Mike Crandall, head of the MSIM program, says we should be investing 3-5 hours of outside work per hour spent in class. Well, the UW schedules its blocks a bit weirdly to allow 10 minutes for class switches, so if I round up, there’s 13 hours of in class time, which includes an optional lab for IMT501 that’s about an hour and a half.
13 * 3 = 39
13 * 5 = 65
So I should be spending anywhere between 39 and 65 hours/week on classwork this quarter (note that this only counts IMT501, 510, and 540, not IMT500, which has already ended). I somehow doubt I’ve been approaching that total at this point.
(An aside – I’m working 10 hours a week this quarter, which means between 49 and 75 hours/week on work related to the iSchool with only 168 hours in a week, 112 if you sleep 8 hours/day. So somewhere between 44% and 67% of my time should be iSchool-related work. Ouch.)
Absurdly unrealistic, agreed. Luckily those hours don’t mean anything in reality.
Absurdly unrealistic, agreed. Luckily those hours don’t mean anything in reality.
Well, I figure the deciding factor is twofold: one, it is a graduate program, so investment over undergraduate work should be increased significantly, and two, you get out what you put in. Do I want to put in 67% of my time? Not particularly, but if that’s what it takes
Well, I figure the deciding factor is twofold: one, it is a graduate program, so investment over undergraduate work should be increased significantly, and two, you get out what you put in. Do I want to put in 67% of my time? Not particularly, but if that’s what it takes