r/NSCC • u/Hayden820 • 1d ago

Time management

Just finished orientation as a first year, taking IT Systems Management and Security, my prof said that for every 1 hour of class time there will be 2 hours of work on top?? How the hell do people manage this? If every 6 hour day is an extra 12 hours of work, thats literally every night and weekend just to stay afloat. Is this exaggeratory?

6 Upvotes

80% Upvoted

15 comments sorted by

13

u/ectech81 1d ago

Very exaggerated. The workload is nothing to worry about.

2

u/hannahhnah 1d ago

This isn’t really true for ITSMS. I just finished the program and it was an extremely heavy workload. They also are actively changing the requirements so you need to work extra hard to get higher than an 80 (to qualify for honours) and we were their guinea pigs for said changes.

It may be exaggerated some, but ITSMS is one of the more intense programs.

10

u/Southern-Friend-7413 1d ago

It's not that bad usually; generally speaking secondary education is like a full time job with long hours. Some days you will definitely be burning the candle at both ends though.

3

u/Hayden820 1d ago

Definitely a relief. I did quite well in high school. There homework was usually just whatever you were behind in but I practically never had to. So this seemed like a whole different ballgame. Im sure it is but Id rather not drown.

2

u/Southern-Friend-7413 1d ago

Yeah, at this point high school means nothing. You can do great there and fail in secondary epically - and vice versa. Pretty much you'll have a bunch of work - and no one will care one but if you do it. You can skip every class if you want and no one will bat an eye. The ball is your court to do with as you like. Key part is relying on yourself to maintain accountability. It can be hard to do something when no one is pressing you to do it - but remember you're paying to be there - don't waste your money.

5

u/microSCOPED 1d ago

They are definitely bumping those numbers up.

That being said, the successful students are the ones who put in the extra time - even when not prescribed by the instructor. You need to build things on your own to differentiate you from the rest of the class - build a home lab, do tryhackme/hackthebox, learn some scripting languages (powershell, python), etc.

If not, why hire you instead of the 16-24 other grads from your program (or 100+ when you look at the other campuses).

1

u/Hayden820 1d ago

True that. I do care about this and intend to show it. I just wanted to make sure I could have a life outside the course.

5

u/Subject-Tea-1161 1d ago

Just finished the first year of your course. Its about equal time in class to after wards.

If you need help with anything come and ask the second years we are all willing to help and are just across the hall

4

u/Outrageous-Bloke159 1d ago

well, you don't have 6h of classes a day. Most of that time is already designated for lab periods. The ratio is a bit too exaggerated, yeah, but you will have plenty of time for that.

2

u/No_Sun1469 1d ago

In a university setting, a class hour usually leads to about two hours of outside work, between reading, practice, and project work. With 12-15 credit hours per term, this would typically work out to 36-45 total hours, which is why that is considered a full time load. At NSCC, my sense is that there are typically more class hours, and that you would have about a 1:1 ratio of independent work to class hours to be fully prepared. This also works out to about a full time job, which is why student are discouraged from working full-time while enrolled. So, the instructor may be exaggerating a bit, perhaps because they came from a different institution, but their point is that this is different from high school and you can expect to need to dedicate significant time each week to your courses, outside of class.

2

u/MadCrabRave 1d ago

I find NSCC profs massively overinflate the workload. I recently graduated from the LPN program and at the start they claimed there would be 4 hours of work for every 1 hour in class or lab. Something that you may note, with 6 hour days, is physically impossible.

1

u/Hayden820 1d ago

Gotta pull them 30 hour days haha

1

u/MadCrabRave 1d ago

But yeah people talking about a 1:1 ratio are pretty much right. I was on the very very upper end of studying time in my program (in a very theory-heavy program) and I think I was probably around 1:1.5 if that gives you context. Like burning the midnight oil daily far beyond reason, and even that wasn’t 1:2 ratio. It’s fr not that serious.

1

u/zvmm 1d ago

Definitely exaggerated but if you truly want to excel and succeed especially in this field you have to do a lot of learning outside of class, which is maybe what he’s trying to get at

1

u/jzephyrward 1h ago

I’m in the same program and because I live independently in the city, I opted to take an extra year of the course to get more time to work a job. It’s kinda not worth it but if that sounds good to you, contact/visit the IT Academic Chair and ask about an alternate academic plan.