BOULDER — Annie Bielinski pored over her organic-chemistry notes last week, reviewing formulas she learned in class.
The University of Colorado at Boulder student estimates that she studies 28 to 30 hours a week, fitting two part-time jobs and her studying schedule together like a jigsaw puzzle. Her nose is buried in the books for more time than her peers at CU, according to a new study raising concerns that undergraduates on the Boulder campus, on average, are only spending 11 to 15 hours a week preparing for their courses.
“I spend a lot of my time doing schoolwork,” said Bielinski, a junior majoring in integrative physiology who has a 3.5 grade-point average.
The National Survey of Student Engagement gathers information on an array of topics pertinent to students’ academic habits — such as how often students make class presentations, how many times they write papers that are more than 20 pages and how frequently they volunteer.
CU analysts who evaluated the campus’ results — and stacked them up against comparable universities nationwide — said the surveyed students are spending slightly less time studying and on academic work than students at the other schools, and the campus could make “significant improvements.”
This is the fourth time since 2000 that CU has participated in the survey.
About 4 percent of CU freshmen surveyed reported they spend 30 or more hours a week studying, compared with 8 percent of freshmen at comparable universities. However, 11 percent of CU seniors indicated they study 30 or more hours a week compared with 9 percent of seniors at peer institutions.
Michael Grant, associate vice chancellor for undergraduate education at CU, said the university sets high standards for itself by comparing the Boulder campus to the best public universities around the country.
“The amount of time that you spend outside of class studying isn’t the indicator of how well you’ve learned the material,” Grant said.
About 84 percent of both freshmen and seniors reported they would attend CU-Boulder if they were starting over again.
Officials said the findings don’t mean that faculty will start assigning heavier loads of work. But, Grant said, they will get a better idea of how much time students spend studying for their classes.
