When I began grad school last year, the school gave me a breakdown of how many hours of work each class was going to amount to. I was taking the max number of credits that I could, so it was no small number of total hours. I was also working my full time job, in addition to some part time work. The school is also about 45 min. away with current traffic conditions, so I had a bit of a commute to class everyday. I began to realize that I would have very, very little free time.

The other day I did the math on how many weekly hours I actually had available during that 1st semester. Here’s how it finally broke down:

Number of weekly classes: 4-5 (14 units)
Weekly in class hours: average of 14
Weekly hours for assignments and readings as specified by the college for the number of units I was enrolled in: 60 (roughly 15 hours per week per 4 credit class)
Weekly hours spent working full time job: 35
Weekly hours spent planning for work, working part time job, or other responsibilities: 8
Weekly hours spent commuting: 7
Target goal for weekly hours sleeping: 56

Total numbers of weekly hours outlined above: 180
Total number of hours actually contained in a week: 168
Total number of hours available for free or personal time: -12

No wonder I was losing my mind.