Law Contact Hours Normally

[nolanmcfarland]

I got my timetable back, and it seems like contact hours for Arts/Law are quite low. I have 13 hours a week to start, but then it drops off to like 9-10 hrs a week throughout the semester, going as low as 5 hours per week near the end of the semester. Is this normal? (For reference, my Arts major is History and minor is French). I have a full study load, of 2 law subjects and 2 arts subjects, which is supposed to be standard.

Just wanna make sure I didn't enter my units incorrectly or something, and if I should go back and check if everything is right.

[www]

From my experience in Arts, units typically have 2~4 scheduled hours per week depending on the discipline, so your 9~10 hours isn't odd even if you consider the Law units. Some units (which I assume your Law units) adjust contact hours throughout the unit depending on their teaching method. You can try and see if the 2019 unit guides are up (otherwise, check the 2018 ones). Unit guides will typically indicate the number of hours so you can double check.

You'll find that the amount of hours you are expected to be physically present in some sort of room is drastically lower than secondary school. You spend more time outside of classes studying or doing assignments, with of course, new found time for other activities.

[Professor Polonsky]

In general, core law subjects alternate between 3 and 4 hours, with 2 x 1.5 hour lectures, and a tutorial every second week, or alternatively only in weeks 7-12. Electives (and ethics) only have the lectures.

It looks like they've changed the first-year law unit so to only run in the first 9 weeks. The unit guide manager is a good place to check these things.

Mod Edit: Fixed the broken link.