Study Load for Humanities

I'm looking into applying to North Central College and considering majoring in a humanities subject. Does anyone know a rough estimate of the required hours of study in this field at North Central College? I want to be sure I can balance my commitments effectively.

Absolutely, understanding the workload for your chosen discipline is crucial to managing your time effectively. As a humanities student, you'll engage in a lot of reading, writing, and critical thinking. However, the exact study load can vary depending on the specific major within humanities, as well as the specific courses you choose.

Generally, it is often suggested that for every credit hour in class, you should be spending about two to three hours on studies outside of class. So for a 15 credit hour semester, which might equate to five 3-credit classes, you would be looking at least 30-45 hours per week solely devoted to academics.

It's important to remember that this is only an average and can vary considerably based on your personal learning speed, course difficulty, and other factors. Also, keep in mind that not every hour spent studying outside of class is active work--it includes studying, doing homework, or conceptualizing and starting projects or papers. And there could be weeks where you may find that you need to spend more time, such as during mid-term/final exam weeks or when a major project is due.

Remember to account for other lifestyle factors too. If you plan on having a part-time job, participating in extracurriculars, or if you need downtime, it's all essential to consider when you're estimating how many courses you can handle at once.

To get the most accurate picture, it might be helpful to connect with current students or recent graduates from North Central College's humanities programs to see what their experience was like. They will be able to give you firsthand insight into the workload and how they managed time balancing various commitments.

Lastly, it's important that you reassess your commitments once every semester, as your course load will undoubtedly vary from term to term. It's not atypical for a student's first semester to feel heavy as they adjust to college academics. You might consider enrolling in fewer courses in your first semester to leave time to adjust and then adding more as you feel comfortable.