University timetable

[Madeintheusa]

Im wondering if any mature students can enlighten me on how university timetables work...a friend suggested that its independant learning(turn uo as often and as little as you like). Im worried about how much time ill have to fit everything in and wondering whether to give my job up.
Thanks

[Tambajam]

It depends on the subject primarily. A science degree with lectures, seminars and lab work can mean you're in university for far more hours than an arts degree where you may only have 6-9 hours of teaching time.

However it's extremely unlikely you could combine a full-time job that includes regular hours with a full-time degree.

This is why there are universities offering evening and part-time degrees. Birkbeck in Lond

[Tambajam]

Sorry.
Birkbeck in London offers degrees that could be combined with a day job.

For degrees, there is an expectation you attend a certain proportion of teaching. It's not possible to do it purely on independent study - and why would you want to. Experiencing teaching and peer discussion is much of the point.

[Pangaea]

Which subject is it?

[ballsballsballs]

I'm doing an English BA. I attend 4 hours of lectures a week. However, I'm expected to work independently for 6-8 hours for each hour of lectures.

I didn't in my first year and noticed it in my marks.

[Madeintheusa]

Thankyou for your replies. I may have to go part time i my work then by the sounds of things....im thinkin environmental health.

[UptheChimney]

At first year level, in the humanities, we generally estimate that students do 3-4 hours independent work (preparation, reading time, essay research and writing) for every 1 hour face to face teaching time. So 10 hours face to face will then involve another 30-40 hours independent work. But this won't necessarily be evenly spread throughout the term: you may find that you do considerably more in essay preparation & writing at the end of term, while at the beginning of term, you can get through the set reading etc in fewer hours.

But full-time study is what it says on the tin: full-time.

[MagratGarlik]

In sciences (and environmental health will have quite a large biology content), you should normally expect to have around 30 hours per week of lectures, seminars and lab classes. You are expected to do about 1 hour of independent learning per hour of lectures etc, so totaling around 60 hours per week (!). Some universities have registers for lectures and most have registers for lab classes, due to safety aspect in a lab of needing to know who to account for in a fire. Others don't have formal registers, but usually have attendance criteria of at least 80% for core modules. If you don't turn up to the odd lecture here or there, no-one is likely to make a fuss. If you regularly don't attend, it will usually be noticed, so you are very unlikely to be able to maintain a full-time job on top of full-time studies.