The College Majors That Study The Most (And The Least)

Think your major studies the most? You may be right or you may be crazy-- to loosely quote Billy Joel.

The National Survey on Student Engagement recently rated the majors that studied the most per week on average. Engineering topped the list with 19 hours of preparation per week. The biggest slackers on the list? Business and social sciences, both of which study 14 hours a week.

Inside Higher Ed has more:

Perhaps tellingly, time spent studying closely correlated with faculty expectations, with most faculty reporting that they expected students to spend only one or two hours more studying per week than they actually did. (The biggest difference was in the social sciences, where students studied an average of four hours less than professors expected.)

Check out our slide show of the majors that study the most (and least). Then tell us, is 19 hours a week really enough studying? Weigh in below!

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Comments

[Reikoku Jaken]

11:25 AM on 12/17/2011

Business Major here and I spend far more time than 14 hours.

[Keith Worley]

07:58 AM on 12/15/2011

Mathematics is not in the definition of physical sciences. However, it is necessary for much of the physical sciences as it is for engineering and biological sciences. It should have had its its own category. As I mathematics major 30+ years ago, I put in a lot of hours per week studying math. My second major was music; that is represented by the arts and humanities major. Computer science needs to be in its own category as well. Someone needs to go back to get information about other fields so that a more comprehensive article can be written.

[laurenmw]

10:16 PM on 12/14/2011

where's architecture? i'll spend 20 hours straight in my studio. sometimes 2 or 3 times a week.......

[huffposter07]

08:12 PM on 12/05/2011

The list of majors that featured the most studying by students left of mathematics. I can't believe that math wouldn't beat some of the ones listed near the top.

[davisboundmarine]

07:23 PM on 12/08/2011

Isn't math usually considered under either physical sciences or engineering, depending on who is making the list? That's probably what happened.

[studentandpolitico]

04:56 PM on 11/26/2011

I'm sure study time varies greatly between different schools. As a social science major at one of the top public schools in the country, I can testify that I am spending much more than 14 hours a week studying. It takes at least double that amount of time to maintain good grades.

[Howard Latchford]

01:50 PM on 11/22/2011

Any academic discipline that ends in the word "science" probably is NOT a science. Examples abound: political science, library science, etc. Any field of study ending in the word "studies" is usually worthless toward meaningful employment. Examples: women's studies, gender studies, black studies, general studies, etc.

This fits nicely with Frank Zappa's famous advice, "If you want to just get laid, go to college, but if you want an education, go to the library."

[mix4pix]

11:56 PM on 12/05/2011

Really? What about computer science?

[JudgeCCrater]

01:39 PM on 11/22/2011

Only 19 hours? Wow, things have really softened up since I was in school.

[jakenjil]

12:31 AM on 11/23/2011

Maybe...or maybe engineering students now also have to include extracurricular activities in their schedule. With the how competitive the job market is now, they also have to show future employers that they do other stuff too.

[JudgeCCrater]

08:46 AM on 11/23/2011

Could be. Or they could be a lot smarter than I was.

[minapod]

03:34 PM on 11/21/2011

When I attended UCLA as an English major in the early nineties, conversations with both students and professors confirmed that Economics and English Literature were the most difficult majors at UCLA. They also demanded the most study time. Our exams were also more rigorous than most of the other majors as well.

[metcroy]

10:47 AM on 11/21/2011

I dunno...as a theater major at NYU/Tisch in the Atlantic Studio....my son easily fills 20 hours a week doing scene work rehearsal for his classes.

[Howard Latchford]

01:52 PM on 11/22/2011

Yeah, and when he gets through he can get a trifling job at a community theater paying poverty wages.

[jkraus2427]

01:15 PM on 12/18/2011

Or he can walk into the business world and carry himself with a poise and certainty that others can't match. Someone will show him how to use a spreadsheet program, but there will be no one who can teach a standard business major how to win the attention and interest of the others in the board room.

[renderstrue]

03:45 PM on 11/19/2011

I dunno...as a classics major...studying Greek, Latin, and a modern language....my daughter studies a lot more than 19 hours a week.

[Howard Latchford]

01:56 PM on 11/22/2011

I used to spend 5 hours per DAY on German while I was a chemistry major taking advanced math courses. But I had a good job when I graduated.

[Adam Yardley]

09:22 PM on 11/22/2011

I used to study 5 hours advanced maths, 6 hours physics, 3 hours chemistry; I had 6 hours of classes each day, 2 hours of sleep followed by 3 hours of extra-curricular activity.

I had to sneak naps in my time machine just to stay alert and on a 24-hour cycle. Yeah it was hard, and kids these days just don't get it. Actually, neither did kids in the 18th Egyptian dynasty. All they cared about was khopesh fighting, head-binding and getting laid.

Anyway, if I hadn't worked that hard, I wouldn't have my great job as a time-travelling jerk. I actually drafted this comment while watching the Library of Alexandria go up in flames.

[viaa]

08:07 AM on 12/15/2011

Yeah. Though Im a political science major I've been taking Latin since high school and I can easily spend hours upon hours doing translations so I can't imagine what it would be like for a classics major

[spydrworks1067]

12:32 AM on 11/19/2011

For the biological sciences (gen. biology, gen. chemistry, organic chemistry, physics and math) it'd be nice to plug an extra hard drive into the brain...

[andrebhub]

10:39 PM on 11/18/2011

Is it studying if you do it for fun?

[imissmydog]

10:35 PM on 11/18/2011

I can never study enough!

[usualrant]

10:18 PM on 11/18/2011

I thought HuffPost was of better quality, I WAS WRONG.
Obviously we should all be scientist, work hard, and let the lazy people do all the useless social science degree thingy, right?

I like how this piece is just so delusional by quoting Billy Joel accusing people of being delusional. Thing people don't realize is that some people spend 339084 hours studying, majoring in a HARD (read PHALLIC) science, and actually scored less than a social science major taking a hard science class, who, according to this article, supposedly only studies 0.000003 hours. Speaking of gender inequality.

[jbeachboy]

09:19 PM on 11/18/2011

what about all the worthless majors out there?

[andrebhub]

10:45 PM on 11/18/2011

If you look at it, this list covers all majors. Even alchemy

[jbeachboy]

06:42 AM on 11/19/2011

really, i thought it was just majors which included the most work involved and not about the job fields and salary for it

[Howard Latchford]

02:06 PM on 11/22/2011

kinesiology, airport management, physical education, gender studies, women's studies, black studies, general studies, community theater, horticulture (You can lead a horticulture, but you cannot make her think.), marketing. Even hard sciences are worthless if you don't build a good academic record. The difference in career happiness between top-of-class and ten positions down is tremendous.

[jbeachboy]

04:36 PM on 11/22/2011

the first 3 seem okay if you are interested in that, those arent that bad if thats what you want to be

[Howard Latchford]

07:16 PM on 11/22/2011

A lot of these choices depend on whether you want to be poor.