Middle and high school is where a lot of students learn to stop being curious due to a lack of time. College demands far fewer hours per day, but it can be hard to forget what was taught previously.
I have to agree with you. So many of my professors have been vocally disappointed with their students for their lack of intellectual curiosity after it had been beaten out of them through the overstuffed schedules and pointless busy work of K–12.
If you are someone who is on the cusp of a better grade at university then
any
curiosity time is better invested in restudying the past exam papers. I think PhD has more of a curiosity culture
at least in the first year but I
never did one.
Also hard subjects at uni - there is only so much deep thinking you can do per day
It depends on your courseload that semester. When I was taking organic chemistry I would spend a good 8 hours in the library a day monday-thursday on top of class, which would open the weekend up for partying. Wake up at 10 for class at 11, then straight to the library with the occasional break for meals or other classes until 11pm or so, whenever I got too tired to continue. By my senior year when I was just taking interesting electives, I was totally coasting, probably throwing in 2 hours a week in the library in total.