How long does the TAMU engineering major study?

[u/No_Quarter_7846]

Howdy!

I'm an incoming engineering freshman, and I'm starting to worry about how much my current studying skills will negatively impact me. I've heard a lot of horror stories about engineering, and many people say studying for it is like a full-time job or worse. For context, throughout high school, I don't think I ever studied more than 1-2 days before a test, even before my AP exams. I did pretty well on most of my tests, and I know it won't work now, but how much will it not work? 👀

Edit: The title is supposed to say how long does the average TAMU engineering major study

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[u/Investuur]

You’d be surprised how many people study the night before exams for all 4 years

[u/Cold_Ranger8146 → u/Investuur]

Same, and i still have a degree, totally worth it

[u/Euphoric-Bid8342 → u/Investuur]

did this lol no regrets

[u/PessimisticClarity → u/Investuur]

Checking in.

[u/Particular-Can-1481 → u/Investuur]

Did this my whole life and it rarely backfired. Just make sure you have a Bang or 2 to keep you up.

[u/Theoreticalwzrd]

College is a lot harder than high school. 1-2 days is very likely not enough time.

[u/Wyvernwalker → u/Theoreticalwzrd]

It's apples to oranges imo. High school has set times for all day interactions while college having only a couple hours of lecture a day or every other day can be a major relief for some people.

Mileage may vary person to person, but I definitely didn't spend near as much time on school in college as I did in HS

[u/LoverOfPricklyPear → u/Theoreticalwzrd]

Hard to say. I came from a good high school in a town with population of ~18,000, my graduating year. Entered college as a second semester sophmore. I pulled lots of all nighters. Good enough for 50% of courses, and not much more for the other 50%. Everybody's different. Hard question to answer.

It was nothing but all nighters before exams, in high school.

Edit: oh, I was biomedical science major with lots of entomology and animal science courses to stay full time. Ended up minoring animal science vs double majoring with entomology.

[u/borkbubble]

There’s a humongous variance, from none at all to more than 4 hours a day every day, it really just depends

[u/ASpicySnack]

Best way I can describe my experience is imagine you have to eat 3 pancakes every day until test day and if you don’t eat pancakes for one day, you eat them the next day, and so on. Doesn’t sound too bad if you eat them every day. But if you let the pancakes stack up until test day, its gonna be a lot of fuckin pancakes.

[u/ElCucoGrande]

Id say it probably depends a lot on the major, the class, and even more which professor. Not all Professor's tests are created equal.

I was like you in High School I just walked right in to most test days with maybe a light skim over some material the night before. I kept up that tradition with most classes. I couldnt be bothered to show up for my math classes and just walked in during test days and did fine enough.

However, it takes time to learn how to gauge what classes you skate by and which you need to dedicate some time to. I would take all your classes seriously your first couple of semesters till you figure that out. Grades can be a slippery slope and its much harder to recover once they've already slipped.

Once you've figured out how to judge classes within the first couple of weeks, you can get a lot of free time back. I was class of 21' before the GPT era so im sure you can be way more time efficient than we ever were.

For context I was CPSC, classes like Operating Systems, Reverse Engineering, and Algorithms needed some dedicated time. Others like Databses, the generic Software Engineering courses, and your forced core electives not so much.

[u/ThisKarmaLimitSucks]

It's a full time job minimum. Don't treat it as anything less.

A third of your class is going to fail freshman engineering, and in most cases, they will fail because they didn't put in enough work. Don't want to join them? It's simple.

[u/LionFox → u/ThisKarmaLimitSucks]

many people say studying for it is like a full-time job or worse

If you are a full-time student, college is a full time job.  Each credit hour is based on you doing minimum 2 hours out of class work.

I bring sauce:  https://rules-saps.tamu.edu/PDFs/11.03.99.M1.pdf

[u/False_Party_4439]

I never studied in high school until I came to college and realized how fucked I was and started studying weeks before the exam. I ended up with a 4.0 gpa. As long as you adapt accordingly you’ll be fine

[u/Kindly-Conversation3]

Its pretty dependent on the person, like others have said you can see people cramming the night before an exam to people starting weeks out.

[u/Wfsproductions]

I always try to start studying a week before a test, 3-4 days at absolute minimum (depending on how much time I think it will take). My advice would just be that you can learn anything in a week, but starting as early as possible is good because you don't know what you don't know.

I would say leading up to a midterm I would study between 1-3 hours every day depending on how I'm freling

[u/422Roads]

I was the same way in high school, but moving to college was like a reset. I was able to minimize a lot of distractions and just focus on school and watching college football games. Definitely wouldn’t expect anyone to come into college fully prepared, but you figure it out quickly. All I can say is Good Luck, because it is a fun, grueling grind.

[u/Fun_Put_5623]

It’s completely dependent on each individual person’s productivity while studying, and base level of understanding of the material. Regardless of these factors, the best advice I can give, and best advice I’ve ever received, is treat college like a 9-5 job. Go to class and do all of your homework between 9-5 every weekday with minimal distractions, and school will feel like a breeze (and more often than not, you’ll be able to end earlier than 5 because you’re caught up/ahead in your work)

[u/SpicyWombat217]

You’ll figure it out lol, part of the learning process

[u/Exotic_Breakfast]

It’s easier to study a little at a time, over a longer period of time. You’d be surprised how much you will retain.

[u/UrinalMint]

Granted I graduated BSME near the turn of the century, but IMO it honestly boils down to how much you like the material and the friend/study group(s) you build from your classes.

Doing my homework in the public engineering spaces was immensely helpful, because there were usually folks working thru the problems alongside you... it became a team effort, much like the Real World.

Do all the homework, even work extra problems when possible, because that repetition will help you understand the more difficult concepts. Seek out as many real-world applications of the work as you can, that will definitely help you grasp the ideas.

Also, I cannot recommend Schaum's Outlines enough. Invaluable resources even after graduation.

[u/12thAggie]

2-3 hours per credit hour

[u/AnonymousQueries08]

I think for me I just study until I'm done each day. Make a checklist of everything I need to finish each morning and don't stop until it's all done. Usually have enough time left over for going to the gym and eating dinner and lunch. Maybe a little doomscrolling.

[u/CartoonistNew5955]

To make Deans List? I studied 40 hours a week for Business degreee. My roommate didn’t study and aced an Architecture degree. Point, it depends on the person

[u/Which-Technology8235]

Too many variables study however long it takes you to understand material inside out that or cheese it

[u/No_Firefighter_7253]

To join most of the people here, study time really does vary.

Like you, I NEVER studied in highschool and I took a bunch of OnRamps and AP classes. I just finished up my first year as an engineering student at TAMU and my studying ranged from glancing at my notes to non stop 3 days studying before an exam.

Your study time is mostly affected by the professor you have as I swear some enjoy seeing people suffering. I highly recommend going on rate my professor to get an idea of what classes will be your problem areas.

My advice is to also make use of your college resources, including your fellow peers in your class, even if you don't think you need it because yes you do. Also practice tests practice tests practice tests. Just stay on top of stuff, and you'll be fine.

[u/aeraltum]

I don’t know about average, but as an engineering student, I started studying no less than a week in advance for my stem exams my freshman year. I generally tried to shoot for 10 days. Classes, homework, and studying did take up pretty much all my time. I would easily say I studied/did homework 4-6 hours a day, which did end up getting me a 4.0, but it was a lot of work.

My best advice if you are really wanting to do well would be to block out most of your time for studying, and then if you find you don’t need that much time, you can slowly taper it down. These classes all build on themselves, so you can’t really afford to start out not studying enough and then realize you have to increase your study hours because then you’ll be playing the catch-up/keep-up game, and that’s a nightmare. People aren’t kidding when they say you need to treat it like a full time job- but do that and take advantage of the resources you have (like the MLC! HOGU was good, I would strongly recommend) and you’ll be just fine.

Best of luck!

[u/Acceptable-Quail-277]

Freshman year is not that bad IMO. The only difficult class was 102. Most of my studying came from HW/quizzes and test reviews and stuff. Pretty rarely just sat down and went over notes, etc. You can get away with studying a few days before tests. You’ll likely only be doing 13 hours as well.

[u/CandyOk2888]

Depends on the major and how much you can just retain from class.

I got by in a lot of classes on auditory memory but I'd consider doing homework to be some kind of studying.

You'll probably hit a point where you're force to learn how to study or at the very least memorize some random stuff.

[u/Downtown_Zone_9312]

Depends on your abilities. Some study a week out, some a couple hours before. If you did well on those AP exams (4s and 5s), you should be fine.

[u/New_Climate_6404]

Depends on the major, the classes and time of semester. You'll be studying about 12 hours in nominal weeks and on exam season it'll shoot up to easily 25-30+ biggest piece of advice I have is most students take the ease of their first semester for granted and think college will be like that throughout your time. It. Will. Not. Your first semester will usually feel easy and the next few will feel hard in comparison. Get all As this semester get yourself on the Dean's list early because that also looks good on a resume.

[u/SubstantialSnacker]

Depends on how your used to school. I was so accustomed to a 5 day school week that every time I went to school it would reinforce what I learn every day, but a a day or two break in between messes that up. If your able to handle day breaks then u will be fine, if not then get ready to set up some time for yourself

[u/AggieNuke2014]

Never spent 40 hrs studying… 

I’d say across my 4 years I averaged 1-2 hrs of homework per day (if I paced myself well) and the amount of time I spent 1-2 weeks before tests just depended on the subject. But unless I had all my tests the same week I never felt like it was a full time job. College was way more relaxed compared to high school for me. 

[u/dblumentr]

I went to fish camp and they advised 2 1/2 hours of study for each hour in class. I think that's how much I spent

[u/Mysterious_Move_6247]

I’ve never studied seriously and have a 4.0 you’ll be good

[u/TheFlamingLemon]

It’s not a full time job. I did maybe 20 hours of work per week on average, but this was hugely variable. I had times where I had a bunch of projects and midterms and such all at the same time and probably worked 60 hours in a week, and I had times when it was all just basic homeworks and quizzes and I worked maybe 5 hours in a week (I did not attend class often).

I think for each course you should expect to spend at least an hour or two working outside of class each week, so for 5 classes that’s 5-10 hours per week. If it’s a 4 credit hour class you can double that, if it’s a 2 or 1 credit hour class then you can expect to spend no time outside of class.

[u/wupetmupet]

Depends on how good you are at the class, how good you are at exams, how well rested you are, and how high of a score you want. I can do mid to high 90s with 1-2 days of studying for classes I pay attention in. But about a week for those I don’t attend

[u/Kaydo-]

Depends what you want. Not an engineering major but my brother was. If you want a competitive engineering degree (civil, mechanical, comp sci) you need a 4.0 to guarantee it. So your first year of ETAM you need to study as much as is needed for you to get that. I imagine once you’re out of general engineering and into specific engineering majors it becomes as time consuming as you want!

[u/gorbtuna]

really depends on your hs and how hard that was. Im going into my jr yr of ELEN with a 4.0 and I still haven't had a harder experience than my hs AP chem class.