The College Success Formula is one of those bits of wisdom passed down from professor to student over the generations, at least it was passed on to me by the professor who had the greatest impact on me, Dr. Helen Damico, who was my undergraduate advisor at the University of New Mexico. The Formula addresses one of the biggest questions you should have as you start your college education: How do I manage my time? You're starting a completely new chapter in your life, and, much of the time, it will seem like you're completely on your own. You'll be deciding when you get up, when you eat, and when you study. So how do you decide how much time you give to the last item, studying?
A typical First-Year schedule at The College of New Jersey looks something like this:
| XXX-099 MAJOR SEMINAR | 1.00 | W | 11:00-12:20PM |
| BIOL-181 PRINCIPLES OF BIOLOGY I | 4.00 | TF | 08:00-09:20AM |
| BIOL-181 Laboratory | 0.00 | F | 01:00-02:50PM |
| PSYC-101 INTRO PSYCH I FOR MAJORS | 3.00 | MR | 09:30-10:50AM |
| MATH-120 PRE-CALCULUS | 3.00 | MR | 08:00-09:20AM |
| ART -101 Studio | 0.00 | M | 02:00-03:50PM |
| ART -101 FOUNDATIONS OF ART | 3.00 | R | 12:30-01:50PM |
| RHET-101RHETORIC I | 3.00 | TF | 09:30-10:50AM |
This student's course load is 17 hours, which means that she will spend seventeen hours of her week with her body in a desk in a classroom. But how does this young woman decide how many hours a week she should spend outside of class preparing: reading, writing, studying? How should she divide her study time up? When should she study? Where should she study? With whom should she study? The first question, believe it or not, is the easiest to answer. There a general rule of thumb, a formula, for discovering how much time a student should plan to spend studying for any one course.
| For every hour spent in class, | You should spend three outside preparing for class. |
| 17 hour course load | 51 hours preparation time. |
Now, I hear you already: "51 hours! That's crazy! There isn't that much time in a week!"
But there is! Consider that each day has 24 hours. There are seven days in a week. So, there are 168 hours in any given week. Most people need at least eight hours of sleep a night. Most teenagers need a bit more. So, let's say that you'll be sleeping 10 hours a night. That's 70 hours. Now you have 98 waking hours from which to draw. You'll be spending 17 of those hours in class each week, so you're left with 81 hours where you're uncommitted. You'll probably need at least 21 hours a week for normal self-maintenance--eating, washing, dressing-- so you're left with 60 hours a week where you're not committed. Even if you spend one hour a day on the phone with your best friend, or in front of a video game, or working out, you're still left with 53 hours a week that you haven't committed to a particular activity.
This is the beauty of college. The last item on my list above--With whom should she study?--is the single most critical decision you'll have to make about your studying habits in college. A college is a community of scholars--students and instructors--who have gathered together to learn and foster learning. So, don't study alone. Study with your friends and make friends for study. For each of this student's classes, she could benefit from studying with others. Studies have shown that students in science courses who study together do better than students who study alone. So she should plan to study with friends at least an hour a week, maybe more, maybe two. Now she's got two hours preparing for class where she's with friends. Her studies in rhetoric can benefit from working with others. She can peer review her friends' essays, or work in a writing group that meets once a week to brainstorm topics. Now she's prepared for class and she's been with her friends. Fifty-one hours a week don't have to be fifty-one solitary hours.
Nor do those fifty-one hours have to be hours trapped in the library or your dorm room. This student is taking an art course, which includes a studio component. She'll be spending several hours a week producing art. What better way to prepare for her art course than to go to our art gallery in Holman Hall, or to take an outing to Princeton University's Art Museum, or even better, a whole day to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. You have to think creatively about what "preparing for your courses" means. You prepare for your courses when you study and when you engage in activities that promote scholarly engagement.
If you want to evaluate how you use your time during your first few weeks of school, keep track of your time management for one week using this handy chart from the University of Minnesota, Duluth.
You will learn much more in college than just a bunch of subject areas. You'll also learn HOW TO LEARN! Much of the time that you spend preparing for class during your fifty-one hours will not be studying your subject area; you'll be practicing study skills. You'll be going to the library, doing worksheets, practicing, practicing, practicing. If you find you are done with all the work for a course in an hour a week, you are doing something wrong: you're short-changing yourself. For help on practicing or mastering study skills, take a look at the list of links prepared by the Academic Enhancement and Tutoring Center, or drop by their facility. Remember, the best time to take care of an academic problem is BEFORE it develops. And you can always contact me too.