A study finds that Cambridge students work harder for their degree

Obviously written by some pompous c**t who thinks they're so special be a use they go to Cambridge.

What the 'study' fails to recognise is that you can spend 13 hours a day 'working hard' but if that work is inefficient ... It's not much use compared to 3 hours of quality, focussed and thorough study.

I mean what non-news. The person has gone through so much effort making charts and whatnot for some sad meaningless article.

I hate to inform that person that 'average hours spent studying' is not something that employers, people in real life, or anyone else will give a damn about. They ought to spend less time writing rubbish - I mean, especially if they want to maintain that amazing record of studying the most. Wouldn't want to, in an ironic turn of events, lose the title because you wasted study time writing about how much you study.

Discuss.

http://cambridge.tab.co.uk/2013/08/07/ready-its-official-cantabs-work-hard-at-degrees/

Surely everyone knows this? A 70 at Cambridge is of a much higher quality than a 70 at Norwich university for example.

Obviously written by some pompous c**t who thinks they're so special be a use they go to Cambridge.

What the 'study' fails to recognise is that you can spend 13 hours a day 'working hard' but if that work is inefficient ... It's not much use compared to 3 hours of quality, focussed and thorough study.

I mean what non-news. The person has gone through so much effort making charts and whatnot for some sad meaningless article.

I hate to inform that person that 'average hours spent studying' is not something that employers, people in real life, or anyone else will give a damn about. They ought to spend less time writing rubbish - I mean, especially if they want to maintain that amazing record of studying the most. Wouldn't want to, in an ironic turn of events, lose the title because you wasted study time writing about how much you study.

Obviously written by some pompous c**t who thinks they're so special be a use they go to Cambridge.

What the 'study' fails to recognise is that you can spend 13 hours a day 'working hard' but if that work is inefficient ... It's not much use compared to 3 hours of quality, focussed and thorough study..

No, I think the problem was that this was spread around TSR as a rumour from a biased source - Cambridge students themselves. Now a study has confirmed this, it has a higher level of validity now.

Considering the difference in term lengths I don't think you can compare "hours a week worked" and then say X students work harder for their degree.

This was my immediate concern. I'd also be curious how they checked hours worked; I'm not convinced people are reliable at judging how much time they're working.

Considering the difference in term lengths I don't think you can compare "hours a week worked" and then say X students work harder for their degree.

So if two people are going for a job, and one came from Norwich university and got a 1st, but the other from Cambridge got a 2:1, we would dismiss the Norwich candidate? Stupid.

Also, there are many reasons that people do not attend Cambridge/Oxford - not just intelligence. It could be the geography, family and personal preference. For me, I had the grades, but I didn't like the language courses. I think that article is pure snobbery.

Based on notional HEFCE/QAA estimates of how much work students *should* do for a degree every student should be doing 1,200 hours per annum studying (either in lectures or private study and including revision time)
over a 24 week year that's 50 hours a week (oddly MORE than the cambridge students claim to study)
over a 30 week year that's 40 hours a week (unsurprisingly also more than students at other universities claim to study)

It's disappointing that a cambridge student wouldn't pick up on the difference in term lengths instead of just jumping on an opportunity to write an inflammatory and smug article. Most cambridge students and graduates I know don't feel the need to belittle other student's work in order to feel proud of their own

Whilst there are obviously some problems doing it this way, I think it presents a decent picture of how much more Cambridge students have to work for their degree. Taking the example of Essex, who work on average 20 hours a week, over the course of their 10 week term an average student there works 200 hours. Now compared to the average Cantab's 45 hours a week over an 8 week term gives 360 hours - an 80% increase. Cambridge students do have to work a lot in their holidays too - especially in Easter term where I was working just as hard as in term time.



Sure, why not. The standards required for a particular grade varies hugely between institutions, I think if one takes a moment to look into the differences of particular courses and examinations between Cambridge and UEA, you can see it's not a huge leap to assume that the UEA student would have struggled to get a first or 2:1 at Cambridge, whilst the Cambridge student would probably have easily obtained a first at UEA.

The article is not snobbery at all but highlighting a huge problem that is being swept under the rug in Higher Education right now - that there are large differences in the standards and expectations of students to get a certain grade between institutions. Your post reeks of having a chip on your shoulder.