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<p>Wow, promoted to a dean. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Anyways, it’s true … if you want to sleep 8 hours per day, want to be a good student (go to all classes/recitations, do all homeworks completely and accurately, study, read the book thoroughly) then you will only have limited free time. 2 hours is about average for those who follow the above procedures. If you think you can do all the above and have lots of free time, then you are a genius (that’s my only explanation …)</p>
<p>I think most UCLA engineering students have and will find ways to get more free time – sleep less, skip classes, copy from solutions manual, underestimate the material and theory/get surface knowledge, learn the material and forget the subsequent quarter). It’s your choice of how you spend your time. The dean demands an amount but there’s too many variables to control how much time you should spend doing something (your goals, aptitude, passion).</p>
<p>At least for my point of view, the dean wants people to spend that much time on academics is because he wants every student to MASTER the material, not just know if for one quarter or year. The best way to test your knowledge is to teach someone – to answer someone’s question … or to teach it to your grandma. Think about the courses you took last year; are you confident in tutoring others in that course? Or even more crucial, what if you were a TA. How embarassing would it be if a student asked you a difficult (but not impossible) question and you had to “get back to him/her on that question”? It’s okay for high school teachers to do that (you’ve probably visited that scenario before), but definitely not professional when you are a TA or future leader in the industry. </p>
<p>Now, there are those who do extra work such as extra problem sets, study the book meticulously, and read the book in advance. This type of person would have no free time. There are some people who are like that, and they are usually the top students. I think the reward is very worth if for them.</p>
<p>Engineers are busy and endure a lot of stress. Analogous to the industry life, engineering work will be sometimes boring, but also challenging. It is painful and full of unpaid overtime hours, but one will receive sufficient satisfaction (or else no one would want to become an engineer). </p>
<p>This post probably had no point, but just filled with conscious facts.</p>