How many hours a week do professors spend on teaching?

[HistoireDes]

How many hours do they spend prepping, teaching, grading, and office hours a week and how many hours do they spend on their research?

[ashiepoo72]

There is no right answer to your question--it is highly dependent on a lot of factors. Do they work at a community college or a research institution? Are they tenured or not? Do they have other commitments, like being department chair or personal things that limit the time they can spend researching/traveling/etc?

 

Here's an example. My program is at a rather large state school, but the history department is small (used to be 40 faculty about 15-20 years ago, we are down to maybe 10). It is not a research-heavy program, but majority of the faculty publish frequently, meaning they make research a priority. However, my program is teaching heavy. TT faculty teach around 4-5 classes each semester among other duties, which requires a huge commitment to students and teaching. One class is generally around 3 hours a week, so with 4 classes that's 12 hours of teaching plus grading time (who knows how long? Maybe with papers or exams, it averages 10-15+ add'l hours a week, but it also depends on class size...a 30 person vs.100 person class is going to have a huge difference in grading time. We no longer have TAs at my program, so that's another factor affecting how long profs work) plus office hours (each professor offers different times--one of my profs is in about 6 hours a week PLUS appointments, others have 1-2 hours a week for office hours)--I'd say they average at least 30 hours a week on just teaching and teaching related duties...this isn't including committee time, presentations, conferences, department meetings, etc. Suffice it to say, professors work 40+ hours a week.

 

Research is so hugely different for every person, it's impossible to say how much time someone takes on it. Is it for an ongoing project? Something new? A book? An article? A presentation? When I was researching the paper that will be my writing sample, some weeks I spent 10 hours a day looking at microfilm and other weeks I spent a few hours looking at secondary literature each day--and I'm just an MA candidate. 

 

If I was to ask any of my professors, they'd all tell me they work more than 40 hours a week. Their work doesn't end when they get home. They still have lectures to prep, emails to answer, and many other things related to their job. The only ones who work less, at least in my department, are forced to because of health issues.

 

Sorry for my non-answer. I just don't think anyone can give you a definitive one.

Edited August 25, 2014 by ashiepoo72

[TakeruK]

Agree that it really depends! Another factor is whether or not it's the first time they are teaching a class (and thus have to develop material) or if they are just reusing/modifying existing lesson plans. 

 

Just to provide another data point: I'm at a research heavy school and the profs here teach 1 or 2 quarters per year (newer professors teach more). Each quarter is 30 hours of instruction. From my experience developing lesson plans for the lectures I taught as well as previous classes I've taught (not university level ones though), I find that the ratio of prep time to class time is about 3:1 if I have a lesson already outlined. From talking to my supervisor (who was also the prof for the class I TA'ed; and someone much more experienced at teaching than me), it seems like it takes about 5 hours to fully prepare for a 1 hour lecture including everything. So for a 30 hour quarter, that's about 150 hours. Then I spend about 7 hours per week grading problem sets and meeting with students as the TA (for a class size ~20 students; a large class in my department), so if the prof needs to do this too, it can add up to about 220 hours per course per quarter. 

 

So, overall, at my institution, I would estimate that profs spend about 10-20 hours per course per week on teaching-related work depending if they have a TA and if it's a new course. However, they would do this for only 10 or 20 weeks out of the entire year, so the vast majority of their time is spent on research. No one is ever assigned to teach more than one course per quarter, as far as I can remember (there's also not very many courses in my department).

Edited August 25, 2014 by TakeruK

[fuzzylogician]

How many hours do they spend prepping, teaching, grading, and office hours a week and how many hours do they spend on their research?

 

How many hours do students spend on class work -- doing the assigned readings, solving problem sets, prepping for class, sitting in lectures and discussion sections -- and how many hours to they spend on their research? The answers vary just as greatly as the answer to your question. It depends, as others pointed out above. 

 

Points of variation include: how many classes the professor teaches in the semester (a 1/2 load is very different than a 4/4 load); For each class: the level of the class; whether the professor has taught the class before or not; the level of the students and how prepared they are; whether the professor has a TA; whether the class is reading or problem-set based; the type of institution the professor is in; whether the professor is tenured and what other time commitments they have.

[rising_star]

In addition to the list of variables provided by fuzzylogician, I'd add how closely the class topic(s) relate to your research or comp fields, especially when fresh out of grad school. That is, it takes less prep time for me to teach when the class topic and readings are related to my research because I know the area very well. There are just so many variables when it comes to time spent teaching, especially since it depends on what you include as "teaching". I'd include prep time, grading, time fussing with the course management system, office hours, and staying current on the news related to the course topics, which I always do.

[HistoireDes]

Thank you.

 

How many hours a week do a Master student or PhD student spend time on taking classes, teaching classes, doing class-related works such as writing papers for class and preparing to teach or grade in class?

 

I heard PhD student teaches class for first 2 years and then just works on thesis and you are not required to live around campus because you can do your thesis regardless of your location, is that true?

[Eigen]

Again, this completely depends on your department, program, funding stream, etc. 

 

For instance, in my PhD program some students teach 20 hours a week (generally, 2-3 lab classes) each semester until they graduate. Others are completely supported on research funding and will not teach at all. 

 

Graduate education and faculty jobs are not easily generalizable, it depends on the contract, position, etc.

[SymmetryOfImperfection]

Some senior professors here literally teach zero classes and do pure research.

[TakeruK]

Here are three more data points to show how diverse programs can be:

 

1. In my previous program, the standard teaching load is 2 classes per term, for 2 terms per year. Each class is 4.5 hours per week, so it's a total of 108 hours per term (12 weeks). This standard load is usually for 5 years if you do a PhD. If you have external fellowships, you only teach half as much.

 

2. In my current program, the standard teaching load is 1 quarter (10 weeks) per year for years 2 through 4 only (i.e. you get a pass on your first and last year). So this is a total of 30 weeks of TAing throughout the whole degree. Officially, the university defines a TA load as 15 hours per week but our department has small classes so I think my workload last year was more like 10 hours per week. Fellowships do *not* change your teaching requirement.

 

3. In another program at my current school, the students only teach during their 2nd year (first year is supported by department fellowship, 2nd year by TAing and all later years by their supervisors). They would TA for all 3 quarters during their second year, which is also 30 weeks total throughout the whole degree, just distributed differently.

Edited August 27, 2014 by TakeruK

[ashiepoo72]

This doesn't just vary from program to program, school to school, but also within each term. As an MA student, my classes are generally split between reading and research--generally colloquia involve more reading, seminars more writing. The amount of time I spend changes each week, month, semester, and year depending on my classes. I'd imagine it's the same at doctoral programs.

FWIW, when I have research-intensive semesters I spend a lot more time working. After my 1st year in grad school I learned to gut/read books quickly so courses heavy in reading take less of my time.

[fuzzylogician]

Here are three more data points to show how diverse programs can be:

 

1. In my previous program, the standard teaching load is 2 classes per term, for 2 terms per year. Each class is 4.5 hours per week, so it's a total of 108 hours per term (12 weeks). This standard load is usually for 5 years if you do a PhD. If you have external fellowships, you only teach half as much.

 

2. In my current program, the standard teaching load is 1 quarter (10 weeks) per year for years 2 through 4 only (i.e. you get a pass on your first and last year). So this is a total of 30 weeks of TAing throughout the whole degree. Officially, the university defines a TA load as 15 hours per week but our department has small classes so I think my workload last year was more like 10 hours per week. Fellowships do *not* change your teaching requirement.

 

3. In another program at my current school, the students only teach during their 2nd year (first year is supported by department fellowship, 2nd year by TAing and all later years by their supervisors). They would TA for all 3 quarters during their second year, which is also 30 weeks total throughout the whole degree, just distributed differently.

 

Another anecdote: in my PhD program, students are required to TA for just 2 semesters (14 weeks each). The program usually takes students 10 semesters (5 years) so the rest of the time everyone is supported in other ways. Any additional teaching is on a voluntary basis only, and you get paid extra for it. The amount of work a TA does depends on the course. If you TA for a large undergrad intro, you sit in lectures, prepare and give a recitation, give office hours, and grade, all of which usually takes roughly 10-12 hours but changes over time depending on what grading needs to be done on a given week. Some weeks it goes up closer to 20. If you TA for an advanced undergrad or grad course, there is a lot less grading to do and you may only work 5-7 hours a week. 

[HistoireDes]

For History, do you teach for the first 3 years of the PhD program and then not teach for the next 5 years?

 

Also I heard PhD Program for history is 8 years. Why is it so long? Was it always like this?

Edited September 2, 2014 by HistoireDes

[HistoireDes]

For Master's program, how much hours do you find yourself putting in per week into your special research topic?

[Eigen]

You don't seem to be learning from the above responses. 

 

All PhD programs in history will be different, as will all MA programs. They will not all have the same length of time to degree, nor will they have the same teaching requirements or times. 

 

This is something that you seem to be having a hard time grasping, and it's an important basic to understand if you are interested in pursuing an advanced degree. 

[mcb27]

PhD length varies person to person, let alone program to program. You complete coursework and then write a thesis, which is essentially a book-length piece of original research. This takes students anywhere from three to six years. 

 

As for an MA thesis, in my experience, smart students know their topic before the end of their first semester and are at the very least digesting secondary materials during that first semester. Lots of factors shape the nature of your research. Where are the sources? Do they need to be transcribed/translated? etc. You're going to be doing research during school, which means you'll have to balance that research with your classes and with TA responsibilities if you're fortunate enough to have a position. Hopefully you can get a bulk of your thesis work done the summer that bisects your (hypothetical) two-year MA program. But you'll have to make a living during that time, as well. TAships (at least for MA students), rarely pay you during the summer months. So you'll have to factor in all of this in trying to predict how much time is spent on your research.

 

If you'd like a more general answer, graduate school is a full time job, that should occupy you 40-60 hours per week. Probably more certain weeks of the year.

Edited September 19, 2014 by mcb27

[mcb27]

"You complete coursework and then write a thesis, which is essentially a book-length piece of original research. This takes students anywhere from three to six years."

 

I'm of course referring to the thesis portion here. 

[RevolutionBlues]

This article may help: https://thebluereview.org/faculty-time-allocation/

As you can see, teaching and administration are the bulk of the time commitments. Unless you are tenured at a top tier research institution, a preciously small amount of your time will be spent on research.