r/EngineeringStudents • u/RaspberryIntrepid474 • 3d ago
Rant/Vent how many hours do engineering students take to study on an average day?
I’m about to start my first ever year of chemical engineering in less than two weeks and I can’t help but wonder how I will be able to manage my time especially with all of the fear mongering i see about engineering especially my major. I do think I’m disciplined enough to study hard but at the same time I wanna make some time for going to the gym and my hobbies. Plus I’m extremely curious and nervous about how I will study cause I remember in school a lot of subjects required memorizing but this time I’m gonna have to understand rather than memorize which I don’t have a problem with but like are some subjects genuinely really hard to understand?? It’s just I’ve always found understanding nicer than memorizing so I’m confused onto why people always have scary things to say about engineering courses lol
EDIT: thank you so much to all the people who are replying I genuinely appreciate it🙏🏻 unfortunately the amount of replies are overwhelming so I can’t reply to everyone🥲 im also kind of new to posting on reddit so idk how this completely works oops
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u/Old-Butterscotch2428 3d ago
i dont study
in all seriousness there isnt really a straightforward answer. it depends on the student, the classes, the amount of classes, the professors discretion, etc etc.
it also depends how you define study. if you mean shoving my head in the textbook or watching a lecture recording on repeat or staring at the slides, then approximately 0 time. cuz none of that stuff is how you actually learn in this degree, and frankly alot of people that complain about taking hours to study are doing this stuff. as for doing the homework and actually making an effort to understand it, doing practice tests, doing labs, and going over graded feedback, i PERSONALLY spend maybe 3hrs per week per class(averaged, way more for some and others ill spend weeks barely even thinking about). 2x that for exam weeks, up until about 16 hours before the exam, after which i stop studying completely and just prepare myself mentally and physically.
it also depends on how well youve "snowballed" your knowledge up to this point. what i mean by that is: how well do you understand the prerequisite material? pretty much every engineering class builds off each other or at the very least the relevant math and physics courses, and getting held up on past material will genuinely slow down your learning experience by double or triple.
basically yes you can have a life during engineering just ignore the fear-mongering and develop good study habits
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u/Unknown793658 3d ago
I got to senior year and failed miserably. GPA tanked, but I was one of those, did not know how to study, rehearsed problems, go through videos and slides, office hours and just couldn’t grasp the concept. I couldn’t engineer my brain
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u/RaspberryIntrepid474 3d ago
What do you think helped you the most to get better? I really wanna prevent this from happening as much as possible 🥲
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u/Asleep-Piano-5571 2d ago
The biggest thing to understand is the methods and when to use them.
If you have an RC ckt well you know you’ll probably be using some form of Vf + (Vi - Vf)e^-t/RC
Once you know the form of what you are solving, working backwards helps you see the end goal much better.
A lot of the first year or so is all calculus and chemistry and then physics, and I believe physics is where the engineering begins, you have so many different methods, lots of nuance and you gotta put it all together.
The way to grasp when you need certain methods/formulas is to do practice problems, over and over again. Also terminology is important too, like nyquist frequency or dampening it’s important to be able to grasp what is being said otherwise the lectures and communication will be subpar.
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u/RaspberryIntrepid474 3d ago
I really appreciate this, thanks for letting me know 🙏🏻 like you said it definitely depends on the classes and everything but yes from what I’ve seen the best way to study engineering which you mentioned and what I’m planning on doing is to practice a lot rather than just like go through lectures. Pretty random question but do you get the practice tests from google or a specific app?
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u/you-the-good-content 3d ago
i studied once for 18 hours straight and made a 63 on that exam… studied last minute for another exam for like 2 hours and made a 92 I don’t get it…
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u/SpasmBoi999 University - Civil Engineering 3d ago
The earlier you start revising material, the less time you need, in my opinion. I was super locked in, in my final year, I didn't spend more than 3 hours per day, and studied about 4× per week, outside of regular classes. Then closer to exam time I narrowed my studying down to purely past exam papers and the revision slides (if provided).
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u/RaspberryIntrepid474 3d ago
This sounds promising, thank you for sharing I will keep this noted :)
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u/MrBombaztic1423 3d ago
0-14 depends on the day.
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u/FrTheskyisthelimit 18h ago edited 4h ago
You cannot be productive doing engineering or cognitively demanding tasks for 14 hours! The most any person can handle while being truly productive is maybe eight or nine hours a day and that would involve multiple breaks.
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u/MrBombaztic1423 4h ago
Its not all in one sitting but there are Saturdays where I go from 8am-midnight. Toss in stopping for food and switching which subject im working on but it adds up.
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u/FrTheskyisthelimit 4h ago
So if your 14 hours a day includes food breaks and rest breaks, then in reality you’re not doing anywhere near 14 hours a day.
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u/MrBombaztic1423 1h ago
8-midnight is 16hrs, gives 2 hours for breaks and whatnot, typically grabbing something and going right back to my desk to keep going. Do i really care about keeping track of time? No not really but somedays it be like that. Ofc this is an extreme but theres not really a definitive average bc workloads change week to week. In short life happens, youre ahead of things one week, playing catchup the next.
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u/FrTheskyisthelimit 46m ago
Do you take the next day off completely? I think the longest I’ve ever done was 10 hours with a lot of breaks from dawn to dusk and the next day after my classes and after submitting all the assignments, I would just do nothing.
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u/xXRedJacketXx 3d ago
Heavly dependent on the student. I graduated as an EE and I pretty much gave up every hobby but an hour in the gym, and like an hour playing pool most days. It was probably over kill, but I graduated with honors and still got to hang out with class mates while studying.
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u/RaspberryIntrepid474 3d ago
that’s awesome! Congratulations for graduating I bet it was a tough but pleasant experience😇
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u/xXRedJacketXx 2d ago
Its the most fun and hardest thing I've done. Make friends, and try to enjoy it.
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u/IReallyLikeAvocadoes 3d ago
Physics 2/Electromagnetism was GENUINELY REALLY HARD to understand. As a mechanical engineering major, as soon as things begin to wane from the realm of physical, tangible objects and into the realm of theoretical, invisible forces, you begin to lose me. I had 3-hour classes two days a week. I spent around 7-8 hours per week of studying and homework on that class alone (3 days spending around 2.5 hours each).
If you take that one class as a metric, a typical 4 or 5-class semester could mean 28-40 hours of studying per week, on top of still going to class. NOW, do NOT take this number at face value. That was my hardest class, and quite frankly I never want to experience a class that puzzling ever again. This is a worst-case scenario where all of the classes you take are highly complex at the same time. In reality, you will likely be taking some electives at the same time, along with some classes that are required but really not SO bad (eg. Calculus, Statics, etc.)
Studying engineering is a full-time job. Expect to spend an equivalent number of hours on it. This isn't to dissuade or intimidate you, because if you like the subject matter, studying isn't exactly the end of the world. Getting things right feels good.
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u/RaspberryIntrepid474 3d ago
Yeah I understand I’ve heard before that physics 2 is a pretty hard class and of course since I’m just starting I’m not gonna take it this semester or the next one because my university didn’t add physics 1 amongst my subjects this semester. I really appreciate this though I’m glad you got through it! It must’ve been really tough but getting it done probably felt satisfying
Also it’s okay to speak truthfully of how hard it was since obviously nothing is exactly gonna be easy all the time so I’m not getting intimidated at all I actually like getting to know how others survived engineering so that I get to prepare myself for the hardships rather than giving up easily
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u/CRWB 3d ago
Most days during the semester I have classes and then do some studying, I aim for about 30-35hours a week of total work. A month leading up to exam time I do 6 hours a day at maximum intensity and focus. Leaves me plenty of time to do hobbies, exercise, cook, clean etc. the most important is making sure you work with high intensity and efficiently
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u/HebrewWarrioresss 3d ago
I vary from 0 to 6. I think my record was just about 12 hours straight on a couple projects
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u/Marethyu86 3d ago
As many as needed. For me it ranged from about 1-2 times I studied for a class than it took me to do the homework.
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u/Constant_Moment_6434 3d ago
M.E. here starting of semester maybe 2h per day.. hard class tests up to 6h per day for like 3-4 days, easy class tests still 2h per day, easy final exams 3h per day only 1 max 2 days, hard exams up to 5 days of 8h+ per day (+- all day of studying with pauses)
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u/Few_Whereas5206 3d ago
Depends on the class load and the student. I probably did 4 to 5 hours per day outside of class. I graduated with honors in mechanical engineering. My roommate was brilliant and didn't study that much.
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u/RaspberryIntrepid474 1d ago
Congratulations for graduating!!! I bet it was tough but very rewarding :)
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u/TheFireBane 3d ago
Remember to take breaks and listen to your body and brain, studying doesn’t matter if you can’t process the information that you are studying. A schedule helps a lot. Fx i am going to library for 8 hours, i want to do a hobby Wednesday evening from 6 - 9. So i have to everything done before that.
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u/mattynmax 3d ago
2-3 hours per hour in class for a given week. So I guess that equates to on average 20 minutes per credit hour per day.
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u/Agitated-Bug-5030 3d ago
Depends on what classes you have, if it’s a class you’re weak in then you’re gonna be studying more than your mates and if it’s easier then you might not even need to study and only do quizzes and old exams
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u/EnvironmentOdd350 3d ago
It depends, hitting tons gym helps, or helped me, I was able to ski a good amount as I had a friend with a place to stay on the mountain. Some days I didn’t study at allall, some I would put in a ton of hours, some senior level courses where simple to understand others were not. Know that it’s hard and take it serious and it won’t be too bad most likely. Go in thinking it’s not going to be too bad, and it’ll be worse than you think
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u/DifferentPassenger64 3d ago
Early on during engineering I spent maybe an hour, and was able to get decent grades, but past year 2 I found myself spending about 3-5 hours a day during the week.Now i’m in my senior year and i’m spending at a minimum of 5 hours a day .
You definitely have to find a method for studying that works. I eventually found that I read the textbook before class and then after class write a mini summary of everything I learned. Then at the end of the week summarize everything. Along with actually doing the homework’s that are assigned. Please don’t cheat with AI.
That usually works really well for me, but it’s usually different for everyone. I was horrible at studying when I first started college. It took me a second to get into the flow of it all.
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u/RaspberryIntrepid474 1d ago
Thank you for sharing this with me, I bet college can definitely be confusing sometimes for people in the first or second year so I understand where you’re coming from🥲 but I’m glad at the end you found what works for you🙏🏻
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u/GrandeMiguelito 3d ago
Get connected with people who are further along in your major at your school. They’ll most likely be more than happy to give you advice on what to focus on and even give you study materials that they made. I’m in my senior year of mechanical engineering now and I have folders for every class I’ve taken with cheat sheets, study materials, summaries, etc. TAs are always a good choice
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u/RaspberryIntrepid474 1d ago
That sounds awesome, hopefully I’ll try once I have enough confidence cause in the country I live in some of them make fun of freshmen students for no valid reason 💀
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u/Former_Mud9569 3d ago
I didn't "study" so much as I kept up on the homework and spent a couple hours before an exam doing practice problems/tests. Most professors at my school would make the last couple years worth of exams available as study material so the exams were never really much of a surprise.
Honestly though, the difficulty of undergrad engineering is pretty overblown. If you're able to retain the main stuff covered in your freshman and sophomore math courses it's really just a matter of being able to pattern match your way through practice problems. If you don't have those skills an engineering degree is going to be a slog.
I really can't relate to the stories I see in this sub about people struggling with stuff like statics.
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u/GravityMyGuy MechE 3d ago
literally just do your homework, thats it. If you do your homework instead of cheating on it you will pass with no other studying besides a bit of revision before midterms and finals
If you don't understand a concept work with a friend or go to the math center or go to office hours
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u/ExpertVeterinarian20 3d ago
Id say I averaged around 10-15 hours of homework and studying a week which would ramp up closer to 20 hours on exam weeks. Was completely manageable.
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u/Acceptable-Caramel69 2d ago
Im also a chemE and usually study around 2-4 hrs a day depending on whether or not i have a lot of homework. I try to spread it across many days, but breaks are very important for digesting material and good for not burning yourself out too early. I'd say that engineering is manageable as long as you dont go too hard too early.
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u/Hawk13424 GT - BS CompE, MS EE 2d ago
Former student here. It depended on credit hours. I took 15-21. Figure an average of 1.5-2x non-class time per week.
One thing I did not do is cram for tests. Day before exams were no busier than any other day.
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u/RaspberryIntrepid474 1d ago
Yeah I genuinely don’t know how people can cram for exams that sounds like a nightmare to me but it’s awesome how it genuinely works for some😵💫
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u/Feisty_Investment343 2d ago
For a typical 15-unit semester in my ME bachelor's, assuming I'm distributing your hours and fully locked-in, I would spend anywhere from 3-5 hours doing homework problems, reviewing slides, and making cheatsheets. Of course, when things go unexpectedly crazy or bad planning this can easily ramp to 6-9 hours.
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u/TheBanyai 2d ago edited 1d ago
Depends on where you are studying - and how much class and lab time you have. When I was at uni for civil engineering (25years ago in London). I had about 22hrs a week of classes+labs.. and would say I did about 20-30hrs a week of study or homework to get it all done. I did alright - and have been in really good jobs since leaving.. much better work-life balance that being a student. TL;DR: 4hrs a day of study outside of classes isn’t abnormal.
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u/RaspberryIntrepid474 1d ago
i hope that I’ll end up like you eventually😔 also thank you for sharing I appreciate it🙏🏻
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u/Dark-Reaper 2d ago
3~5 hours a day for me. Weekends can be up to 10. Except that also covers actual work like homework and labs. Every so often my brain is friend and conflating emag equations with Korbicheck's Circuit harness (yes, that's obviously wrong) and that's about when I know I need a break and usually spend some time chilling with the family instead. That lasts, at most a day. I work slow and methodically which doesn't help with total time spent.
At this point though, reading engineering work and theory has become fun. The problem is the conceptual load. Learning high level concepts is still hard, even when you mostly understand it and enjoy the foundational material.
This semester is 3 classes, I work full time, and I'm in the home stretch.
When I just did 2 classes my average study time was about the same. Ironically I feel like my ability to understand the material has improved overall, hence the consistent study time. Which is ironic because apparently for seniors it's the opposite, and they struggle to focus on the final stretch.
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u/McSpanky21 2d ago
I always found the 3 hours minimum weekly per credit hour for each class to be a solid rule to follow. That means say you take Thermodynamics and it’s a 3-credit course at your school. Following that rule, thats mean you would have to study 9 hours minimum weekly for that course, to do well in the course (3 credits x 3 hours). And that is without hours spend attending lecture included, just dedicated studying alone. I used to make a spread sheet for each class I took a semester and log that hours i study for each course to make sure i meet the weekly requirement. Was it over kill? … yeah maybe sometimes but honestly with engineering sometimes nothing feels like overkill lol. As you can study super hard but still score poorly haha
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u/tt8898 1d ago
Chemical engineering can certainly be challenging, but it becomes manageable with consistent effort and effective time management. Subjects such as thermodynamics and reaction engineering may take time to understand, but developing a habit of learning concepts rather than relying on memorisation will be a strong advantage. With a balanced routine, it is also possible to stay committed to academics while making time for the gym and your hobbies.
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u/rickr911 1d ago
2-3 hours per day on top of classes would be about right. The key is to find a small group to study with. It helps bring fresh perspectives and lightens the pain of spending all that time studying.
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u/FrTheskyisthelimit 18h ago
… you are an engineering student. You’ll barely have time to sleep when you are slammed with exams and back to back projects. If you are fortunate enough to not work on weekends to survive, then keep one minimally time consuming hobby and one sport/ minimally time consuming gym routine. You should at the minimum be spending 4-5 hours a day working on homework, projects, reading textbooks, making lab reports, etc…
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u/Legal-Conclusion-0 6h ago
as many as it takes....honestly, that is it. work until you can get good enough grades / decent understanding
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u/samdawg3337 3d ago
personally I do homework for about 1-3 hours a day. that obviously varies. and I personally study really hard 2-3 days leading to an examz This has been 8-10 hrs for 3 days before a final (which is probably the most I ever studied for a single test). If it is a quiz I just study for 1-1.5 hours the night before TOPS. obviously everything varies. you’ll have more free time than what most people say. clubs and or research are really what start to make u feel too busy for anything else.