Does it get significantly harder/busier?

Hi I'm a first year chem eng student at birmingham, when I went to open days we were constantly told that we had packed out timetables and would be mega busy but so far Ive not really felt that busy mainly because my timetable isn't that packed compared to say my room mate who does physics whose timetable is practically 9-5, from what I've heard as you progress years the contact hours decrease as well, so I was wondering, is it really as tough a degree as people say?

Well, I can only speak for engineering degrees. In the first year, the volume of work is high because there's a lot of foundation/core principles that you need to cover but the difficulty is relatively low. If you were one of those people who could remember the formulae easily from every A-Level mechanics/physics lesson, then you should't find the workload too tough.

During the second year, the volume remains about the same but the difficulty relative the the first year is much greater - as you build pretty much directly on your first year knowledge. In fact, I would go to say that the second year is the toughest year.

In your third and fourth years, the contact hours should decrease as you specialise and do your individual projects. Overall, though, these years are easier than the second year.

thanks, what engineering did you do?