Spare time to attend lectures for Grad students?

[pivoxa15]

This question is addressed to (past or present) graduate students doing MSc or Phd. I am aware that there isn't any coursework for these students? Or maybe very rare amount? In my uni there isn't any for maths or physics grad students.

Do you spend most of your time doing your research? Do you find time to attend (although not neccessarily enroll since they don't check enrollments during lectures) some of the undergrad lectures that you did not do when you were undergrads? If so how many of those subjects do you think you can fit in per semester? I am assuming you are doing all the coursework in those subjects and not only listen.

 

[quark80]

Personally I don't have any time to attend lectures. I spend all my time doing research and writing up. If my uni was more flexible in allowing extensions to PhD candidature beyond 3 years I'd have attended some classes. But that's life I'm sure if I really wanted to I could have found time, but I'm already doing around 70 hours a week. If I tried to take on any more than that I'd lose my sanity (or what's left of it) :tongue:

 

[mathwonk]

When I was a grad student, I think I attended lectures and also taught, except maybe for the last semester.

 

[neurocomp2003]

Depends on the type of graduate programme your in and the amount of courses required to graduate? As a project option student there was quite a bit of coursework in first term(i'm required to have 6 half year credits in 18months...research option is 4half year credits). So if you pile all the credits into one term(i know students who did 4 first term) then for the other 16 montsh you have TAship/2-3 half terms/research or project. The remainder of the time is how you organize it? some poeple solely focus on their thesis, other have other jobs, others run extracurricular activity...i attend other graduate(rathrer than undergraduate) courses. Its 3 hours per course a week, but i don't do the assignments...i'm just there to learn the concepts adn try to code or find papers for the remainder of the free time i have.


If you feel that doing the assignments would give you a better understanding of the topic your sitting in on, and you have the time...then IMO do the assignemnt. Personally if the assignmnet takes loinger than 4 hours i do not think its worth it.