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Do you spend more or less time studying at uni than you do at A levels?

I've seen other threads where people asked whether Uni is harder than A level but I haven't really seen people talk about how much time they spend studying at Uni compared to A levels, so I want to ask do you spend more time studying or do you have more free time compared to A levels?
Original post by ajay1998
I've seen other threads where people asked whether Uni is harder than A level but I haven't really seen people talk about how much time they spend studying at Uni compared to A levels, so I want to ask do you spend more time studying or do you have more free time compared to A levels?


University generally has much less contact time and involves much more independent study, so for example in first year i had 12 hours of lectures a week, but would be expected to spend at least 10 hours of study at home (according it the assessment handbooks).
It went off 10 hours of study for every credit you did, so 20 credits= 200 hours of study expected (and so you you could only have say 50 of that as lectures). It can vary massively depending on how quickly and efficiently you can write an essay and on the degree itself.
Reply 2
Original post by claireestelle
University generally has much less contact time and involves much more independent study, so for example in first year i had 12 hours of lectures a week, but would be expected to spend at least 10 hours of study at home (according it the assessment handbooks).
It went off 10 hours of study for every credit you did, so 20 credits= 200 hours of study expected (and so you you could only have say 50 of that as lectures). It can vary massively depending on how quickly and efficiently you can write an essay and on the degree itself.


So you personally, do you feel overall you have more free time at Uni than you did at A levels?
Original post by ajay1998
So you personally, do you feel overall you have more free time at Uni than you did at A levels?

I had slightly more free time when it wasnt near a deadline date really.
I spend more time studying and working than I did at A Levels, but I also have more free time (if that makes sense?). At school I had around 4-6 hours a day, but at uni I have around 2-3 hours a day so it means that I can get a lot of my work done during the morning/afternoon and I have the evenings free, unlike at school when I had to use the evenings to do work. Coming up to coursework deadline or exams can be stressful, but if you manage your time and revision well it's not that bad :smile:

I revise a lot more for my exams, but I didn't do much revision for my A Levels (oops :colondollar:) so that doesn't mean a lot!

I think it changes depending on the course and university you're at though so you may be the complete opposite :tongue:
I'm In first year currently about to finish exams on 7 June but sticking around until 12 June however and I've taken the year relatively seriously as I want to get a 2:1 in each module as I want to go into law. Whilst I work for long and consistent periods in the library I don't think I do it at the same intensity as I did at a level. For example during Easter hols I literally did nothing, not even the non assessed course works haha. You can definitely get a 2:1 by making shortcuts on the reading and just getting to grips with the core content and being able to express it in a structured manner however I would recommend obviously doing all your reading! Second year I will take seminars and pre reading a bit more seriously than I did last year as its 30% of the degree
Original post by ajay1998
I've seen other threads where people asked whether Uni is harder than A level but I haven't really seen people talk about how much time they spend studying at Uni compared to A levels, so I want to ask do you spend more time studying or do you have more free time compared to A levels?


At A Level a lot of my studying personally was done in my free periods and in lessons - apart from the occassional catch up revision - but with that, all of your contact time is your lessons.
At university, I definitely spend more time studying than I did at A Level - purely because at university you have a lot less contact time and a lot of your time is independant study therefore you'll only get out what you put in. You decide what you do with your time, you either study or waste it.

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