How many hours of lectures / seminars is normal

[Marmitemyway]

Is it me or do the amount of hours you get of lectures etc vary massively from course to course and uni to uni
Ds at a Russell group looks like he’s got 6 hours a week over 3 days whilst other friends have way more - I understand sciences have more due to lab time etc but
is there a norm ? Just seems so few for the £!

This. As I tell my students it’s called reading for a degree for a reason. Sadly too many students want to be spoonfed and appear incapable of independent study. As a lecturer I spend a lot of time trying to improve a students skills in this area. But still if we’ve had a lecture on a topic they still want me to tell them exactly what page in a textbook they should read for further reading. I mean they have my references for a start. I encourage them just to literature search that topic and see what they find and they look at me gone out.

Number of hours will change each semester depending on which modules they have chosen

Humanities tend to have less teaching hours with the expectation that students will be reading the main bulk of the week.
I only had 8 lecture / seminar hours per week doing History.

Mine has about 12 hours iirc (politics and IR) but as above, a massive amount of reading.
Nobody will quiz you as to whether you've done the recommended reading, but often it's the basis for the seminars abs tutorials and most definitely for the written assignments.

The thing is, it’s not school, @Marmitemyway - most of the value of university education is in the independent study a person does, guided by whatever lectures and seminars are offered; supported by the facilities provided and the critical mass of like minded scholars. (Ideally!)

I recall the first year of my Oxbridge History degree involved just one compulsory supervision (one to one meeting with academic supervisor) per week, and however many non-compulsory lectures I chose to attend. But I was expected to do a vast amount of reading in preparation for my weekly essay. When I switched to Law I had more supervisions and lectures were more crucial - but I don’t think I learned any more.

Is it me or do the amount of hours you get of lectures etc vary massively from course to course and uni to uni

It’s been the case for decades.

The course DH teaches on has 18 hours lectures a week and then also lab work plus they are then expected to do self directed study. That’s first year, the easy year. The course has close to 100% employment rate after graduation. I used to work in a social science dept, nowhere near as many contact hours. I have retired now and have tried to delete certain stuff regarding my job in my head so can’t remember the exact contact hours.

Humanities courses typically have lower contact hours: under 10 hours a week of lectures/seminars wouldn't be unusual. But there may also be regular opportunities to see staff 1 to 1 in office hours, or an expectation for students to work in study groups which would not appear on time table as students have to organise.

Some universities are little more than assessors. It's not good enough to offer so few hours. Self study isn't an excuse. People pay all their lives for this.

So students taking an English degree shouldn’t have to read, then? How long do you think it takes to read (say) a hefty novel, some poetry, a play and some secondary texts each week for the two or three modules you may be studying each term? Not to mention writing essays and other assessments?

Thanks, interesting comments and very different experiences - from course to course!
I'm not concerned just surprised of lack of structured lectures /seminars i understand its a lot of self study as does DS

What do you mean by lack of structured seminars and lectures? All modules will have a structure (syllabus)?

And it wasn’t the universities choice to make them pay. It was the government. Universities have I suppose not changed their degree delivery since that change. Which is fair enough, if it was good enough before then it’s good enough now.

I do really dislike the idea of the student as a consumer/customer. Though I accept it’s easy for students to get in that mind set and yes a university must deliver what they have promised to or it’s false advertising ( my dds cohort just got their third year fees refunded due to a particularly bad shitshow where the university forgot to teach two entire modules).

However paying x amount doesn’t mean they’re entitled to dictate terms, nor does it entitle them to 40 hours a week f2f teaching. They need the non scheduled time to direct their own learning as they will have different interests and different weaknesses and need to be looking at different things.

universities will be upfront about these details. I tell potential applicants on open days what the timetable will look like. It’s up to them to decide if they think it’s worth it or not.

Dd1 has 14 hours a week of lectures, then a tutor group and some.additional extra modules she can choose. So between 14 and 18 hours a week I would say.
She is studying languages at non RG uni.

Well, my undergrads generally have a couple of full-length texts to read each week for my seminar, plus similar for their other module. I could request the timetablers to schedule two days per week where we all sit in the same room for 8 hours and read these texts together.

Don't think many students would appreciate that, though!

Reading is their equivalent of lab work.

However paying x amount doesn’t mean they’re entitled to dictate terms, nor does it entitle them to 40 hours a week f2f teaching. They need the non scheduled time to direct their own learning as they will have different interests and different weaknesses and need to be looking at different things.

Absolutely @VeloVixen

Remember, folks - university is not school.

My experience, doing an Oxford joint STEM/humanities degree, was that the STEM part was much more structured in terms of (optional) lectures, but I ended up working a lot more for the humanities part! Actual compulsory stuff for me was 2 or 3 tutorials a week and sometimes a seminar or workshop depending on options (but I avoided doing any lab work).

DD is doing a design course. About 10-12 hours/week structured time, but she spends a lot longer than that in the studios or printroom.

I did 25 hours a week. Maths.

Probably another 5-6 hours a week of reading/coursework. No essays or dissertation though. Just exams.

I did a history degree at a RG uni. I think the most contact hours I ever had was 10 hours a week in first year. When taking seminar preparation and essay assignments into account I probably did more study total than people with 20 hours +, it was just massively skewed towards independent study.

Dd doing stem - 2x8hr lab days + 10 hours lectures, 4 hours seminars + tutor group. Approx 10 hours independent study. (40hr week)
Dd doing English lit - 6 hours lectures, 6 hours seminars, approx 30 hours reading/independent study.

@DogInATent The value-add to the individual student is total lecturer time, and that includes non-contact marking/feedback generation Assuming no marking boycott...

DSs timetable for this year (international relations with minors in history and politics) currently has ten hours of contact time scheduled. He has been told that they are expected to do roughly 20 hours of self study on top of that each week

Top 10 global uni here and ds has on average 33hours of lectures and labs a week. STEM. On two days he has them straight through from 9am until 6pm with no break for lunch.

@FriendlyLaundryMonster is this Compsci at Imperial.by any chance? Invested in the reply as DS has applied for 2024...it sounds intense.

@Travelban Yes! It doesn't phase ds at all; he's just excited 😂But, it would be a bonus if he could eat! Good luck with your ds's application.