Q re: Graduate coursework

[Tokyomarie]

What is considered to be the typical amount of time a graduate student should spend on coursework? Total number of hours per credit? If you give number of hours/week/credit, please state how many weeks the course lasts if it is not a full quarter or semester.

 

I'm currently taking online graduate courses. Just trying to figure out how my workload compares to the typical student's.

It varies way too much.  Are you talking about a terminal masters?  A professional program?  A research degree?  On one end of the spectrum, I've heard from education students, who have trivial amounts of coursework e.g.:  read 100 picture books in the course of a semester.  My friend who earned her Spanish Language MA had to read some like 100 spanish-language novels. Executive MBA programs may have work ranging from about the same as undergraduate to several times more, but are designed to co-exist with a 40 hour workweek.  I've seen MFA students never leave their studio for weeks on end.  And if you doing real research, or fieldwork, it can be all-consuming for an unending amount of time.

[ebunny]

For the few universities that offer credit based graduate degree programs in India, it's calculated as:

 

1 credit = 36 hours of learning which is 12 hours of classroom learning + 24 hours of self directed work including assignments, reports, papers etc.

 

About a 40 hour "work week" for each student for a 16 week credit course with 4 hours per week of classroom learning. This credit calculation probably differs in Europe/other parts of Asia/U.S/etc

[G5052]

And it really depends on the subject and the particular class.  

 

I never found the "rule of thumb" estimates very useful in my undergraduate years anyway because I had labs that I had to repeat over and over, and large programming projects that had to be debugged.

 

In graduate school, the "book learning" classes weren't too bad.  I had a seminar class where we read 3-5 journal articles a week and summarized them in a 1-page papers.  Because I'm a fast reader and writer, that took no more than 4-6 hours.  We also had a "scholarly" research paper of 8 pages due.  Not bad.

 

In contrast, I had a class where the grade was 100% based on a huge project.  I easily spent 40 hours a week all semester.  This was on top of working.  Only 1/4 of the class stayed in until the end, and he gave A's to everyone who had stuck it out to the very end and had finished nearly all of it.  

 

Ironically both classes were taught by the same professor, and the tough one was a prerequisite for the easier one!

[amy58103]

I'm working on a masters in civil engineering, part-time, one course per quarter. The classes meet for three hours a week for 10 weeks. I usually spend 7-9 additional hours each week on homework, projects, and studying.

[Tokyomarie]

I tried looking around online to get an estimate of expected amount of study. I couldn't find anything specific to graduate students but found in a number of official places (university websites), the oft-repeated expectation of 2 hours of study time/hr in class. One website said 2-3 hrs/hr in class each week. I attend an online master's/postmaster's certificate program through the UC system, which is on quarters. Each course is a half-term (6 weeks), so double the amount of time required. I estimate that a total amount of study I should put into a 3 unit course would be 108-144 hrs. Take 120 hours as a midpoint, divide by 6 weeks and I get 20hrs/week of study for one 3 unit course.

 

Two of my 3 unit courses were right around 20 hrs/week. The last 3 courses required 27-30 hours/week. On my current course, week 1 was on the lighter side (but the start date overlapped the last week of my previous course so I was also finishing my big project for that course). Weeks 2 & 3 were around 17-18 hrs. On Week 4, the number of assignments triples and the last two weeks don't look much lighter. I just about passed out over the weekend when I looked at this week's lesson and saw how much is assigned- I actually estimated it would require 55-60 hrs of work- on Thanksgiving Week, no less! On Monday, I contacted my instructor and indicated that it just wasn't going to be possible to do anywhere near that much work on this particular week. She's working with me, but it really got me to thinking about how the workload I've experienced compares to other programs. This is an interdisciplinary study, basically in the education & psychology fields.

 

My weekly assignments are 2-3 paragraph forum discussion responses, with responses to at least 2 other student's comments and 1.5-3 page papers that are reflections on the required reading. Each course has at least one final project which is much more involved. This week's assignments include 3 forum responses, 3 reflection papers, plus turning in the raft of business forms we are to create for use in a private practice. No way to get this all done in one week- a holiday week, no less!

 

 

 I attend an online master's/postmaster's certificate program through the UC system, which is on quarters. Each course is a half-term (6 weeks), so double the amount of time required.

 

I can't wrap my mind around half-quarter terms, but maybe a better way to slice the pie is to think about full time vs. part time.  Are you a full time student, expecting to finish your degree "on schedule"?  If so, it would not be unreasonable to assume at least 40-60 hours a week for all activities.  Are you half time?  Maybe half that much is reasonable.

[Tokyomarie]

I can't wrap my mind around half-quarter terms, but maybe a better way to slice the pie is to think about full time vs. part time.  Are you a full time student, expecting to finish your degree "on schedule"?  If so, it would not be unreasonable to assume at least 40-60 hours a week for all activities.  Are you half time?  Maybe half that much is reasonable.

 

Another way to look at it is that I have two 3 credit courses per quarter; they run back-to-back in 6 week sessions instead of concurrently. This is a graduate level certificate. It requires 28 credits but won't confer a full master's degree because there is no thesis/capstone or comprehensive exam involved. This program is usually done by working professionals so the work load needs to be manageable for those working full-time.  

 

Another way to look at it is that I have two 3 credit courses per quarter; they run back-to-back in 6 week sessions instead of concurrently. This is a graduate level certificate. It requires 28 credits but won't confer a full master's degree because there is no thesis/capstone or comprehensive exam involved. This program is usually done by working professionals so the work load needs to be manageable for those working full-time.  

 

 

So...

 

6 credits per quarter, and 3 (4 ?) quarters per year would yield enough credits to graduate in two years.  To me, that sounds like a full time load for an MA/MS, and I wouldn't be at all surprised for a full time graduate student in any number of fields to have 40-60 hours a week of work.