How much time did you spend reading in College on a weekly basis?

[El Jefe]

I am in a rather strenuous business program that is accelerated, and I have found some of the classes to be challenging due to the amount of information covered in 5 weeks. I have one 4 hour class per week and a ton of homework. I am taking what they call a "weighted" economics class, it is considered an economics class that is seen in the Masters program (traditional setting). It is balls to the wall, and I have found myself spending 10-15 hours a week reading and covering the lessons in our book. Mix that with working 55-60 hours a week, it is pretty rough.

I know some of you have some decorated degrees, what kind of book time did you see while you were in school? Mind you, I only take one class at a time.

[ChiTown]

Originally Posted by El Jefe

I am in a rather strenous business program that is accelerated, and I have found some of the classes to be challenging due to the amount of information covered in 5 weeks. I have one 4 hour class per week and a ton of homework. I am taking what they call a "weighted" economics class, it is considered an economics class that is seen in the Masters program (traditional setting). It is balls to the wall, and I have found myself spending 10-15 hours a week reading and covering the lessons in our book. Mix that with working 55-60 hours a week, it is pretty rough.

I know some of you have some decorated degrees, what kind of book time did you see while you were in school? Mind you, I only take one class at a time.

I didn't do a lot of heavy reading until I got into Grad School. I don't recall how much time I spent, but I do recall having a book in my hand during most of my awake free hours. Mind you, I was working full time while getting my MBA

[mikey23545]

I was too busy studying for my valedictorian final to do very much reading.

[keg in kc]

I don't think reading had been invented yet when i was in college.

[ChiTown]

Originally Posted by mikey23545

I was too busy studying for my valedictorian final to do very much reading.

[El Jefe]

Originally Posted by ChiTown

I didn't do a lot of heavy reading until I got into Grad School. I don't recall how much time I spent, but I do recall having a book in my hand during most of my awake free hours. Mind you, I was working full time while getting my MBA

Respect!

[Sorter]

Originally Posted by mikey23545

I was too busy studying for my valedictorian final to do very much reading.

[DJ's left nut]

Most college professors that teach less scientific/mathematics based courses will tell you that you should be reading 3 yours for every hour you spend in class. So if you have a 3 hour course, you're talking about 9 hours for that class. In a standard 15 hour semester, your college professors would tell you that you're doing another 45 hours of reading outside of class.

So really, your 10-15 hours/wk estimate sounds about right. A 4 hour class would generate about 12 hours of outside effort if you listen to the standard college professor.

I didn't know many people that actually did that - but the ones that did would absolutely kick the hell out of every course they were in.

[loochy]

Actually, I rarely read, even in grad school. I hated reading so I just didn't do it. I didn't mind doing assignments, but reading just put me to sleep right away (and it still does).

Undergrad was computer science, so there wasn't a lot of real "reading" for that (there was plenty of other work though). The normal core type classes were all easy so I'd just take good notes in class and not bother with reading outside. I took all of my English/Lit classes in high school so all of that was out of the way.

Even when I got my MBA there wasn't a ton of reading. I had a lot of work to do that was associated with various projects that required reading, but it wasn't just reading for reading's sake. I was scanning or looking for something, so it was tolerable to me. Here and there we'd have to read a 10 to 20 page case study or something, but it wasn't a big deal.

So, in conclusion, I almost never read textbooks in 7 years of college.

[loochy]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Most college professors that teach less scientific/mathematics based courses will tell you that you should be reading 3 yours for every hour you spend in class. So if you have a 3 hour course, you're talking about 9 hours for that class. In a standard 15 hour semester, your college professors would tell you that you're doing another 45 hours of reading outside of class.

So really, your 10-15 hours/wk estimate sounds about right. A 4 hour class would generate about 12 hours of outside effort if you listen to the standard college professor.

I didn't know many people that actually did that - but the ones that did would absolutely kick the hell out of every course they were in.

Yeah, they told me that too...and I didn't do it and I still got decent grades. I probably would have been a badass if I actually would have read.

[NewChief]

When I was in Grad. School, taking 6 hours at a time, I would read probably 30-40 hours a week. Literally. I was an English Major, though, and I was reading, on average, 2 novels a week, a Shakespearean play, and assorted pieces of scholarly criticism.

Luckily, I was also teaching Freshman Composition, so that was my only job.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by NewChief

When I was in Grad. School, taking 6 hours at a time, I would read probably 30-40 hours a week. Literally. I was an English Major, though, and I was reading, on average, 2 novels a week, a Shakespearean play, and assorted pieces of scholarly criticism.

Luckily, I was also teaching Freshman Composition, so that was my only job.

Grad school's a different creature.

I did do 40+ hours/wk worth of outside studying in law school. That was mostly out of fear, though. With that devil Socratic method, nobody wanted to be the poor soul that hadn't read the case assignments one morning and got called on. You mostly spent 50 minutes being embarrassed in front of 100 Type A personalities.

No thanks, I'll go ahead and skim some cases...

[blaise]

I don't know exactly, but I was in the library for several hours each day. My campus was like a 15 minute drive from my house so between classes I'd sit in the library and read. At least 2 hours a day, I guess.

[TLO]

In my 5 years in college I probably read a total of 20 hours. Now that I am getting ready to work on my masters it might be a whole nother story.

[MahiMike]

I found that the best workers in life are the multi-taskers. You know, the ones that can do all their activities and still get B's. The A students will eventually work for the B and C students.