28 Chapter 2 Preparing for an Engineering Career
A student at a private university went to her instructor to drop a class because she was not get-
ting the grade she wanted. The instructor asked her how much she had paid for the class. She
said that she had spent approximately $2000 for the four-credit class. The instructor happened
to have a laptop computer on his desk and asked her the following question: If you bought a
laptop computer from a computer store, took it home to install some software on it, and had
some difficulty making the computer work, would you throw it in the trash? The student looked
at her instructor as if he had asked a stupid question. He explained to her that her dropping a
class she had already paid tuition for is similar in many ways to throwing away a computer the
first time she has trouble with some software. Try to learn from this example. Generally speak-
ing, for most of us learning is a lot of work at the beginning, and it’s not much fun. But often,
after even a short period of time, learning will become a joy, something you work at that raises
your own self-esteem. Learning and understanding new things can be downright exciting. Let
us examine what you can do to enhance your learning during the next few years to make the
engineering education you are about to receive a fulfilling and rewarding experience.
Let us begin by performing some simple arithmetic to see how efficient we might be in using
our time. With 24 hours in a given day, we have, for a one-week period, 168 hours available. Let’s
allocate liberal time periods to some activities common to most students. When following this
example, refer to Table 2.1. Notice that the time periods allocated to various activities in this table
are very generous and you don’t have to deprive yourself of sleep or relaxation or socializing with
your friends. These numbers are meant only to give you a reasonable starting point to help you
budget your time on a weekly basis. You may prefer to spend an hour a day relaxing during the
week and use the additional social hours on weekends. Even with generous relaxation and social
time, this sample allows 68 hours a week to devote to your education. A typical engineering
student takes 16 semester credits, which simply means about 16 hours a week are spent in the class-
room. You still have 52 hours a week to study. A good rule of thumb is to spend at least 2 to 3 hours
of studying for each hour of class time, which amounts to at least 32 hours and at most 48 hours
a week of studying. Of course, some classes are more demanding than others and will require
more time for preparation and homework, projects, and lab work. You still have from 4 to 20 hours
a week in your budget to allocate at your own discretion.
You may not be an 18-year-old freshman whose parents are paying most of your tuition.
You may be an older student who is changing careers. Or you may be married and have chil-
dren, so you must have at least a part-time job. In this case, obviously you will have to cut backTABLE 2.1 An Example of Weekly Activities
Activity Required Time per Week
Sleeping: (7 days /week)(8 hours /day) 56 (hours /week)
Cooking and eating: (7 days /week)(3 hours /day) 21 (hours /week)
Grocery shopping 2 (hours /week)
Personal grooming: (7 days /week)(1 hour/day) 7 (hours /week)
Spending time with family, (girl / boy) friends, relaxing, playing
sports, exercising, watching TV: (7 days /week)(2 hours /day) 14 (hours /week)Total 100 (hours/week)
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