activeaero Wrote:

woodwojr Wrote:What kind of school has a lecture:work ratio as low as 1:1?

~J

More like what kind of school has a lecture:work ratio as HIGH as 1:1? I'm talking real world numbers, not the fantasy study hours most people like to pretend they put aside every week. Going to the library with your friends doesn't count. Sitting on the computer doing your paper while spending 90% of the time browsing web forums doesn't either. If you think most kids put in anywhere close to 1:1 of actual work WEEK AFTER WEEK, SEMESTER AFTER SEMESTER you live in a dream land as far as I'm concerned.

I've been to multiple colleges and had friends in all of the "demanding" degree fields and beyond a shadow of a doubt everyone always had massive amounts of free time.....far more time than we have now with our careers.

Think about this. How many kids do you know that go to class for 5hrs per day ALL five days of the week and then come home and study/do research for 4hrs, non-stop, EVERY single day, without fail, week after week, year after year? Let's be honest and say none because we all know it's the truth. Well guess what? That's only 45hrs per week, which is a joke.

Hey, man, you don't know my life. With all the sleeping, goofing off, going out, and drinking I do, there's barely any time left for studying and schoolwork. I'm a very busy person.

Nii87 Wrote:I agree with the view that free time at university is available far more than any other time in your life. You just don't learn to appreciate it until you start working.

So I just want to be clear on this, I'm not speaking without experience here. I've done the full-time job thing. Working left me more drained, so my evenings tended to be more wasted, but the weekends were entirely mine, which pretty much blows university out of the water as far as free time goes.

activeaero Wrote:Think about this. How many kids do you know that go to class for 5hrs per day ALL five days of the week and then come home and study/do research for 4hrs, non-stop, EVERY single day, without fail, week after week, year after year? Let's be honest and say none because we all know it's the truth. Well guess what? That's only 45hrs per week, which is a joke.

None, of course. They go to class for about four hours a day four days a week, come home and study about three hours a day on each of those days, and then have about eighteen more hours of work to distribute as they like between the remaining three days.

(45 hours a joke? Are we assuming that everyone is going to choose a hellish commute or something? We're already matching or exceeding the amount of time you're going to spend (and I spent) on the much-touted "working")

~J

activeaero Wrote:Think about this. How many kids do you know that go to class for 5hrs per day ALL five days of the week and then come home and study/do research for 4hrs, non-stop, EVERY single day, without fail, week after week, year after year? Let's be honest and say none because we all know it's the truth. Well guess what? That's only 45hrs per week, which is a joke.

Where YOU able to say that when you were 18-21 years old? Probably not.
And "PURE" 45hrs per week isn't a joke at all! I attend two 50mins lectures with 10mins between, where both requires full high-level attention during those 50mins, and you don't know how tiresome those are and how drained I become after them, I'm not that kind of people who say "I didn't get anything" after a lecture. Memorizing for 4hrs is totally different than thinking for 4hrs, sorry dude, but your experience doesn't cover other people's.

woodwojr Wrote:None, of course. They go to class for about four hours a day four days a week, come home and study about three hours a day on each of those days, and then have about eighteen more hours of work to distribute as they like between the remaining three days.

~J

Pure BS. 99.9999% of college kids don't come anywhere close to that much work and you're kidding yourself if you believe that.

Of course here's the kicker....that's still only 46hrs per week...most of which you are spending in the comfort of your own home/apartment which is infinitely better than being stuck at some office.

undead_saif Wrote:I attend two 50mins lectures with 10mins between, where both requires full high-level attention during those 50mins, and you don't know how tiresome those are and how drained I become after them,

Joke post?

What are you looking for? An acknowledgment of your superiority? An admission that the rest of us are just lazy and undisciplined?

I have to admit that school was more demanding than uni, since school was 8 hours a day constantly! Plus the teachers make you pay attention =P

yudantaiteki Wrote:What are you looking for? An acknowledgment of your superiority? An admission that the rest of us are just lazy and undisciplined?

I'm not superior by any means and I actually think I probably have more time than someone who works a normal job and has to raise a family, which I don't.

Nor am I saying everyone has to work exactly the same and should dedicate themselves equally to whatever I happen to be into at the moment.

What I AM saying is the "lack of time" excuse is just complete BS for 99.99% of university students and I don't care what the field or how much research you are doing. If going to university full time was as demanding as you want to pretend it is then you are going to have a hard time it explaining away all of the PARENTS out there who raise kids, work a full time job, and then magically find the time to take a full load of college credits like everyone else. Hell there are people who work through freaking med school for crying out loud.

If you want to dedicate more time to something else and want to have more free time to goof off with your friends then just admit it. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

activeaero Wrote:Of course here's the kicker....that's still only 46hrs per week...

So six hours more than a full-time job. You were saying something about how much more free time university students have?

Quote:most of which you are spending in the comfort of your own home/apartment which is infinitely better than being stuck at some office.

You are moving the goalposts. The discussion was about how much free time university students have as compared to people in "the real world", not how comfortable they are. Try an approach with more intellectual honesty.

That being said, I'll completely agree with you that this way is more comfortable.

~J

activeaero Wrote:Sounds like a bunch of excuses to me especially considering you DON'T have my schedule.

...I'm sorry that I can't work as much as you and that I am weak?


It's true that I have more free time than I make good use of. I didn't say I was too busy. I think I'll make more effort to spend time on my Japanese and other hobbies. I do, however, go to all my classes(18hrs a week) and study out side class everyday. I don't care how little other students do, that has nothing to do with me.

But it sounded like you were arguing that everyone should be able to work 40-50hrs a week with 20hrs of class plus study time(theoretically 40hrs, but wow you can do it in half that), and well, I can't do that without some sort of melt down.

woodwojr Wrote:

activeaero Wrote:Of course here's the kicker....that's still only 46hrs per week...

So six hours more than a full-time job. You were saying something about how much more free time university students have?

Can you not read? That point was to illustrate the EXTREME of college level study, of which I've yet to encounter in reality, and to show that even if that was the case it still affords plenty of free time.

You on the other hand are trying to pretend that 46hrs is the norm, and that it provides little extra time, while somehow ignoring all of those people that manage to work through college lol. The very act that people can work full time and go to school full time without it being seen as some extraordinarily rare feat is pretty darn good proof that college provides a ample amount of free time for those that know how to take advantage of it.

I don't know. When I went back to studies while working, I just felt like the required effort was much less than when I went to college first time, but it wasn't because I was a lot more disciplined with my time or studies; it was just because the experience I already had made the course easy.

Anyway, I think counting hours is meaningless without counting what is done in those hours. Its easy to get very tired doing much less than 40 hours a week of concentrated thought work. There is lots more time left after that but filling it with yet more concentrated work IS hard.

Depends on the subject and how much prior knowledge you have.... don't it?

Activeaero, Woodwojr,

The problem occuring is we're trying to give what applies on the large scale (generally lots of free in College) and negating that with personal situation (Woodwojr' working more hours than average, limiting his free time). If one is discussing the large scale while the other is trying to apply it himself, there's gonna be friction.

Now, Woodwojr, if you're being honest about your lack of free time, then there's not much can be done. You can substain retention just doing your SRS reviews, in addition to putting Japanese into the non-study portions of your life (iPod, posters, taping up printouts onto the wall, looping DVD's, etc.). You won't get better, but you'll get worse a lot slower than all out stopping.

Only reason I'm piping up like this is Woodwojr is saying he personally is doing longer hours at college (18 credit hours, plus lots of studying). That shouldn't be downplayed or mixed in with the other discussion about College students on the norm having lots of free time, but little guidance on how to properly manage what you do during it. Both are interesting to discuss.

For example, I'm trying to dedicate 3 hours a night to studying Japanese (reviewing, then adding new stuff with remaining time). Problem I'm realizing is that there's a Navy qualification I need to do, which is difficult to do during the work day (some of it's online, and the network is slow during the day). I can't study Japanese in the office (Personal computers are banned and Anki is blocked), so I'm at my room for that.

Again, personnel issues, but it'll boil down to either pulling back on Japanese review/study or just qualify EXW at slower pace. This is not to be mixed up with the guys that are playing 4 or 5 hours of Poker a night, then complaining they don't have time to do the EXW qualification. When all is said and done, it's still about neither of us getting EXW. The reasons will be irrelevant, even if I think my situation is justified.

Anyway, College first, then personal projects like Japanese. For the average College student, there's plenty of time for personal projects.

Nicely said NukeMarine. Prioritisation plays a big part in having enough time to learn Japanese or not.

Everyone's situation is different, and not all students are slackers. Although I would say that most students don't realise how good the have it!

I remember being quite busy for most of uni. I did a Science/Engineering double degree with a 10-20% overload most years. I had about 33 contact hours in first year, gradually reducing over the years (but being replaced by project work). For basically 5 years (excluding breaks between semesters) I was at uni 8-9 hours a day (longer if I had evening lectures), during which time I was either in lectures (I never skipped) or in the lab working on projects. On top of that I was spending 3-3.5 hours a day travelling. And I worked all day most Saturdays.

Of course, more time than care to admit was probably wasted.
And even though I thought I worked hard at uni, I remember being much more tired after I started working full-time. I would get home and be too tired to do anything. Uni seemed easy compared to that.

activeaero Wrote:

undead_saif Wrote:I attend two 50mins lectures with 10mins between, where both requires full high-level attention during those 50mins, and you don't know how tiresome those are and how drained I become after them,

Joke post?

Dude, study some basic physics and go learn some Dynamics, then tell me your opinion, I'm taking classes that are harder than Dynamics , Theory of Machines and Control Systems in particular.

An advice, don't ever assume that you know other people's situations.

activeaero Wrote:What I AM saying is the "lack of time" excuse is just complete BS for 99.99% of university students and I don't care what the field or how much research you are doing.

Even your first post was meaningless here, no offense, because I wasn't whining about not having enough time to study Japanese. but, as I said before, I'm the one who wants to reduce Japanese learning to the minimum! And you've assumed that you are talking to lazy people, guess what, I'm the type who's always up to the challenge, sorry if this sounds a little arrogant or something, but I never whine about anything.


Edit: What I'm discussing here is, you can't deal with time only , you have to consider what's being done, paper work isn't like field work, reviewing sentences isn't like studying hard subjects. I can review/add decks and read through a Japanese grammar book for 10 "real" hours, but it's simply not possible to keep studying hard engineering topics constantly for that amount of time, I've tried it, after some hours you will start to lose your sanity! Got it?

shihoro Wrote:For undead-saif, I owe you a apology.

I agree with what activeaero says. Most students do not really know what 'busy' is. Anyway, busy and freetime are not really the problem. It is stress and energy. I was pilot; a career that has plenty of stress but I loved flying so it was not a burden. Now I do not meet the medical requirements I am returning to business or starting a new business of my own. I beginning to feel the stress and lack of free time my friends have always felt in a way I did not before. We cannot all do jobs we love. Students have periods of stress and hardwok but most do not really. A single parent working in a dead end job may have the right to complain - not most students.

However, that said, I have been guilty of adding to the recent debate without understand your position properly. I was remiss in that I did not read your first post. You asked a perfectly reasonable question having understood your situation. I think you have made the correct priorities. My previous post dealt with the recent debate and not your original question. I can see this would be annoying for you and I apologize for this.

I am not sure I am qualified to give advice but if I were you I would concentrate on your degree 100%. If you have free leisure time and Japanese is still enjoyable I would listen to or watch any Japanese stuff you can. Maybe controversially, I would only occcasionally review the Kanji you have. Don't add new stuff. In the light of what a Japanese friend said to me I woud casually study Japanese grammar (don't do written exercises etc - takes too much time and effort). She said she was impressed with my, and her colleagues' Kanji ability at work. Actually, my Kanji ability is pretty crap now and was never great. However, she thought it funny we aim for great kanji ability and then use strange grammar - often getting the nuances of ga, wa, ni etc wrong in more complex usage. It makes us sound strange and sometimes even wrong. A bit of relaxed grammar now would help with that later. Don't do SRS etc. It is too much right now.

When this critical period is over you could return to kanji etc more instensively. You will enjoy it more without the pressure. Sure you will have lost some ability but not as much as you think; also it will return faster than you think.

Japanese is a hobby for most us not a raison d'etre.

No problem dude! Thanks for your advice and your understanding

So rereading the thread (and in particular reading Nukemarine's response) has made me realize that the debate split in two somewhere; I want to make it clear that I'm not long on free time, but I'm not consistently in a situation where it simply does not exist. I entered the debate not to defend the idea that that situation is common, but to argue against the idea that university necessarily gives one more free time than working, which runs counter to my experience.

~J

I would agree with that. After college I worked full time and studied Japanese in my spare time; what I found nice about this combination was that with the job I worked, there was a clearly defined time when I was at work, and then once I got home I didn't have to do anything work related, so I could split my time between studying Japanese and relaxing without having to worry about anything else. There was literally nothing I was expected to do at home relating to work.

By contrast, I think that for many students, you're never really "done" with your work. There's always something else you could be doing. (This is of course more true of graduate school than undergraduate).