How many hours a day do you spend doing "academic" work?

[shockwave]

As an aspiring scholar and academic wonder how many hours a day do other people in my shoes spend doing academic related work.  This could be reading books/articles, writing papers, putting together bibliographies, doing research, learning language, etc.? 

 

I was wondering how many hours on a typical day did everyone do.

 

[CarlieE]

I think this does depend on discipline and your research, but here's my experience. 

 

In an average week I have about 1000 pages to read, 2 or 3 writing assignments (these are usually reaction papers or discussion notes), writing of other kinds (such as applications for grants/workshops/fellowships for the summer or for travel money etc; or drafts of my research proposal for my advisor or for a grant writing workshop). The writing amounts to about.... 10 - 12 pages a week, depending on what's going on. 

 

I'm not TAing or RAing so most of my day - everyday - is spent reading and writing generally. 

[Dal PhDer]

I'm going to hate...HATE myself for saying this, but a lot of what you're talking about doesn't become 'work' after awhile...it's basic instinct for me to go through journals in my spare time looking for interesting articles, or picking a book related to my work to read in my off time.

 

Time spent working though will depend a lot on where you are in your degree...well, expect to spend full-time hours (i.e., at least 40 hours/wk) working.

 

Course work will take up a lot of your time. I easily spend 8 hours outside of class doing readings and writings for my classes (I like to over prepare and read the suggestest literature, as I find it helps with my dissertation work too). Reading journals and literature is a task that will NEVER end - there's always new relevant literature being put out, so expect a normal task to be keeping on top of it.

 

Doing research- that depends on where you are in your program, but also if you have the opportunity to take on some outside projects! Then there's TA work too! I will often clock busy 12-13 hour days during the week, and then low key 8 hour days during the weekend. But I find a lot of the work i do doesn't feel like straining work!

[slaNYC]

In my program we were presented with statistics that demonstrated that assistant professors, associate professors and full professors all work a little more than 50 hours per week. It was suggested that we treat our PhD program like the job we hope to have one day and work just as hard/as many hours as faculty members.  I actually thought it was really great advice!   

[Usmivka]

Our program requires 50 hours a week (I'm still suspicious of the legality of that, but it is in writing at any rate), but I think most folks are putting in more like 60-65. Some weeks I hit 80+, but those are usually during field season or when taking classes. And I agree with Dal PhDer, I don't view the reading and proposal writing described above as my core work--those are important and required, but not part of the normal work day or the hours described above (ie not what constrains my schedule). I do a lot of my reading on the bus or train, and my weekends are more or less devoted to writing. I think the difference here could be that I'm in a physical science, and dealing with samples and instruments can eat up a lot of time without being particularly mentally straining. When I'm writing manuscripts for publication I do view that as my full time job, and the hours stay about the same. And clearly not all those hours are productive, as evidenced by my post here...

[Eigen]

40-70ish, depending on the week. 

[hejduk]

I'm in my second year of my PhD, and I refuse to put in more than 40 hours a week. I treat school as a job, and am on campus or in my office 8 hours a day, M-F. While this may change or need to be adjusted near the end of semesters or other crunch times, it typicall has worked out well so far. I had a good friend give me this advice early on, and it was quite tough the first semester with all the overwhelming things to learn/do, but so far so good. School is temporary, but my relationship with my spouse, my health, and quality of personal life are more important, IMHO.

[shockwave]

I was pretty much meaning how much do you spend of your free time.  Probably would have been a better way to phrase it.

 

My scheudle is a bit unconventional as I spend Tuesday - Thursday at school from anywhere from 2 - 12 hours and get various pockets of work done, other times TAing, etc.  The other days I work elsewhere, where 70% of my free time goes towards reading, reseraching articles, etc.  Then at home depending on the day/night, I spend anywhere from about an hour to six on academic related issues and this was mainly what I was getting at.  How much of your "free time" do you on academics?

[Cookie]

In my lab, grad students work 30+ hours not including TA work. RAs work at least 10 hours a day. My direct supervisor, a last year grad student, tends to work 12 hours a day (9 to 9). He got a lot of papers published.

Applied to:
UT, Rice, UPenn, Carnegie,  UCSD.  WashU. Notre Dame. UWashington.

[katerific]

Working on my actual project? Ehhh.

Reading about what really lights my fire? A lot. A lot of hours.