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What is the max number of units you can do per semester? And what is the effect? (1 Viewer)

Politic

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What is the max units you can do per semester?

AND

What effect will this have to how often you go to uni for contact hours? i.e. more than 3 days per week for max units per semester?
 

andyfg88

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5 is the max.

Considering most units are usually 3-4 hours contact time per week.. that's around 20 hours of contact time. At uni you pretty much make your own schedule, but the lectures have fixed times, so you would usually try and group your tutorials as close to your lectures as possible. So there is no concrete way to say how many days.

You can have for example, a lecture on monday, a tutorial for that lecture on tuesday, another lecture on wed etc..

It depends on how you structure it.
 

Atlas

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What is the max units you can do per semester?

AND

What effect will this have to how often you go to uni for contact hours? i.e. more than 3 days per week for max units per semester?
Contact hours don't generally indicate the amount of work and effort required for a particular unit.

I've heard of someone doing 7 units, but they obviously had to get permission to do it and they did say that they pretty much stayed on campus 7 days a week and had no life other than university studies for that semester.
 

andyfg88

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Contact hours don't generally indicate the amount of work and effort required for a particular unit.

I've heard of someone doing 7 units, but they obviously had to get permission to do it and they did say that they pretty much stayed on campus 7 days a week and had no life other than university studies for that semester.
You're totally right about that... I'm doing 4 subjects at the moment (2 law and 2, third year arts - my final two). I can't even begin to describe the workload.. aside from being at uni for all of thursday and friday, i spend literally on average 12 hours a day studying for law and 2 or three hours on arts.

I once considered doing 5 subjects but I realised quickly it would be academic and social suicide.
 

AsyLum

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That depends I've done a 6 unit semester before but had three production units so it was all project based so while the front end of it was quite hectic, once submissions were in, it was pretty cruisey with the other three
 

Atlas

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You're totally right about that... I'm doing 4 subjects at the moment (2 law and 2, third year arts - my final two). I can't even begin to describe the workload.. aside from being at uni for all of thursday and friday, i spend literally on average 12 hours a day studying for law and 2 or three hours on arts.

I once considered doing 5 subjects but I realised quickly it would be academic and social suicide.
Don't mean to dampen your spirits - but if they're your last two arts units and all you have left are law units.... ENJOY your arts units. Doing 4 law subjects in a semester = ;_; Imagine the amount of law reading for a unit x 4 every week of the semester :D
 

Politic

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5 is the max.

Considering most units are usually 3-4 hours contact time per week.. that's around 20 hours of contact time. At uni you pretty much make your own schedule, but the lectures have fixed times, so you would usually try and group your tutorials as close to your lectures as possible. So there is no concrete way to say how many days.

You can have for example, a lecture on monday, a tutorial for that lecture on tuesday, another lecture on wed etc..

It depends on how you structure it.
So 5 units is the max... Can someone give me an example that illustrates the difference in contact hours from say 2 units to 4 units? Arts/Law examples would probably be best for me. :)
 

hungwell1337

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you cant overload in your first year

you will know the answers to these questions in 1 years time
 

Atlas

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So 5 units is the max... Can someone give me an example that illustrates the difference in contact hours from say 2 units to 4 units? Arts/Law examples would probably be best for me. :)
You should be asking about the workload and not necessarily contact hours. For law, it's 2 hours for a lecture + 1 hour tutorial a week for each unit. But these 3 contact hours doesn't reflect the amount of weekly readings which depending on the lecturer can be 50 pages a week for each unit. You should also consider the amount of hours required for assessments (and imagine that most assessments are due around the same time). But then again, many law students don't go to lectures, and after a while you can learn what readings you have to do and what can be skipped.

And as hungwell1337 said above - definitely, don't try overloading in your first year.
 

andyfg88

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Don't mean to dampen your spirits - but if they're your last two arts units and all you have left are law units.... ENJOY your arts units. Doing 4 law subjects in a semester = ;_; Imagine the amount of law reading for a unit x 4 every week of the semester :D
Don't worry you haven't dampened my spirits more then they've already been dampened - I think about that every single day lol.. I'm living in a perpetual state of fear over what is to come next year.

The thing is, these two remaining arts units are amongst some of the most boring arts units I've ever done... It's a shame because I've always relied on arts to give me that breath of fresh air, and after this It's just going to be law law law law law for 2 and a half years straight, 4 units a semester and considering I already have to read like 200 pages a week for law, I'll probably have a breakdown..

...but I'm sure it's doable.. i just won't get fabulous marks :(
 
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andyfg88

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The university, as far as I know will only usually let you do 5 if you have a decent GPA. I don't think they would allow a Law student to do more than 5, it's absurd.

I don't think you realise (or you're grossly underestimating) how much reading is required, there is not enough hours in a week for you to do more than 5 subjects... even 4 is a lot.

The contact hours mean nothing, its the reading hours that count... and as mentioned that doesn't even include the time you spend on your assignments.
 
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Atlas

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Don't worry you haven't dampened my spirits more then they've already been dampened - I think about that every single day lol.. I'm living in a perpetual state of fear over what is to come next year.

The thing is, these two remaining arts units are amongst some of the most boring arts units I've ever done... It's a shame because I've always relied on arts to give me that breath of fresh air, and after this It's just going to be law law law law law for 2 and a half years straight, 4 units a semester and considering I already have to read like 200 pages a week for law, I'll probably have a breakdown..

...but I'm sure it's doable.. i just won't get fabulous marks :(
It's doable, but yes, it does drive you crazy because everything you read about ends up being about law :( They should really consider restructuing the combined law programs so that the law and non-law units are spread evenly.

You might think those arts units are boring now, but when you have four law take home exams staring at you, those arts units suddenly seems so interesting :D
 

Politic

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Does every unit tend to have a day to itself or do some people have something in the morning and then something in the arvo?
 

andyfg88

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Strictly speaking, neither of those.

For example, on Friday between 9am - 11am I have Torts, and then I have Sociology from 12-2pm and then from 3-4pm I have the tutorial for sociology and then from 4-5pm I have a Torts tutorial.

It can be all over the place.

What they do is they have the lectures at a fixed time, and multiple tutorials throughout the week and throughout the days also at fixed times. The onus is on you to structure your classes so they all work accordingly and do not overlap, and then you register in those classes.

It's very different to school.
 

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