Ask HN: Workload in Uni more than in a CS Job?

[mcasaje]

According to my professor and some other people, they said that it's very possible that, as a Computer Science student, getting through university may be the largest workload that I have to handle.

So my question is, putting aside being a founder of a company, how would working in a cushy Computer Science job compare in terms of workload to university life? What particular CS-related jobs would require more/less work? More or less stress? Different flow of high volume workloads (eg. constant workload, high workload at particular times)?

If demographics is a factor, I'm a Computer Science student at the University of Toronto.

[ayers]

I would general agree with this but I think it comes down more towards the type of person you are and the way jobs and study are viewed.

University is seen as a fixed term situation and is at an individual level. Here are the things you need to do, now go and do them by this time. Work is kind of the same but you have set hours that you are willing to do the work in. Generally this is 9ish-5ish. Your boss accepts that you have a life outside of your work(I hope) and will accept that you can only do so much during your set working hours. There will be times that you have to put in extra hours in the evenings or weekends but this should never be the norm. The time frame for the completion of a project is usually based on there only being a certain amount of time each week that any one person can give to the job. You can increase and decrease the amount of workers to change the completion time. While at University it is at an individual level and you cannot increase or decrease your clones. Being at University it is up to you to decide how many hours you are to spend on learning or completing something.

I know when I was a student I certainly spent over the "normal" 40 hours a week on my studies. During the end of my degree I was in the 80+ hours a week. This really does depend on the person though. Some people will do the bare minimum to scrape through with Cs and might not spend over 40 hours a week. I invested pretty much all of my time on my studies, so for me my workload took up a far higher amount of time during my degree than it does at my current job. This is all based on working for a company, not a startup(yours or someone else’s) or contracting. They pose different parameters around working hours, workloads and motivations.

[timthorn]

In my 3rd & 4th years of CompEng at University, I was consistently working between 80 & 120 hours per week. Although I've not worked in startupland, I have worked in one of the large consultancies and in a significant engineering company in both marketing and development. I've had peaks of required effort, but never had to put in anything like those two years.

[macca321]

It depends how hard you find it, and how well you want to do. I know some people can get through with a good mark doing 3hrs a week 46 weeks of the year, and 80hrs the other 6 weeks (before exams and dissertation hand-ins).

I wouldn't recommend this though. Slow and steady wins the race, procrastination then working like mad makes you STRESSED

[stray]

He said it's very possible. He did not say it is very likely.

It is also very possible that you'll win a lottery.

But having said that, my advice is not to worry about the future (or the lottery) -- things will work out to your satisfaction.

Or they won't.