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Lowell
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Postby Lowell » Thu Dec 18, 2008 10:26 pm

Do not Teachers get time off like the kids? Getting off some of the summer months and holidays etc? Now I own my own company, but when I worked as an engineer for the past thirty years, I would work 60-80 hours a week, plus be on the road all the time, 24/7 on call too, only getting home one or two weekends a month. I had a huge crew, and if I didn't go over hospital or military base blue prints, the guys would be standing around the next morning...so there were many two am nights and little sleep. I remember one system cut-over that went on for days and nights...I worked 38 hours streight, then got six hours rest and went right back at it. Then there are the classes to get certified on every kind of telecommunications central office switch known to man and much more, some last a month or two. So my head has been buried in tech manuals for most of my life. Now that I am my own boss...I have gotten way lazy lol, and only work that hard and long for my art and game projects. :)

School and being young...savor those years; you will look back at school and friends for many decades, way after they are all far away and gone.
Happy Holidays :)
Last edited by Lowell on Thu Dec 18, 2008 10:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby Lowell » Thu Dec 18, 2008 10:49 pm

Sounds like Teachers were just as busy after-hours. Social Sciences would be a hard job. The last seventy to eighty years on the planet have been pretty wacky as far as history goes, so many changes along the way to study. It would be great to hear all the thoughts about the Banker Robber Barons that exist in our present era from students. :P
Hats-off to all that teach, the planet just doesn’t have enough, we could never have too many.
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Postby TomCat39 » Thu Dec 18, 2008 11:20 pm

Then you can be a standard gvt stock worker and anything over 7 hours a day is overtime. Typical work week is 35 hours and weekends off. Much simplier than college studies. :P
"Now, stop being a douche to the newbie, and run along."

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Postby xander » Thu Dec 18, 2008 11:52 pm

TomCat39 wrote:The full time student usually has the same issue. 8 hours of classes, then 4+ hours of homework, researching and/or studying. And many a weekend loss to cram sessions or essay writing.

It's true though, it really does make a difference by what you do for a living. Many executives work 70+ hours a week, let alone the time at home with the ol' blackberry.....

I would really be interested to know where you attend such that you spend 8 hours a day in class (unless you are talking about some pre-university setting, in which case, you don't know what school work is like). At UNR, a full-time load is 12 credit hours. Many students might take 15 or 18 hours, but 12 hours is considered a full-time load. That means 15 hours per week in lecture. It is also assumed that you will spend another 30 hours or so outside of class each week completing assignments, researching, &c., bringing the student workload up to about 40 hours per week (what would be considered a full-time job in the US). Even the most diligent students are not working on school related stuff for more than 50 or 60 hours per week.

Compare that to how I described teaching. First, most high school teachers in this area will teach six classes in a day, each running 50 minutes (with five minutes between classes for transition). We are also contracted to be on campus at least 30 minutes before classes begin in the morning, and 30 minutes after classes end in the afternoon, and there is a 7th class hour that we have for prep time. This is basically an 8 hour day, not including 45 minutes for lunch (and most of that 45 minutes is often spent working, too). Right there, you have 40 hours per week. Add another 1.5 hours every weekday to grade (that is, plus about 8 hours), and 8-16 hours on the weekend to prepare, catch up on grading, &c., and you are looking at a 60 hour work week. This is as time consuming as attending classes.

Lowell: teachers do not get the same breaks as the students. We are generally required to stick around for a couple of weeks after the students leave, and to show up a couple of weeks early. In year round schools, where the breaks are only a month or so at a time, these periods are a bit shorter, but we still end up being at work when the students are not there. Furthermore, much of the break is spent working, as well. And it should be pointed out that the comparison I was making was to college students, who have basically the same academic calendar as a high school student -- thus, college students get as much time off as teachers (if not more).

When comparing this to other kinds of full-time jobs, teachers probably have fewer contracted hours, however, note that we don't get a lot of leave. We are generally granted five days of paid leave per year. We can take more time off than that, but we won't be paid for that. Compare that to most US companies, which grant at least two weeks of paid vacation every year, plus two weeks of sick leave. I think it basically comes out in the wash.

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Postby Lowell » Fri Dec 19, 2008 12:11 am

...yup...so see guys, being a student in school isn't so bad after all huh? :)
Enjoy the Holidays
Last edited by Lowell on Fri Dec 19, 2008 12:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby Xocrates » Fri Dec 19, 2008 12:11 am

xander wrote:I would really be interested to know where you attend such that you spend 8 hours a day in class


Actually, although that number does seem a bit high, I did manage to had close to that in college.

By default I had 6 different courses by semester, each with 4-6 hours of classes per week making for about 30 hours weekly. Add to the fact that due to a poor first year I usually had +2 coursesto catch up with (and I was a slightly above average student) and I had semesters with pretty much that workload.

Mind you, 4 additional hours of homework per day does seem a bit much. But we usually did had to deliver lab reports (often 2) every week or two, plus ongoing group works that usually required (at least) a presentation and an extensive report.

And then, of course, comes exam season...

Thing is, I'm pretty sure that by my college standards we weren't all that bad.

I'm pretty sure that if I walked past my college next week, the computer labs would be full.
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Postby MikeTheWookiee » Fri Dec 19, 2008 12:56 am

I've looked at my timetable for after the break, and once the exams are out of the way, I've a whopping 12 hours a week, spread over 2 whole days. That number includes lectures and scheduled workshop / lab sessions. There is a project, but I haven't done anything on it so far, and have no real plans to start until March... As for independent / outside lecture study, others do it, but I mostly sit with them, drink tea, do sudoku, and give them a hand with theirs if they need it. :)

Total - 15-20 hours at a push. This is a great big piece of piss. What I remember from work, on the other hand, was having to be out of bed and in work, reasonably presentable, <not still pissed from last night>, at the allotted time (fortunately 10am). Then actually functioning and talking to people reasonably for the next 9 hours (included lunch break) and being able to think through various tasks (like not blowing the factory up).
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Postby Colmy » Fri Dec 19, 2008 12:57 am

a change of subject, guess the song:

-./.-.
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Postby Mas Tnega » Fri Dec 19, 2008 1:03 am

Less than three, you and me, typing out my fantasy. Meet me here on IRC, L-O-L-O-L.

[size=0]"NR"? The hell? Swapping dots and dashes makes only slightly more sense...[/size]
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Postby xander » Fri Dec 19, 2008 1:08 am

Xocrates wrote:By default I had 6 different courses by semester,

At every US institution that I have had any involvement in, most courses are 3 hours per week (actually, 2.5 hours, as each "hour" runs only 50 minutes). Thus, 6 courses would be an 18 hour course load. This is beyond what is needed to be considered a full-time student, and would generally be considered a very heavy load.

Xocrates wrote:each with 4-6 hours of classes per week

That is interesting... how do you end up in class 4-6 hours per week per class? What kinds of classes were these? Most of the 4 hour classes that I know of here are intro level classes (calculus, for instance). Thus, while you might meet in class for 4 hours per week, the work is easier, and you spend less time outside of class.

Xocrates wrote:But we usually did had to deliver lab reports (often 2) every week or two,

Lab classes are generally handled differently here, and for good reason. A normal 3 hour course meets for 3 hours during the week. The expectation is that for every hour you spend in class, you will spend two or three hours outside of class getting homework done. Thus, a 12 hour course load is a full time job (12 credit hours * 2-3 hours outside of class + 1 hour in class = 36-48 hours per week = full-time job). Lab classes are generally only worth one credit hour, and are generally taken in conjunction with some other course, turning that three hour course into a four hour course. Thus, the course should occupy about 8-12 hours of your week. If you spend three hours in lecture, plus 3 hours in lab, you still have 2-6 hours for other homework, which will probably be plenty of time. Even if you aren't taking the course that goes along with the lab, it occupies three hours in class, pluse another two or three hours to write a lab report (maybe 6 if you are really, really slow, or the lab report is really, really in depth). Thus, lab classes need to be considered slightly differently when taking into account how much time a student actually spends working.

That being said, I am generally a pretty diligent student. I also keep logs of how much time I spend working (it keeps me from spending too much time on trivial things). Last semester, I had a 12 hour course load. That is four classes. For one class, I worked less than two hours outside of class each week. For the one math class that I was taking, I tended to spend about 6 hours outside of class each week, on a pretty consistent basis. Another class had a lot of work due at the beginning of the semester, and less toward the end. At the beginning of the semester, I was spending about 10 hours per week on this class, but by the end of the semester, it was down to less than three (most of which was reading). The last class required a lot of work, and I spent between 10 and 15 hours on it each week, only two or three of which were spent reading. All together, that is a 38-43 hour week. I've had heavier semesters, and I've had lighter semesters, but that is pretty typical of the semesters that I have had in the past (looking over the numbers, my average workload has been around 55 hours per week).

Another thing to think about: how long does it really take you to write a lab report, or finish a homework assignment? And how much time are you spending in front of a computer and actually doing it? One of the reasons that I started keeping logs was that I felt I was spending way too much time on homework. So, I started writing down when I was actually working. It turned out that I was generally only working for 15-30 minutes at a time, then allowing myself to get distracted by other things (the interwebs, television, whatever). But, because I never really got completely away from the work, it felt like I was still working. If nothing else, keeping logs kept me on track better. ;)

xander
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Postby Phelanpt » Fri Dec 19, 2008 1:23 am

Mas Tnega wrote:Less than three, you and me, typing out my fantasy. Meet me here on IRC, L-O-L-O-L.

[size=0]"NR"? The hell? Swapping dots and dashes makes only slightly more sense...[/size]


I'm typing LOL
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Postby Xocrates » Fri Dec 19, 2008 1:46 am

xander wrote:
Xocrates wrote:each with 4-6 hours of classes per week

That is interesting... how do you end up in class 4-6 hours per week per class? What kinds of classes were these? Most of the 4 hour classes that I know of here are intro level classes (calculus, for instance). Thus, while you might meet in class for 4 hours per week, the work is easier, and you spend less time outside of class.


3 hours theory + usually 2 hours exercise class. Thing is we were not really expected to do much homework short of the mentioned lab reports and groups works.

So you get the idea, this is what first year, first semester looks like currently, and perhaps the closer I can get to a "standard" schedule (it didn't get any better until at least 4th year, and it only got worse until then).

Now, you only really have one of those morning classes once every week (it's a lab class), but when I entered it was a 4 hour class, not three. Also, you only need one exercise class per course despite the schedule showing more. Additionally it seems that currently exercise lessons are 1.5 hours instead of 2, so currently they have 21 hours a week and in my time I had several hours more (totaling at least 24 (adding in the two courses I was usually catching up with and the fact that in most semesters we had two lab classes and I'm pretty sure I personally managed 38 hours/week at some point)).

And by the way, there are no breaks between consecutive classes outside the time it takes moving from one room to another.


I'm also pretty sure that if I summed all the time I actually spent working the number wouldn't be that big, but that's part of the problem really: If I wasn't working I felt like I should be. Add in the fact you usually were working in more than one group work at a time (often different groups) and that you didn't want to let them down and the stress levels were pretty big.

Once I got to my internship it was amazing how ludicrously more relaxed it was.
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Postby Mas Tnega » Fri Dec 19, 2008 2:55 am

So... anyone else find Game Damage depressingly bad?
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Postby Wasgood » Fri Dec 19, 2008 8:18 am

Thanks for bringing that to my attention. I do hope they get picked up by the ABC.
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Postby vanarbulax » Fri Dec 19, 2008 8:51 am

Yeah Game Damage was pretty bad especially with the whole "help, give us money now please" feel it had which I guess was what it was supposed to do. Mainly people checked it out because of yahtzee and the problem with having the co-hosts is: 1. It breaks yahtzee's image of a completely anti-social hate filled misanthrope with too high expectations for everyone and everything, something a lot of his watchers (including me) can relate too and 2. he either spews out his usually pile of disdain for other peoples opinions making him look like a jerk or he goes along with what others are saying which means he loses his yahtzeeness.

But probably I think the main problem is that videogame shows in that format suck 99.9% of the time because they are usually a bad mix of rushed and superficial game reviews, in-jokes or incredibly obvious humor and news which anyone with an internet connection already knows. This problem has generally been rectified with copies amounts of boobs which is noticeably absent in Game Damage.

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