I’m a professor now and will say over and over again that nobody wins a prize for graduating from college (or grad school) "early." There are very few pros and many cons to trying to do so. Most folks who try just end up burning themselves out and/or underperforming. Just take a normal course load, man.
I would like to do the normal load. But I got a financial aid that only covers my cost for three semesters. I was thinking of completing my study with minimal cost.
Maybe your program or university are different, but based on my understanding and my graduate school experience, financial aid does not cover every possible expense within a time period, like you might pay a flat fee to go to an all you can eat buffet. Rather, covering the 'cost' for 'three semesters' is just a stipend equal to the per credit cost * standard number of credits for three semesters.
Ok, well I'd consider maybe not having such a huge load your first semester, and see how you are managing in graduate school. Then consider loading up on more courses in the next two semesters. You never know what is manageable for graduate school until you get into it.
Counterpoint - strategically use student loans. Federally subsidized student loans go for between ~3-7% interest after an initial 0% tranche. The S&P 500 has returned 15.3% average over the past decade. It's strategic to take advantage of these low rates. Mix and match with tax deductions, IRA contributions, etc. for even better returns.
This is what I do. I had a funded thesis MS that gave us a small stipend. It paid the rent but didn’t leave much, so I used loans to cover living expenses. It took the pressure off and allowed me to really learn, grow, and write a more quality, focused thesis because I wasn’t rushing.
Tuition wise, it's going to cost the same amount of money and by putting so much tuition money in at once, you're going to struggle more with rent and food than you would have otherwise
How? I have got the first three semester tuition covered. food and rent costs are going to be for the 3 semesters only, If I manage to graduate in 3 semesters. This is because of the flat fee tuition system that costs the same regardless of the number of courses I take.
Usually the math is 3 hours of outside work for every credit/unit. Generally math/coding courses took about 15-20 hours per week for me to properly study, do my readings, and do the homework.
Wouldn’t recommend 5 classes a semester. 2 is considered part time, three is full time. Though you should check with your institution.
I usually did two classes while working full time and it was really hard. So yes I did 40 hours of work, 30-40 hours a week for school.
Woke up at 5AM every day, spent an hour working out, one hour for each meal (3 hours total), slept about 5-7 hours a night every day. Spent 10-12 hours a day on weekends (average) doing assignments and readings. The rest of the weekend was for deep cleaning/laundry/meal prep and a movie or music would pay during these times. Used pomodoro and time blocking but you should use whatever time management system works for you.
By the way grad school should not be a rushed experience. That doesn’t give your brain time to learn the material.
And you won’t have a life. Do you notice how I never mentioned friends, family, or a relationship? If you want these, you’re gonna have to make the time and consequently will not have time for the amount of classes you’re trying to attempt.
Definitely good advice from the above poster. I would ease into the first semester with 2 or 3 classes and take more the next semester if you could handle the work load. I definitely wouldnt jump right into it with 5 classes.
To add to this, depending on your discipline this is the time to be working on publications, especially if you want to do a phd or postdoc, or work in academia. This is extra time that you will be need to account for.
Is it an option to do 3 (or fewer) courses and work part time to supplement your award/stipend?
This is so inaccurate. I work 40 hour weeks and take 10 credits a semester. I have time for family and friends on weekends. It’s all about time management. Sometimes I’ll spend 6-7 hours doing work on weeknights after work (when I don’t have classes) and the rest on weekends.
And what are you studying?
Do you complete your readings, do you get great grades? Do you do amazing on homework? What I posted was what was required to get A’s when I did my masters in statistics, measurement, and assessment.
The op is trying to do AI programming and software engineering. Not something you can bullshit your way through like Communication Studies or Counseling (and yes, I have a MA in communication studies and I almost completed a counseling program… did all the required courses except for group counseling, practicum and internship). When I did these programs, I was able to work 40 hours a week and go full time because the work outside of class only required, on average, 5 hours a week to complete (and I didn’t do any readings, just paid attention in lecture) and I got A’s all the way through.
I’m ngl, if you’re doing the bare minimum amount of work with a counseling degree, you’re ultimately cheating your future clients. I know the other poster said they exited their counseling degree before reaching practicum so it doesn’t matter in this case, but I’m very skeptical of people who claim their counseling programs are “easy.” Chances are, you’re missing something crucial that will significantly impede your knowledge and skills as a clinician. I also know this varies a lot by the program, but in mine the lecture and assigned readings seldom align with each other, therefore no one would be able to get As with only an understanding of the lecture material. The lectures provide a rough conceptual outline of each module, while the readings are our main source of practical knowledge in the varying theories, criticisms, and ongoing discourses within current research. You really do need both sides for it to click.
I agree with you! I’m only two semesters in at the moment. I spend anywhere from 6-7 hours a week on week nights after work reading the assigned chapters and supplemental readings and about 12 hours on weekends (5-6 hours a day). We use a lot of Corey materials which I’ve found to be great. When I reach practicum and internship I won’t be working full time anymore. I’m definitely not a slacker by any means! However, I know most of what I learn will come from practicum, internship, and pre-licensure supervision. My classes right now are just covering the basics (ethics, multicultural competency, laws, modalities). I don’t need to spend over 20 hours a week doing this or make it my full time job.
I would read the actual theorists (original works) rather than a summation (many theory books, particularly written by Gerald Corey are so biased that it is disrespectful and disgusting. He has very overt biases against radical behaviorism, and most psychodynamic theories to the point where I took my book that was required for theory class and burned it). Actually, I prefer theories that weren’t even covered in my theory course (internal family systems, collaborative therapy, and philosophical counseling). I would also read research articles about the efficacy of technique use and ethical quandaries experienced by counselors. Didn’t count this in my time because none of this was required (besides, if you use logic you can flesh out most theories with surprising accuracy and if you know about logical fallacies, especially the informal ones, you can give amazing critiques of most of the counseling theories, except for philosophical counseling and applied behavior analysis, you could critique ABA for its deterministic and hegemonic nature though… Chomsky’s arguments against it are beautiful in their savagery, but there are plenty of of other thinkers who have attacked it).
So, not cheating them… counseling programs rarely teach you the things required to deal with sexist/racist/homophobic clients. Counseling programs rarely teach you the administrative (insurance and billing requirements) portion (which, in many cases, is the largest portion of what a counselor does in practice).
Most of the time as a counselor is not spent with clients.
Everything you stated of the reading you read on your own time, and the psychodynamic theories you said weren’t covered by Corey, are covered by my program. You can’t take your university’s counseling program and generalized all counseling programs by its own standard edit: cont’ and say counseling programs are easy. Some programs are easier than others
No, most counseling programs don’t require that you read Freud and translate it yourself from German to English, most counseling theories don’t require you to read the entire opus of a theorist.
Read 1235 books and 1500 research articles when I was studying that (it’s rather unfortunate especially considering that counseling is primarily affirming the decision that the client has already made). Why anyone needs validation to that degree is beyond my comprehension. Corey covers psychodynamic theories (how could he not), but it was so biased. And there are biases in his coverage of every theory (and to be fair most people who cover theories have biases when they discuss them). Most counseling programs use textbooks written by him.
I mean
When I did my masters I did 12 credits a semester while working 22 hours as a TA/RA for one of my professors and still had a good chunk of time for friends and other stuff most weeks. It was in computer engineering and I finished with a 3.9 because I got a B in one class.
So it's definitely possible for it to end up like that
Sustainable pace: 4 hours of focused work, 4 hours of light work (checking emails, reading papers, hopping on zoom calls)
Unsustainable pace: 8-10 hours of focused work (Expect to lose sleep, experience mood/appetite changes, and drink more heavily, based on experience. And crash and burn after 1-3 months depending on your age/energy level)
I believe the scientific consensus is that you can only do 4 hours of deep, focused work, but that's probably not the right yardstick to measure the amount of credits you can take.
Instead of thinking solely in terms of time, try to think how difficult each of the 5 courses would be for you and whether their combination is likely to be doable for you. For example, it is generally advised that you should not take multiple writing-heavy courses in a single semester.
So try to think in these terms and try to select a mix of difficult and easy subjects each semester so it averages out to be just challenging enough.
60 hours of truly focused work per week is too high.
I can quite happily put out 10 hours of intense work in a row if I've got nothing else to do and am interested in the topic.
Could I do that more than two days in a row? Absolutely not.
5 courses per semester in grad school?
Good.
Bloody.
Luck.
I guess it's not impossible if you're an absolute machine with no life other than school, but you're probably gong to seriously hate your life by the end of it, if not earlier.
I think it depends. I like to do "short sprints" of timeblocked work. If I have an hour to study, 5 minutes just goes into prep, 15 minutes to get engaged, locked in for like 25 minutes of "Focus", and then 10 minutes of a "cooldown" to evaluate work, 5 minutes again to transition or break time. If I set aside 3 hours of work time, I'll run this cycle a few time and adjust the prep and cooldown times for myself. Everyones different at the end of the day, and its best to ask yourself that question of how much can I really chew? What's your capacity? Also, why put so much pressure and strain on yourself to graduate early?
FIVE COURSES? Whoa. I do not see how this is possible in the long term, frankly. Four might be do-able, but it's going to depend on you working ahead, time shifting labor from the back of the term to the earlier months of the term, when things are less crunched. You'd have to sign up for the very first opportunity to do presentations, the earliest possible due dates for projects, etc.
Take a standard work load. When the original funding runs out, you can apply to be a TA or instructor, which usually comes with waived tuition, or (preferably) your advisor will have a grant that can cover part of these costs.
At minimum, do the standard workload for the first year, then reassess after you get a better feel for the department and culture in your program.
Focus is a metaphor that only goes so far in addressing cognition. How one forms a circuit between focus-digestion-synthesis is your real worry in grad school. You will also hit the limits of your ability to retain and aggregate knowledge.
And then comes the part that is most fun. Meeting either faculty or peers for whom none of this is a problem. That tests if you got your ego squared away. Lots of academics expend a lot of energy protecting the ego investments they've made in their work. That's a nice way to be miserable. But not operating from ego deprives many of their focus.
It's tricky, is my point.
I did 3 classes (12 credits) once and it was a lot of work to actually get everything done a long with working, putting publications together, submitting conference stuff, and working. It really wasn’t a great choice for the time of year in terms of conferences in my field. I would highly recommend looking at what other things you have going on when you are doing work.
The actual coursework is pretty easy and more of the minimum. If you want to move ahead for some reason then have a good reason and a plan for getting everything else done. For example, I did summer coursework and a few longer courses so that I could have more time for a national conference, working on a federal grant, proposal work, teaching, and a few other things in my personal life later in the year.
Moving quickly through a program is only good if you get a wealth of experience along the way. But if you are passing up opportunities to research, present, publish, etc.. to go quicker it is totally not worth it.
Einstein I think took naps throughout the day, which supposedly helped him solve problems. Makes sense since sleep is like a reset button for your brain
tl;dr don't burn yourself out, it's not worth it
I can probably sustain two sessions of 4 to 6 hours productively, but there has to be a sizable break between. So far it only covers work and a couple classes a day. But, and this is a huge but, I’m a teaching assistant and taking education courses. Math and programming take a huge amount of focus you might not be able to sustain at 60 hours a week.
I did a dual masters in 2 years. One of the years I worked a 45+ hour a week job at the same time. The last year I just focused on studies (no job but I do have husband, kids and Pets). 63 credits total. I will say you may be able to do it if you are one of those people who thrive under pressure and non stop working but it is a LOT of work- you will work some weeks 80-100 hours if you do this because the work load it isn’t all level. I would highly recommend against it. It will burn you out, working like this isnt sustainable and you will get more out of it if you don’t rush- if you rush you will just be trying to get through and not really learn as much. Better to pace yourself. So many times I was beyond stressed, felt like crap, but couldn’t be sick or quit, some profs don’t give extensions and some topics are just hard and take a long time. I graduated in May and literally all I can do is zombie out to try and recoup for weeks after. I don’t think you want to pay the price.
This is a great question, and one that goes overlooked because people don't think about work capacity as much as they should. Strictly-speaking it depends on your genetics, and what capacity you've built with your routine.
First, focus on sleep and exercise. For example, my adviser was one of the top, if the not THE top, scientists in his field (computational plasma physics), and his routine essentially boiled down to research, and high-intensity exercise in the form of playing squash 2 - 3x / week. This kind of exercise builds the work capacity of your central nervous system, which carries over to tasks like sitting at a desk doing mathematics, and writing code.
Second, don't focus on graduating early. Focus on ACING the first semester because that's when your profs make up their minds about you. The difference that making A's in your first semester versus scraping through with B's, will have on the rest of your grad school experience is profound. Getting personal here, I was one of the students that scraped through with B's, and as a consequence my adviser didn't give much of a shit about me until I won a parallel programming competition, and showed that I could write high-performance code.
To give some data for your question, when I was in graduate school, I started tracking a work log which contained every. single. hour. that I spent working. To be specific, these were not "work hours" in the sense that it was time where I was just physically at the office, or sitting at my computer browsing Reddit. These were hours in which productive work was occurring. Hours when code was being written, and labs were being graded, or taught.
What I found is that I could do \~30 - 40 hours a week, with the most I ever did in a week being 46.8 hours. At the time, I spent \~15 hours a week at the gym lifting heavy weights, and running sprints, and \~100 hours a week high on edibles so I wouldn't characterize what I was doing as being optimized for academic success.
I agree .Haha the edible part is funny. You are right about genetics; there was a dude I know who could code for 11 hours straight while eating donuts.
How much sleep did u get on average?
Leaving aside the uncertain quality of your acquaintances code, I knew a postdoc who probably worked 12 - 15 hours a day everyday, and still lived on ramen.
Neither of those are healthy or sustainable diets, and they're also just pointless damage to your system. 1 - 2 ounces of spinach goes a long way.
On average, I got between 7 - 9 hours of sleep. Some nights, I'd get 6, but these were infrequent. Also, chronic usage of marijuana erodes sleep quality so I'd commonly wake up around 3 or 4 in the morning before zonking out again. I cannot stress how important it is to get this amount of sleep.
Focused work? 4 hours a day for me, and not guaranteed every day.
But not all of your 60 hours a week will be focused work. For example, reading & note-taking are lighter than writing papers. That's still a lot though.
60 hours of focused work seems very tough. I struggled to focus past 4 hours a day in my CS program. Maybe talk to grad students in your program? They can give you a better idea of workload
I have been doing about 70 hours a week for two years… and I’m absolutely hitting crisis burnout and having to use my university’s support system and every ounce of goodwill in professors’ hearts. Don’t recommend.
I’m a professor now and will say over and over again that nobody wins a prize for graduating from college (or grad school) "early." There are very few pros and many cons to trying to do so. Most folks who try just end up burning themselves out and/or underperforming. Just take a normal course load, man.
I would like to do the normal load. But I got a financial aid that only covers my cost for three semesters. I was thinking of completing my study with minimal cost.
Maybe your program or university are different, but based on my understanding and my graduate school experience, financial aid does not cover every possible expense within a time period, like you might pay a flat fee to go to an all you can eat buffet. Rather, covering the 'cost' for 'three semesters' is just a stipend equal to the per credit cost * standard number of credits for three semesters.
Yeah it is a flat fee not per credit tuition and three semesters of tuition are covered
Ok, well I'd consider maybe not having such a huge load your first semester, and see how you are managing in graduate school. Then consider loading up on more courses in the next two semesters. You never know what is manageable for graduate school until you get into it.
Counterpoint - strategically use student loans. Federally subsidized student loans go for between ~3-7% interest after an initial 0% tranche. The S&P 500 has returned 15.3% average over the past decade. It's strategic to take advantage of these low rates. Mix and match with tax deductions, IRA contributions, etc. for even better returns.
This is what I do. I had a funded thesis MS that gave us a small stipend. It paid the rent but didn’t leave much, so I used loans to cover living expenses. It took the pressure off and allowed me to really learn, grow, and write a more quality, focused thesis because I wasn’t rushing.
Tuition wise, it's going to cost the same amount of money and by putting so much tuition money in at once, you're going to struggle more with rent and food than you would have otherwise
How? I have got the first three semester tuition covered. food and rent costs are going to be for the 3 semesters only, If I manage to graduate in 3 semesters. This is because of the flat fee tuition system that costs the same regardless of the number of courses I take.
This
Best advice i ever heard!
Me? no. I max out at a few hours/day. My afternoons are really minimal admin.
Usually the math is 3 hours of outside work for every credit/unit. Generally math/coding courses took about 15-20 hours per week for me to properly study, do my readings, and do the homework. Wouldn’t recommend 5 classes a semester. 2 is considered part time, three is full time. Though you should check with your institution. I usually did two classes while working full time and it was really hard. So yes I did 40 hours of work, 30-40 hours a week for school. Woke up at 5AM every day, spent an hour working out, one hour for each meal (3 hours total), slept about 5-7 hours a night every day. Spent 10-12 hours a day on weekends (average) doing assignments and readings. The rest of the weekend was for deep cleaning/laundry/meal prep and a movie or music would pay during these times. Used pomodoro and time blocking but you should use whatever time management system works for you. By the way grad school should not be a rushed experience. That doesn’t give your brain time to learn the material. And you won’t have a life. Do you notice how I never mentioned friends, family, or a relationship? If you want these, you’re gonna have to make the time and consequently will not have time for the amount of classes you’re trying to attempt.
ok thank you for the great advice.
Definitely good advice from the above poster. I would ease into the first semester with 2 or 3 classes and take more the next semester if you could handle the work load. I definitely wouldnt jump right into it with 5 classes.
To add to this, depending on your discipline this is the time to be working on publications, especially if you want to do a phd or postdoc, or work in academia. This is extra time that you will be need to account for. Is it an option to do 3 (or fewer) courses and work part time to supplement your award/stipend?
Yeah part time job is also an option.
username checks out
This is so inaccurate. I work 40 hour weeks and take 10 credits a semester. I have time for family and friends on weekends. It’s all about time management. Sometimes I’ll spend 6-7 hours doing work on weeknights after work (when I don’t have classes) and the rest on weekends.
And what are you studying? Do you complete your readings, do you get great grades? Do you do amazing on homework? What I posted was what was required to get A’s when I did my masters in statistics, measurement, and assessment. The op is trying to do AI programming and software engineering. Not something you can bullshit your way through like Communication Studies or Counseling (and yes, I have a MA in communication studies and I almost completed a counseling program… did all the required courses except for group counseling, practicum and internship). When I did these programs, I was able to work 40 hours a week and go full time because the work outside of class only required, on average, 5 hours a week to complete (and I didn’t do any readings, just paid attention in lecture) and I got A’s all the way through.
Ok valid. Lol. I’m getting my Masters in Counseling.
I’m ngl, if you’re doing the bare minimum amount of work with a counseling degree, you’re ultimately cheating your future clients. I know the other poster said they exited their counseling degree before reaching practicum so it doesn’t matter in this case, but I’m very skeptical of people who claim their counseling programs are “easy.” Chances are, you’re missing something crucial that will significantly impede your knowledge and skills as a clinician. I also know this varies a lot by the program, but in mine the lecture and assigned readings seldom align with each other, therefore no one would be able to get As with only an understanding of the lecture material. The lectures provide a rough conceptual outline of each module, while the readings are our main source of practical knowledge in the varying theories, criticisms, and ongoing discourses within current research. You really do need both sides for it to click.
I agree with you! I’m only two semesters in at the moment. I spend anywhere from 6-7 hours a week on week nights after work reading the assigned chapters and supplemental readings and about 12 hours on weekends (5-6 hours a day). We use a lot of Corey materials which I’ve found to be great. When I reach practicum and internship I won’t be working full time anymore. I’m definitely not a slacker by any means! However, I know most of what I learn will come from practicum, internship, and pre-licensure supervision. My classes right now are just covering the basics (ethics, multicultural competency, laws, modalities). I don’t need to spend over 20 hours a week doing this or make it my full time job.
I would read the actual theorists (original works) rather than a summation (many theory books, particularly written by Gerald Corey are so biased that it is disrespectful and disgusting. He has very overt biases against radical behaviorism, and most psychodynamic theories to the point where I took my book that was required for theory class and burned it). Actually, I prefer theories that weren’t even covered in my theory course (internal family systems, collaborative therapy, and philosophical counseling). I would also read research articles about the efficacy of technique use and ethical quandaries experienced by counselors. Didn’t count this in my time because none of this was required (besides, if you use logic you can flesh out most theories with surprising accuracy and if you know about logical fallacies, especially the informal ones, you can give amazing critiques of most of the counseling theories, except for philosophical counseling and applied behavior analysis, you could critique ABA for its deterministic and hegemonic nature though… Chomsky’s arguments against it are beautiful in their savagery, but there are plenty of of other thinkers who have attacked it). So, not cheating them… counseling programs rarely teach you the things required to deal with sexist/racist/homophobic clients. Counseling programs rarely teach you the administrative (insurance and billing requirements) portion (which, in many cases, is the largest portion of what a counselor does in practice). Most of the time as a counselor is not spent with clients.
Everything you stated of the reading you read on your own time, and the psychodynamic theories you said weren’t covered by Corey, are covered by my program. You can’t take your university’s counseling program and generalized all counseling programs by its own standard edit: cont’ and say counseling programs are easy. Some programs are easier than others
No, most counseling programs don’t require that you read Freud and translate it yourself from German to English, most counseling theories don’t require you to read the entire opus of a theorist. Read 1235 books and 1500 research articles when I was studying that (it’s rather unfortunate especially considering that counseling is primarily affirming the decision that the client has already made). Why anyone needs validation to that degree is beyond my comprehension. Corey covers psychodynamic theories (how could he not), but it was so biased. And there are biases in his coverage of every theory (and to be fair most people who cover theories have biases when they discuss them). Most counseling programs use textbooks written by him.
I mean When I did my masters I did 12 credits a semester while working 22 hours as a TA/RA for one of my professors and still had a good chunk of time for friends and other stuff most weeks. It was in computer engineering and I finished with a 3.9 because I got a B in one class. So it's definitely possible for it to end up like that
Sustainable pace: 4 hours of focused work, 4 hours of light work (checking emails, reading papers, hopping on zoom calls) Unsustainable pace: 8-10 hours of focused work (Expect to lose sleep, experience mood/appetite changes, and drink more heavily, based on experience. And crash and burn after 1-3 months depending on your age/energy level)
I believe the scientific consensus is that you can only do 4 hours of deep, focused work, but that's probably not the right yardstick to measure the amount of credits you can take. Instead of thinking solely in terms of time, try to think how difficult each of the 5 courses would be for you and whether their combination is likely to be doable for you. For example, it is generally advised that you should not take multiple writing-heavy courses in a single semester. So try to think in these terms and try to select a mix of difficult and easy subjects each semester so it averages out to be just challenging enough.
60 hours of truly focused work per week is too high. I can quite happily put out 10 hours of intense work in a row if I've got nothing else to do and am interested in the topic. Could I do that more than two days in a row? Absolutely not.
one thing is I like to sleep 8 hours a day too lol. That's going to be my downfall
5 courses per semester in grad school? Good. Bloody. Luck. I guess it's not impossible if you're an absolute machine with no life other than school, but you're probably gong to seriously hate your life by the end of it, if not earlier.
I think it depends. I like to do "short sprints" of timeblocked work. If I have an hour to study, 5 minutes just goes into prep, 15 minutes to get engaged, locked in for like 25 minutes of "Focus", and then 10 minutes of a "cooldown" to evaluate work, 5 minutes again to transition or break time. If I set aside 3 hours of work time, I'll run this cycle a few time and adjust the prep and cooldown times for myself. Everyones different at the end of the day, and its best to ask yourself that question of how much can I really chew? What's your capacity? Also, why put so much pressure and strain on yourself to graduate early?
You may be able to do five courses per semester in undergrad but you will not survive 5 courses per semester in grad school.
That was what I was thinking
4
FIVE COURSES? Whoa. I do not see how this is possible in the long term, frankly. Four might be do-able, but it's going to depend on you working ahead, time shifting labor from the back of the term to the earlier months of the term, when things are less crunched. You'd have to sign up for the very first opportunity to do presentations, the earliest possible due dates for projects, etc.
I get maybe thirty minutes a day every few days but I have adhd so maybe that’s just me
Take a standard work load. When the original funding runs out, you can apply to be a TA or instructor, which usually comes with waived tuition, or (preferably) your advisor will have a grant that can cover part of these costs. At minimum, do the standard workload for the first year, then reassess after you get a better feel for the department and culture in your program.
Ok this seems like the sensible thing to do
It’s not going to be just 60 hours.
Focus is a metaphor that only goes so far in addressing cognition. How one forms a circuit between focus-digestion-synthesis is your real worry in grad school. You will also hit the limits of your ability to retain and aggregate knowledge. And then comes the part that is most fun. Meeting either faculty or peers for whom none of this is a problem. That tests if you got your ego squared away. Lots of academics expend a lot of energy protecting the ego investments they've made in their work. That's a nice way to be miserable. But not operating from ego deprives many of their focus. It's tricky, is my point.
*reads title* *laughs in ADHD*
I did 3 classes (12 credits) once and it was a lot of work to actually get everything done a long with working, putting publications together, submitting conference stuff, and working. It really wasn’t a great choice for the time of year in terms of conferences in my field. I would highly recommend looking at what other things you have going on when you are doing work. The actual coursework is pretty easy and more of the minimum. If you want to move ahead for some reason then have a good reason and a plan for getting everything else done. For example, I did summer coursework and a few longer courses so that I could have more time for a national conference, working on a federal grant, proposal work, teaching, and a few other things in my personal life later in the year. Moving quickly through a program is only good if you get a wealth of experience along the way. But if you are passing up opportunities to research, present, publish, etc.. to go quicker it is totally not worth it.
Einstein I think took naps throughout the day, which supposedly helped him solve problems. Makes sense since sleep is like a reset button for your brain tl;dr don't burn yourself out, it's not worth it
Yeah that is going to be a hard thing since I like to sleep 8 hrs lol
I can probably sustain two sessions of 4 to 6 hours productively, but there has to be a sizable break between. So far it only covers work and a couple classes a day. But, and this is a huge but, I’m a teaching assistant and taking education courses. Math and programming take a huge amount of focus you might not be able to sustain at 60 hours a week.
I did a dual masters in 2 years. One of the years I worked a 45+ hour a week job at the same time. The last year I just focused on studies (no job but I do have husband, kids and Pets). 63 credits total. I will say you may be able to do it if you are one of those people who thrive under pressure and non stop working but it is a LOT of work- you will work some weeks 80-100 hours if you do this because the work load it isn’t all level. I would highly recommend against it. It will burn you out, working like this isnt sustainable and you will get more out of it if you don’t rush- if you rush you will just be trying to get through and not really learn as much. Better to pace yourself. So many times I was beyond stressed, felt like crap, but couldn’t be sick or quit, some profs don’t give extensions and some topics are just hard and take a long time. I graduated in May and literally all I can do is zombie out to try and recoup for weeks after. I don’t think you want to pay the price.
If you have family, friends, so etc. basically say goodbye to them for the duration.
Also god help you if you have a thesis. I had two non thesis degrees.
I can manage 6 hours of focused work a day on average.
This is a great question, and one that goes overlooked because people don't think about work capacity as much as they should. Strictly-speaking it depends on your genetics, and what capacity you've built with your routine. First, focus on sleep and exercise. For example, my adviser was one of the top, if the not THE top, scientists in his field (computational plasma physics), and his routine essentially boiled down to research, and high-intensity exercise in the form of playing squash 2 - 3x / week. This kind of exercise builds the work capacity of your central nervous system, which carries over to tasks like sitting at a desk doing mathematics, and writing code. Second, don't focus on graduating early. Focus on ACING the first semester because that's when your profs make up their minds about you. The difference that making A's in your first semester versus scraping through with B's, will have on the rest of your grad school experience is profound. Getting personal here, I was one of the students that scraped through with B's, and as a consequence my adviser didn't give much of a shit about me until I won a parallel programming competition, and showed that I could write high-performance code. To give some data for your question, when I was in graduate school, I started tracking a work log which contained every. single. hour. that I spent working. To be specific, these were not "work hours" in the sense that it was time where I was just physically at the office, or sitting at my computer browsing Reddit. These were hours in which productive work was occurring. Hours when code was being written, and labs were being graded, or taught. What I found is that I could do \~30 - 40 hours a week, with the most I ever did in a week being 46.8 hours. At the time, I spent \~15 hours a week at the gym lifting heavy weights, and running sprints, and \~100 hours a week high on edibles so I wouldn't characterize what I was doing as being optimized for academic success.
I agree .Haha the edible part is funny. You are right about genetics; there was a dude I know who could code for 11 hours straight while eating donuts. How much sleep did u get on average?
Leaving aside the uncertain quality of your acquaintances code, I knew a postdoc who probably worked 12 - 15 hours a day everyday, and still lived on ramen. Neither of those are healthy or sustainable diets, and they're also just pointless damage to your system. 1 - 2 ounces of spinach goes a long way. On average, I got between 7 - 9 hours of sleep. Some nights, I'd get 6, but these were infrequent. Also, chronic usage of marijuana erodes sleep quality so I'd commonly wake up around 3 or 4 in the morning before zonking out again. I cannot stress how important it is to get this amount of sleep.
Focused work? 4 hours a day for me, and not guaranteed every day. But not all of your 60 hours a week will be focused work. For example, reading & note-taking are lighter than writing papers. That's still a lot though.
60 hours of focused work seems very tough. I struggled to focus past 4 hours a day in my CS program. Maybe talk to grad students in your program? They can give you a better idea of workload
I have been doing about 70 hours a week for two years… and I’m absolutely hitting crisis burnout and having to use my university’s support system and every ounce of goodwill in professors’ hearts. Don’t recommend.