Taught masters degrees - how many contact hours?

[fortyfifty]

We're trying to work out how feasible it would be for DD to live at home and commute to do a masters degree. She'll be studying a biosciences subject. I have no idea how these might be structured and how many days she might have to commute.

Obviously no-one can give me the exact answer, as all will be different. She will of course do her research with the actual universities if she goes to some PG open days. But I'd like to hear of anyone's DC's experiences.

Did they have time to do a part-time job also or maybe some tutoring?

Any heads up about fees and funding and alternatives ways to study the masters - e.g. distance learning, part-time, etc... would also be welcome.

DD did a taught masters in a conservation. She had quite a full on first semester (end of sept to end of Jan) and then we were completely shocked how little she had in the second semester - it was quite bizarre. At Easter there was a field trip & then 3 or months of project/dissertation work. There would have been time for volunteering or a job, but probably not over the summer.
It was really shocking how little input she had from the uni from February onwards, so look into that quite carefully. There were only two unis that did the specific course she wanted, neither of which were terribly prestigious universities (reasonable well thought of but not top tier).
It's a few years ago but the fees swallowed up most of the loan. Fortunately we were in a position to help her out, but otherwise she would definitely have needed a job as she was living away from home.

My bioscience dc had two full days of labs and lectures till Easter. Plus every day in the lab Easter to August doing project.

Loan funded fees and bank of mum and dad funded living costs.

Will she not have to be doing a lab project in which case every day & likely weekends is quite likely for part of the course at least. Microbes do not have 9 to 5 hours!

DD2 did a control of infectious diseases Masters 2 years ago. It was unbelievably intense and very hard work, though she was studying at one of the world's top universities for that subject.

She thought she would be able to work at weekends and maybe an evening or two. No chance. There was far too much work to do.

But to address your main question @fortyfifty she did commute, had to be in labs most days but only had an hour's journey each way so that was do-able. As @titchy says, loan covered her fees, bank of mum and dad her living costs.

I did a taught masters a LONG time ago.
I basically did M-T 8.30-5.30. Friday I worked the morning, then jumped on a train to see my then bf. Evenings and weekends were mine (STEM subject, and I came top in the year).

Thanks everyone. This is painting a more coherent picture of how a week might pan out. It's better for her to have a realistic picture before she considers a near home university that will equate to over an hour's commute each way.