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Time for this Course:

When determining how much time you should spend on your course work, consider the following analogy: if you were working a full-time job, you would be putting in 40 hours a week (at least). Think of your class work here as your job. Since you are probably taking three courses, that means you should spend about 13 hours a week on each course. Of that, 3 will be in class, so you should expect to put in about 10 hours of work on this course outside of class each week.

I expect the homework and problem sets to take perhaps 5 to 7 hours a week. The remainder should be spent reviewing your class notes nightly, coming to office hours with questions, and, most importantly, trying to internalize the material from class. You need to plan this time into your schedule; if you don't it won't happen.

The problem sets are central to this course, so you must give them your full attention. I will be handing them out a week before they are due, and you should not wait until the day before they are due to begin them. When you are thinking about hard problems, you may need to do it in more than one sitting, so get started early.

On the course evaluation at the end of the term you will be asked to estimate how much time out of class you spent per week on the course. Some students end up saying 3 to 5 hours, which is not enough. If you find you are spending more than 12 hours a week, however, then something is probably wrong, and you should come see me.


[HOME] Math 340 (Winter 2008) web pages
Created: 06 Jan 2008
Last modified: Jan 6, 2008 12:41:58 PM
Comments to: dpvc@union.edu
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