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Cristian Aparicio-Diaz
UWRT 1104
31 October 2018
WID: I believe that the sources and voices that I brought into my thesis are strong. Not only did I
include my voice as a student, but I made sure to also include voices of advisors, professor,
How much time should students reserve each day for assignments to have a successful year at
college?
At some point of our lives, we all have gone through a time constraining situation.
Furthermore, It is widely known that most college students tend to procrastinate and leave major
assignments for the last minute. For many students attending college this is the first glimpse of
freedom that they are afforded. On top of that this is the first time that students are put to the test
when it comes to balancing their time. On the other hand students in today’s generation are
working a lot more than previous generations of college students. Personally I myself have
struggled in the past, with not leaving enough time to effectively complete all of my
assignments. This is my first semester here at the University of North Carolina Charlotte. And
being that I am attending college while still maintaining a steady part time job at a local body
shop, I have personally seen the struggle,that many others experience when it comes to balancing
our time. More often than not I have assumed that my assignments will not take as long as I
expect, but have been disappointed when I have had to stay up late to complete them. But with Commented [1]: I really like this point and that majority
of your audience can relate to it.
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that being said, the issue seems to be that many other students are also experiencing the same
issues with time management that I have. It was through my own personal experiences and the
experiences from my fellow classmates that eventually sparked the following question, “how
much time do college students need to reserve each day for classwork in order to be successful in
college?”.
realization. Am I going to have enough time for homework having a job and being a full time
student? It was through my personal experience and the research that I was able to come up with,
that I have learned that this is actually a question that many other students are asking as well. In
the journal article “Understanding the working college student” by Ms. Laura Perna, she states
that “ nearly one in ten full time traditional undergraduates is employed at least 35 hours per
week”. Ms Perna is professor at a higher education campus at the the University of Pennsylvania.
In this particular journal article it is understood that recent change in trends for college students
who are working has increased, while on the other hand graduation rates have lowered. This not
only confirms the need for college students to have a little bit more discipline when it comes to
managing their time, but it also highlights the need to answer the question which I have
entrepreneur provides college students with excellent advice and tips that they can benefit from
in his article “time management tips for college students”. One of the most important tips that he
offers is to “keep a regular routine” (Rosenberg 2017). This has been extremely helpful in my
situation this semester because I planned my daily schedules out and was able to make sure that I
atleast have 2-3 hours left at the end of every day. In addition I try to stick to the same plan day
in and day out. Ms Charlotte Kent who is an assistant professor at Montclair State University, in
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addition to being a published author proclaims in her article “teaching students to manage their
time” that it is recommended that “if a student is in class for three hours, then four and a half
hours of homework per week is acceptable and considers an adequate college education”. Her
recommendation of hours spent per week is very close to the amount of time that I spend on
homework. All of my classes are every other day and they are also in the afternoon and in the
evenings. So that format fits my schedule perfectly. Ms Kent mentions in her article that of the
beginning of the semester she teaches her students time management. She asks her students to
complete a “24 hour schedule” (Kent 2018) and once they realize how much spare time they
have available to add those four hours that she recommends to homework, wherever they may
have an opening. It also also important to note that while students may prefer to set aside the 2-4
hours for homework consecutively, it also acceptable to divide the time into chunks.
In the book entitled The Secrets of college success by Dr Lynn F Jacobs and Mr Jeremy
Hymen it is also explained into a little bit more detail on how the time should be used for
as Mr Hymen is a chief architect for a series of professors guide. In their book they mention that
students should use methods such as “divide and conquer” which is when students are suppose to
complete assignments piece by piece as opposed to leaving everything until the last minute. They
also encourage students in higher education to “keep a log”. Keeping a log allow students to
write down everything of which is already completed and everything that still needs to be done.
From experience I can attest that the strategies of which they provide work. I have learned that
breaking down major assignments piece by piece allows me to better organize and gather up my
every two hours for one assignment per class. Many would argue recommend for students to
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complete every assignment that they have began to its entirety. But everyone has their own way
of doing things, and I have found the advice that is given in the book to be extremely beneficial
As I was conducting research for my proposal, I created a survey that I shared with my
fellow peers. My sample sizes were small but the results from my fellow peers here at The
University of North Carolina at Charlotte had a very close resemblance to my past experiences
when it comes down to time management. Most of the questions which I presented were all
centered around time management and college students. Take as an example the first question
which I presented to my classmates. I asked them “ On average about how many hours do you
spend on completing homework/classwork?. I did not come to surprise that about 90% of
students who completed the survey, were able to agree that on average they spent around 1-4
hours a day on homework. Those figures seem to support the claim that Ms Kent makes in which
she proclaims that students should dedicate at least “2-4 hours a day” for classwork. In addition I
asked my fellow classmates whether they were aware of the time management workshops that
UNCC has to offer to its students? 60% of students were aware of the workshops while 40%
percent were not. Out of everyone who took the survey, nobody has been able to attend a time
management workshop, including myself. Which makes me wonder whether schools should
incorporate those types of workshop into mandatory the beginning of the school year. Once the
semester has begun many students are on a very tight schedule. Many can't afford to take time
out of their day to attend events like those. Therefore, it would be a good idea to incorporate
those workshops at the very beginning of the year so that students could benefit from them
throughout the semester. Many professors have included time management classes at the very
beginning of the semester for their courses , therefore I believe it to be beneficial for colleges to
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incorporate them into mandatory orientations especially since it appears that students are not able
to attend them. Moreover, In my survey I also wanted to get an idea on how many of my
classmates were also working, such as myself. After gathering up the results I learn that about
66% of my fellow classmates are also working. Some are even taking on more hours than I am
That was very surprising to see, to say the least. If many students struggle to manage their time
with no jobs or either part time jobs, I can only imagine the challenges of which they would face
with working a full time job. Lastly, I asked my fellow classmates a question of which I required
them to be very honest about. I asked them “ Have you ever procrastinated to the point where
you have had to rush to complete an assignment? If so how long did it take you to complete the
assignment?. I was glad to have received very open and honest responses from my classmates on
the question of which was presented to them. Everyone who answered my survey admitted that
they have at some point procrastinated on a assignment and left it until the last minute. The time
frames from which they had left to complete the assignment ranged from 10 minutes until about
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3 hours until the assignment was due. Personally I believe that answers that were provided to me
by my classmates highlight severity of the issue that college students face in managing their time
As I conclude on the findings that I have come across from both my sources and my
surveys, I have also thought about a couple suggestions that would ultimately help students set
aside the proper amount of time for them to complete assignments. One that personally benefited
me, while also helped professors looking to help students improve in their time management
skills was to create and fill out a weekly planner. Not only did that help me visually see were all
my time was going but it also helped me see how much time I had available at the end of each
day. I have come to realize that once the academic year starts it is very hard to pause for a minute
to see where you may be at with time, therefore completing the schedule planner at the beginning
of the year allows to me see what I have in store in the semester. In addition I would also like for
my fellow classmates to know that the time that we should set aside for assignments or study
time, does not necessarily have to be consecutively. Experts have said it is okay if you want to
divide your time up into chunks, or by studying whenever you an opening in your day, then
pausing and continuing later on throughout the day. I believe that students have the idea that you
have complete everything with the 1-4 hours that you have designated at the end of the day.
Lastly after completing a survey I believe that it would be beneficial for students be be required
to attend a time management workshop at the beginning of the year. Large in part, because not a
lot have been able to attend the workshop throughout the semester. But I believe that a lot would
experiences and of those by scholars,I believe it to be imperative for students to know how much
Work Cited:
Charlotte, Kent. “Teaching Students to manage their time”. Inside Higher ED, 2018.
https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2018/09/18/how-teach-students-time-
management-skills-opinion2018
Rosenberg, Ross. “Time management tips for new college students”. HuffPost, 2017.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/ross-a-rosenberg/time-management-tips-for-
_b_12435970.html