Farm Report
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SURVEY How They Really Spend Their Time |
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THEY SAY STANFORD students are like ducks -- placid on the surface, but paddling vigorously beneath. Now the truth can finally be told: students on the Farm work harder than their counterparts at a certain school in Cambridge, Mass. Okay . . . maybe the study is not quite ready for the New England Journal of Medicine. But according to a time-use survey conducted by Marc Wais, dean of students, and Keith Light, '78, an associate director of development, Stanford freshmen spend 45.97 hours a week on academic pursuits compared with 40 hours reported by Harvard freshmen. (Light did a similar survey for his doctoral thesis at Harvard.) The Stanford results are based on diaries kept for a week by 70 students. "In spite of a sun-drenched campus and many potential distractions, these results appear to challenge any notion that Stanford students are 'laid-back' when it comes to their studies or have lighter academic commitments than their Crimson counterparts," Wais and Light wrote in a memo accompanying their report. Based on the research, a portrait of an average day: Academic pursuits 27% 6.46 hours Sleeping 30% 7.09 hours Socializing 10.3% 2.48 hours Eating in cafeteria 5% 1.2 hours Nonacademic computer time 3% 0.71 hours Extracurricular 2.9% 0.69 hours Other activities 22% 5.37 hours |