Plan Your Time for Success

There are many factors in your life that affect your success as a student, including your responsibilities to your family, your employer and other activities.  To improve your success, be sure to consider all of your responsibilities before creating your schedule.

Time Commitments for School

Having enough time for your classes and homework is a big contributing factor to your success, especially as you learn how much time each class will take.  You complete the majority of your work for class outside of class.

Every course has a credit value.  The credits determine the cost of the course and the expectation of how much time you will spend on the course.

1 credit= approximately 1 hour in class each week
1 hour of class = 2 to 3 hours of preparation (homework, studying, writing papers)

Therefore, a 4-credit math or writing class would take:
4               hours a week in class
+ 8 to 12  additional hours a week for preparation
=12 to 16 total hours needed each week to successfully complete the class

Scheduling time into your life for homework is critical to success.  Students struggle when they become over ambitious and take too many credits.  Their health may even begin to suffer as they become more exhausted, sleep deprived, less motivated, and experience increased anxiety, stress and depression.  Strive to set realistic time commitments and you will be on track to graduate!