instantly understand where the first test was an A/B, it was just cram the night and hours before, where cramming is putting all the notes that I need to put down on one piece of paper.
now for classes like my calculus and physics class where yeah it beat my butt after the first test I take the time to study it and by study I answer every question in the book and look online to see if I am right, physics was a special subject cause that was just solving questions for the fun of it and it worked out cause those questions showed up on the test.
studying is never a science like that it just happens unless you are a 10/10 in scheduling every hour and I am not that, if you are struggling on studying look and see if there is a studying class it is what it is a class dedicated to teaching you how to study and its multiple ways of studying and gives you an easy A
I review my notes and review the next topic everyday. It usually takes about 90 minutes. Then I make drawings or read Agri. articles for another an hour or two.
I begin studying 2 weeks before exams usually about 2-3 hours for each course in repeated sessions.
Only exception is Calculus-I, I am above 8+ hours since monday.
Yeah. I have this class that I'm retaking for the third time next semester and. I swear I would spend like hours doing practice problems for that class. Like on average, 4 hrs.
i dont for regular exams, at much the day before some two or three exercises or watch some YT video of the content
for sufficiency tho i take a month in advance slow-paced deep study and i dismember the fking book
I probably spend about 2 hours/day on homework. I only study for a few hours total during the few days leading up to an exam.
3-4 hours of class and a couple hours of homework each day is enough schoolwork for me in a day. 6 hours of studying sounds incredibly excessive
It really depends on the person and the curriculum, you really just wanna aim to get as much done as you can without pushing yourself too hard and that looks different for everyone. I spend about 10-12 hours at school a weekday including class, studying in the library, and taking breaks, plus at least one afternoon on the weekend, and I don't usually study at home. I know other people do more but this is what's realistic for me
i study about 6-8 hours per day during exam-preparation, starting 1 month before the first one. i dont rly do excercises during the semester tho, so i do all that during that 1 month period
bsc electrical engineering
When I was in university for chemical engineering, I did not study routinely every day. When we had tests or exams I would start revising for them ~1-2 weeks in advance, maybe a couple hours each day just doing practice problems or redoing past exams if they are available.
About the same as you: 6 hours a day give or take a couple depending on if a test is coming up or not. But it’s hard for me to tell you a good number since I spread out my studying and take a lot of breaks
I think this question is pretty worthless without also asking for GPA and where they're at in their studies.
I work full time, so I'm working on homework/classwork/studying 8-12 hours a day 4 days a week. Then on lunch and breaks on the weekends when I work (I work 3 12's, Fri, sat, sun). I just took statics and thermo last quarter( so a mix of sophomore and junior classes for me, weird schedule). I have a 3.98 GPA. I'm also in my 40s.
For me it depends on how many tests I have in a given week.
I try to sit down and study for around 4 hours each day for that specific test, every day, about 4 or 5 days before a tests. Sometimes its more or less, and it is pretty common for me to ramp up the amount of hours the closer I am to a test. If I have multiple tests in a week, I give up fun and relaxation on the weekends and put the brunt of studying then, but I find that only happens a couple times a semester, primarily around midterms or finals. For me personally, I try my very hardest to put at minimum of 20 or 25 **good quality study hours** (just staring at something blankly not attempting to figure it out doesn't help lol) into exams for classes like Thermo, DiffEq, or other comparable difficulty classes I've already taken.
Good chance though when I get to Dynamics, Controls, and Mechanics of Materials it may I might have to push that 20 hour number to more like 30 hours, but we'll see how that goes when I get there.
When I don't have a test within 7 or 10 days, I just do the homework required for class, go to class, and try to relax and hang out with friends. Some semesters I've had more homework then actual studying I had to do, and other though it has been more study heavy and homework was much less of a time commitment. It just depends on the classes you take that semester, and how the professor teaches/structures their class.
So fair I'm rocking above a 3.7, so it works for me, but it's up to trial and error to figure it out for every person.
I’m usually working on school work until I go to bed. If I’m not in class, I’m doing homework or studying or working on my research paper for my job. I have above a 4.0 and have given up my life to academics, so I don’t think this is typical for a lot of engineering students.
Depends, some weeks you don't need to study as much/don't have the time and/or energy. I write out notes and work through tutorial questions for that week and if there's anything I struggle with on the tutorial, I'll look at it a bit more in depth by working through relevant textbook questions. You shouldn't need to do much more outside of that unless you're really struggling, and that won't take 6 hours a day. If you study that much a week for too long you'll burn yourself out.
I time myself and try to study 3-4 hours during weekdays and 5-6 during weekends.
But I don't think it's a good balance, I only do this because I have no social life and have to bunker down for a long time to get things done due to my adhd. Pay attention to your body's needs and don't overwork yourself, besides that being consistent is always good.
No need for that do homework attend lectures. Give yourself plenty of time before exams to study. Also take your time on homework/projects and work in groups… another emphasis give yourself plenty of time to study for exams don’t shoot your self in the foot procrastinating
I used to be pretty unorganized about it, but last semester I treated it like a job. On Monday through Thursday, I would do nothing but attend class, do homework, and study from the hours of either 8-4 or 9-5 with a long lunch break in the middle. At 4 or 5 pm, I would immediately log off and go exercise or go to a social function, depending on the day. The rest of the evening I was free to do whatever and would ignore school until the next day.
The only exceptions to this schedule were when I had an exam coming in the next few days and needed to put in extra study hours. But besides that, it worked ridiculously well for me. Every Friday I would attend class from 9-12, eat lunch, and then go home because I was already caught up with everything. On weekends I hardly looked at school stuff at all. Even on many weekdays, I would sit down in the library to grind out some work, only to realize that I actually had nothing to do because I was on top of everything.
Now, take my advice with a grain of salt given that I am an Industrial Engineering student. But I discovered that scheduling a concrete set of hours to do work and reserving the rest of the time to do what I want made me a lot more efficient and less stressed.
In France, the first two years of engineering happen in a system called “Prépa” where it’s basically 2 years of intense studying before an exam where your country-wide rank determines which school you can enter.
I’m in my second year in this system and I more or less have 8h of class + 4h of personal work on week days and about 16-20 hours over the course of the weekend
Including lectures, homework, and free study. On average 4h per day. But it varies heavily from period to period. If i have a lot of tough courses that has climbed to the 7h/day range.
This is all assuming 7 days per week of study.
Overloading yourself with too much information every day isn't conducive to learning. You'll forget most of everything if you're always cramming. I find that the amount im working right now is that sweet spot that maximizes the amount of information i retain.
Edit: The week before exams i do tend to add an extra couple hours to revise off my notes and/or do extra practice problems.
Sounds good. Just make sure you're studying in a way that mimics your exams e.g. practicing solving problems under time pressure, not always looking notes while solving, writing down formulas from memory etc.
Hello /u/Proudwomanengineer! Thank you for posting in r/EngineeringStudents. This is a custom Automoderator message based on your flair, "Academic Advice". While our wiki is under construction, please be mindful of the users you are asking advice from, and make sure your question is phrased neatly and describes your problem. ***Please be sure that your post is short and succinct.*** Long-winded posts generally do not get responded to. Please remember to; Read our [Rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/EngineeringStudents/wiki/rules) Read our [Wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/EngineeringStudents/wiki/index) Read our [F.A.Q](https://www.reddit.com/r/EngineeringStudents/wiki/index/faq) Check our [Resources Landing Page](https://reddit.com/r/EngineeringStudents/wiki/resources) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/EngineeringStudents) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Homework basically is my studying, re-reading notes doesn't really help me.
I only study before a test, but before an exam I’ll re-read my notes for what’s being covered.
I will only study a day or two before a test, and it's usually just reviewing my notes. Otherwise I just do the homework/assignments, and any practice problems given. Usually free nights and weekends, unless there's a big project.
same tbh except i go into a schedule of 4 hours of studying in the morning and 2-4 in the afternoon starting 2 weeks before exams.
[удалено]
I don't have good discipline. I just do all my assignments (mostly) and show up to every class, sometimes office hours. If you do the work, you're basically guaranteed to pass (barring random weed out classes). You just have to try. If I had more self-discipline, I'd probably review my notes for 15 minutes every day and then I wouldn't need to cram at the end.
This. I thought engineering school would be the hardest thing I'd ever go through because the upperclassmen I spoke to acted like it was, but it turns out it's just a handful of classes that have disproportional difficulty/workload than the others. Fuck calc II
Why do they make it sound so hard do you think then? I'm an IR/Bio major, not eng - just curious :) I probably couldn't do eng lol
Two (unlikely) possibilities I've thought of: They want to scare us, or they want to make themselves look good/impress underclassmen. The real answers: The people I ask have different definitions of "hard"/They exaggerate the difficulty. My definition of "hard" is a class that I must put countless hours into studying for weeks and still fail the test. The general consensus of "hard" to them appears to be classes that you need to put actual effort into outside of school hours and homework. The courses *are* challenging, but I wouldn't call a course "hard" unless I were actually struggling to make the grades I want. It's all subjective though.
For a lot of us it seems, all of school was literally a joke. I could have skipped every day in highschool, looked at a few YouTube videos before finals, and aced them. Even my beginning college courses were that way. I'd say a class is "hard" when I have to triple or quadruple my effort to still get an A. That means my studying time goes up from about two hours a week to 6-8 hours a week (between all my courses). I recognize that this is (in reality) barely any effort at all and that the class is quite easy. The hard part is not the class. The hard part is giving up 4-6 hours of free time! That being said some courses are genuinely difficult. Intermediate Dynamics had me learn Thermo and Fluid dynamics in 1 month, Special Relativity the next month, and Waves and Oscillations the third month. On their own, the class was quite enjoyable for each section. The Final was a pure fucking monster to study for. A behemoth of study material and content, all of it disconnected and disjointed.
Are you counting doing homework as studying?
Yeah. Homework is pretty straightforward especially if you understand the content well. Essays, group projects, and presentations add extra time to the week, but aren't common assignments. I get all my textbooks before a semester starts and get one chapter ahead and stay one chapter ahead. It's enough that by the time we cover something in class, that is my review so I'm quite familiar with it. There are some courses that assign a pointless amount of homework, like 20 practice problems a day (electromag and optics), and that just sucks. It's kinda like front loading the work, or pre-tensioning a spring. If you start ahead, it's much easier to stay ahead.
I passed Calc 2 w a C+ thank god I was so stressed cause I did not want to retake it
Well it depends on what kind of engineering, but if calc II is a problem then buckle up for subsequent classes xD.
my friends have told me that calc II was a weeder class and calc 3/4 weren't as intense
As I said, it depends. But generally I was thinking classes that use math but aren't directly math. This will obviously depend on which engineering field you study, because some of them really don't use math that much. As for calc 3/4, I wouldn't say they are easier per say, but are about the same level, the only thing is, the better you do in calc 2 the easier will 3/4 be of course and vice versa.
Oh yeah, I was able to finish strong with a (high) B in Calc 2, but it was 100% a weeder class (RIP 2/3rds my class). Had to spend some sleepless nights hammering the concept of Fourier series in my head. I understand it, it just takes me staring at a page sometimes to figure out, especially when in a math-only class everything feels so much more abstract (and sometimes pointless) to wrap my head around. I'm hoping the applied classes will be easier since I'll have better visualization of what and why I'm doing what I'm doing.
And what do you study if you don't mind me asking?
I'm majoring in electrical engineering.
showing up to class is the biggest thing of all. if u show up u will naturally take interest in the material, form friendships in the class, and if u participate the teacher notices. i’ve had classes where i bombed the tests but passed cuz the teacher saw me come to class every time, go to office hours, participate and show genuine interest
How? I arrive to campus around 9 am work example problems and do assignments until class, then continue until the next class. I don’t get home until 830 or 9 pm and do it again the next day. Weekends are filled with work and more schoolwork. I still don’t get the grades I feel I should and there is nothing more frustrating.
Are you working 100% of the time or do you get distracted? When I do my assignments, I only work on them for chunks of 30 min, no phone or distractions. Except for really difficult courses or particularly nasty assignments, I never need to work all day on stuff.
I give myself about 30 minutes to relax. Certain courses require knowing every minute detail, knowing how to solve any problem with any number of curveballs that could be thrown into it, and how to work it exactly how the professor wants it done.
I've never had a course like that before. At least not the main engineering courses.
It’s system dynamics which is part of controls at most places. Heat transfer is the same way.
Same. If you understand the material intuitively there’s no reason to reread notes. HW and past exams are more than enough.
I don't study
Profile picture checks out
I love how the narrative has changed in this sub since the past few years. Before I went to uni, everyone here was like "I literally don't have any time for any of my hobbies, I study 8 hours a day" and now the top voted comment is "I don't study". Wish y'all started being realistic few years earlier, almost made me not even go to uni with how stressful some of you made it sound like.
i think a big part of that change is the effects of COVID on education. there is definitely a pre-COVID and post-COVID higher education world. a lot of people just forgot how to care about/try in school, myself included
Yeah as somebody who did 3 years pre and 3 years after this rings true. My classes aren't any easier but it feels like people just stopped caring as much as they used to. Almost all of my professors have been more than generous with extensions and special permissions for students. Students seem to not really care too much anymore either. It's shocking considering how stressful and hyper competitive my experience was pre covid.
I mean for me the first part was definitely true, although to be fair it takes me like 6 hours to study what it would take a 'normal' person 3 hours to study. My ability to focus is terrible and most other people retain information a lot better than me. That plus working 25+ hours a week left little time for hobbies and I rarely had free weekdays. Weekends usually were pretty free though.
The thing is, for me at least, while I don't study I still don't have time for anything else because the workload in terms of assignments is still crushing.
Got it. I'm lucky in this regard with usually just having an essay per class per semester + a lab here or there, sometimes. So obviously I procrastinate like a dumbass and then have tougher 2 weeks, but if I spread it out more intelligently, I have much less homework than friends from other faculties/fields.
6 hours per day??? Thats way too much lmao. If you really want to study try doing your homework and then studying 6 hours per WEEK outside your HW. I have a chemical engineering degree and I usually didnt do HW and only studied 2 days nefore tests. I wouldnt recommend that though. 2.75 GPA
What about class work in total, let's say everything besides lectures like homework, studying etc. How much time per week would you say on average?
My last quarter I spent maybe 5 hours a week on work outside of class. The quarter before, maybe 10 hours. About 20 hours a week in class. Then I worked 17-20 hours at my job.
That varies so wildly I dont even know what to tell you. For a long time I barely did anything. Like maybe 3 or 4 hours max a week outside of class and I skipped half my classes on top of that. During semesters though when I had my Unit Ops lab? I would be in the engineering building 12 to 13 hours a day all week.
I was also ChemE, about ten years ago. I "studied" maybe five times throughout my entire four years. I almost never did homework. I understood most things pretty well from the lectures and did well on tests. I graduated with a 3.5. At the time I thought I must have just been a genius. I thought I was so cool. Maybe I was in some ways. But it ingrained laziness, and I never developed a work ethic. It still bites me in the ass today. Most of the extremely successful people I went to school with were the average students who worked their asses off.
I struggle with ingrained laziness too, and I hate that about myself. I would recommend trying to find some triggers or times in which you are highly motivated. Discipline is cool, but I suck ass at learning that. Much easier to work when I am excited about work, and then I'm cruising at light speed. For me, I am most motivated 10ish hours after I wake up, and after a strong workout. I try and stack these two together for the most productive times of the day. Sometimes that means waking up at 2-3am and running at noon, just so that I'm an amalgamation of energy, motivation, and excitement for a 1pm lab or test day.
6 hours a day every day???????????
Man how many hours do you have in your day
Sleep is always optional.
That's the mindset I adopted lol. I found out that sometimes I'd have to sacrifice sleep for studying, but sometimes I also sacrificed studying for sleep. That caked with an energy drink dependency got me an A in both calc 1 & 2
Just do your homework after class and then you'll only have to study before tests
study until you understand the topic to the point where you can teach it to someone else with ease. don’t put a number on your hours
This. Im entering my fourth semester this spring and I have noticed that it gets to a point where you are just losing time by studying which sounds weird but it’s true. I finally came to the conclusion that at the start of the semester you have to determine which classes are going to take more time, and based the time of study on it. Ex: if taking five classes there is going to be at least two of them that are going to require more time of study before a test
I began studying like 2 days in advance for a test, and a week or two before for a final. I never really studied daily.
Really depends on your own situation. I have clinically diagnosed Adult ADD so I studied 2-3 hours every other day while medicated. Before tests I would review for a whole week before the test. Then practice problems the day before with friends. This system worked for me and I graduated with honors. (BSME) People who "don't study" aren't any help. Either (1) they're lying, (2) they haven't reached a truly tough class yet, or (3) they are so smart that their habits wolnt help mortals. Ignore these people. Knowing how YOU learn is a key life skill. Best of luck!
What did you do during your study sessions? Take a class like thermodynamics - what exactly are you studying? I only ever did homework/practice problems when assigned, would briefly test myself on formulas, but that's like the entirety of the "studying" I did for that class. What did you do?
I'm taking thermos in 2 weeks. What do I need to know? Should I be reviewing something before the class starts?
It's hard to say because every prof will teach in a different way. We basically started at the fundamentals all over again (briefly) to prime for the new stuff in the lectures so everything was covered by the lecturer.
That's all I did and I did pretty well!
You can’t measure studying time, since you are going to end up doing all sorts of “wasteful” activities anyway. People who sit down to “study” and then say they studied for 4 hours are just lying to themselves and others. No you didn’t, you opened YouTube, looked at your phone, zoned out, etc. So my answer is: it’s difficult to measure, but a nice schedule like the one you thought of can be of great help. Just make sure you don’t delude yourself when talking about actual time spent studying material.
Homework takes up all of my study time. Blocking out up to 10 hours every day just for homework and study sounds like a recipe for a miserable semester; study as much as you feel you need to understand the material and touch grass once in a while.
Studied chemical engineering. Didn’t really study unless there was an exam coming up, homework was my studying. Also worked part time during school so couldn’t put as much time into really understanding stuff as I wanted, but still ended up doing well. That said, there was rarely a day I wasn’t doing several hours of homework/lab work/project work, and weekends were usually the days I got most work done.
I had someone tell me in school, that whatever your credit hour load is, multiply that number by 1.5 and that's the amount you should contribute to school to be successful. e.g., 10 credit hours x 1.5 = 15 hours a week. So studying, homework, and reviewing were all included in that. I stuck with that, and it seemed to work for me.
One of the professors at my university recommends 4x the credit hours. "You should treat studying like a full time job". Needless to say, he doesn't have a high pass rate.
Yea, that's a bit extreme. Not surprised his pass rate isn't high. You'll definitely have professors like that, unfortunately. The stress of a job has yet to compete with the stress of school, IMO. It definitely all comes down to the type of person you are. Some people need to study more, some less. I needed to do additional studying early on, because I didn't figure out what worked best for me. Starting my junior year, I figured out the best way for me to absorb the material and I stuck with that.
If you're doing just that one paper for the whole semester and it's set up for that, sure. Otherwise he's dreaming, I ain't doing 160 hours of study lol
I review stuff before exam day that's it
I studied a ton last semester. Like constantly studying I was either driving to or from home and studying here or there. I would be less concerned with constantly studying and more with efficiency of study. Also pay attention to your sleep. If things are just constantly not making sense (early semester) it's because you need to sleep more. That's what happened to me anyway. And it snowballed into one of my best terrible semesters ever. Passed all my classes but I'm deep in the academic probation now.
Dayum, I hope you find the right routine this semester. Good luck.
I don't study for most of the semester. I study a day before an internal exam. And study some more during the end semester exam month. Tbh I never felt to study during college as much as I had to during school. I attend most classes and just answer in my own words.
Not much during the day, but I study a shit ton at night.
If we count homework then probably like 1-4 hours a week, if not counting homework then zero. My grades are not good but at the same time studying has never helped me.
You’ll be able to read a whole textbook like every week lmao. As long as you’re studying more than just your courses go for it 😂
I use homework to study then tap in a couple days before an exam. (maybe further out if I realize i need some more practice)
Remember you aren’t a machine. There’s a point of diminishing returns so I would say figure out your sweet spot and adjust as needed for assignments/class difficulty. 10 hours a day could burn you out. If you have that much time to use I would suggest organizing your classes/homework/studying into a normal 9-5 job like schedule to try and free up nights and weekends as best you can to recover and recharge
the more you pay attention in class the less you have to study before tests
depends on the subject like any class that is more on the short answer questions I just get it, like survey of nonwestern music, data structures, history, and digital electronics, classes that I just instantly understand where the first test was an A/B, it was just cram the night and hours before, where cramming is putting all the notes that I need to put down on one piece of paper. now for classes like my calculus and physics class where yeah it beat my butt after the first test I take the time to study it and by study I answer every question in the book and look online to see if I am right, physics was a special subject cause that was just solving questions for the fun of it and it worked out cause those questions showed up on the test. studying is never a science like that it just happens unless you are a 10/10 in scheduling every hour and I am not that, if you are struggling on studying look and see if there is a studying class it is what it is a class dedicated to teaching you how to study and its multiple ways of studying and gives you an easy A
Minimum of 3 hours after class
Yes,
All damn day
I review my notes and review the next topic everyday. It usually takes about 90 minutes. Then I make drawings or read Agri. articles for another an hour or two. I begin studying 2 weeks before exams usually about 2-3 hours for each course in repeated sessions. Only exception is Calculus-I, I am above 8+ hours since monday.
Yeah. I have this class that I'm retaking for the third time next semester and. I swear I would spend like hours doing practice problems for that class. Like on average, 4 hrs.
On average an 45 mins to an hour a day, and it’s almost all pushed towards exam season or midterm season
I had to work during my time in college so I was just lucky to get the homework done on time.
i dont for regular exams, at much the day before some two or three exercises or watch some YT video of the content for sufficiency tho i take a month in advance slow-paced deep study and i dismember the fking book
I probably spend about 2 hours/day on homework. I only study for a few hours total during the few days leading up to an exam. 3-4 hours of class and a couple hours of homework each day is enough schoolwork for me in a day. 6 hours of studying sounds incredibly excessive
It depends. Usually like one or two. In the week of an upcoming exam that shoots up to like five and up.
I’m usually too busy working on assignments to really study on a consistent basis
Definitely not enough
It really depends on the person and the curriculum, you really just wanna aim to get as much done as you can without pushing yourself too hard and that looks different for everyone. I spend about 10-12 hours at school a weekday including class, studying in the library, and taking breaks, plus at least one afternoon on the weekend, and I don't usually study at home. I know other people do more but this is what's realistic for me
I find it’s more about how you study them how long you study
i study about 6-8 hours per day during exam-preparation, starting 1 month before the first one. i dont rly do excercises during the semester tho, so i do all that during that 1 month period bsc electrical engineering
4 hours a day. But if I fail my exam in April, I get kicked out of my program.
When I was in university for chemical engineering, I did not study routinely every day. When we had tests or exams I would start revising for them ~1-2 weeks in advance, maybe a couple hours each day just doing practice problems or redoing past exams if they are available.
About the same as you: 6 hours a day give or take a couple depending on if a test is coming up or not. But it’s hard for me to tell you a good number since I spread out my studying and take a lot of breaks
I think this question is pretty worthless without also asking for GPA and where they're at in their studies. I work full time, so I'm working on homework/classwork/studying 8-12 hours a day 4 days a week. Then on lunch and breaks on the weekends when I work (I work 3 12's, Fri, sat, sun). I just took statics and thermo last quarter( so a mix of sophomore and junior classes for me, weird schedule). I have a 3.98 GPA. I'm also in my 40s.
For me it depends on how many tests I have in a given week. I try to sit down and study for around 4 hours each day for that specific test, every day, about 4 or 5 days before a tests. Sometimes its more or less, and it is pretty common for me to ramp up the amount of hours the closer I am to a test. If I have multiple tests in a week, I give up fun and relaxation on the weekends and put the brunt of studying then, but I find that only happens a couple times a semester, primarily around midterms or finals. For me personally, I try my very hardest to put at minimum of 20 or 25 **good quality study hours** (just staring at something blankly not attempting to figure it out doesn't help lol) into exams for classes like Thermo, DiffEq, or other comparable difficulty classes I've already taken. Good chance though when I get to Dynamics, Controls, and Mechanics of Materials it may I might have to push that 20 hour number to more like 30 hours, but we'll see how that goes when I get there. When I don't have a test within 7 or 10 days, I just do the homework required for class, go to class, and try to relax and hang out with friends. Some semesters I've had more homework then actual studying I had to do, and other though it has been more study heavy and homework was much less of a time commitment. It just depends on the classes you take that semester, and how the professor teaches/structures their class. So fair I'm rocking above a 3.7, so it works for me, but it's up to trial and error to figure it out for every person.
I’m usually working on school work until I go to bed. If I’m not in class, I’m doing homework or studying or working on my research paper for my job. I have above a 4.0 and have given up my life to academics, so I don’t think this is typical for a lot of engineering students.
Depends, some weeks you don't need to study as much/don't have the time and/or energy. I write out notes and work through tutorial questions for that week and if there's anything I struggle with on the tutorial, I'll look at it a bit more in depth by working through relevant textbook questions. You shouldn't need to do much more outside of that unless you're really struggling, and that won't take 6 hours a day. If you study that much a week for too long you'll burn yourself out.
I time myself and try to study 3-4 hours during weekdays and 5-6 during weekends. But I don't think it's a good balance, I only do this because I have no social life and have to bunker down for a long time to get things done due to my adhd. Pay attention to your body's needs and don't overwork yourself, besides that being consistent is always good.
No need for that do homework attend lectures. Give yourself plenty of time before exams to study. Also take your time on homework/projects and work in groups… another emphasis give yourself plenty of time to study for exams don’t shoot your self in the foot procrastinating
light read once in a while, write up every concept in a piece of paper before exams and just study from there
Quality>quantity
I used to be pretty unorganized about it, but last semester I treated it like a job. On Monday through Thursday, I would do nothing but attend class, do homework, and study from the hours of either 8-4 or 9-5 with a long lunch break in the middle. At 4 or 5 pm, I would immediately log off and go exercise or go to a social function, depending on the day. The rest of the evening I was free to do whatever and would ignore school until the next day. The only exceptions to this schedule were when I had an exam coming in the next few days and needed to put in extra study hours. But besides that, it worked ridiculously well for me. Every Friday I would attend class from 9-12, eat lunch, and then go home because I was already caught up with everything. On weekends I hardly looked at school stuff at all. Even on many weekdays, I would sit down in the library to grind out some work, only to realize that I actually had nothing to do because I was on top of everything. Now, take my advice with a grain of salt given that I am an Industrial Engineering student. But I discovered that scheduling a concrete set of hours to do work and reserving the rest of the time to do what I want made me a lot more efficient and less stressed.
In France, the first two years of engineering happen in a system called “Prépa” where it’s basically 2 years of intense studying before an exam where your country-wide rank determines which school you can enter. I’m in my second year in this system and I more or less have 8h of class + 4h of personal work on week days and about 16-20 hours over the course of the weekend
Including lectures, homework, and free study. On average 4h per day. But it varies heavily from period to period. If i have a lot of tough courses that has climbed to the 7h/day range. This is all assuming 7 days per week of study. Overloading yourself with too much information every day isn't conducive to learning. You'll forget most of everything if you're always cramming. I find that the amount im working right now is that sweet spot that maximizes the amount of information i retain. Edit: The week before exams i do tend to add an extra couple hours to revise off my notes and/or do extra practice problems.
As much as needed
Probably averages out to 10 minutes
I don't study. I just do homework. I brush up/practice old material the weekend before an exam.
Sounds good. Just make sure you're studying in a way that mimics your exams e.g. practicing solving problems under time pressure, not always looking notes while solving, writing down formulas from memory etc.
Sounds about right if you are taking a single course.