California students taking it easy

University of California students spend more time sleeping, being with friends, doing sports and with non-academic computer use, than in classes and studying.

This is according to a data sample collected two years ago by the Center for Studies in Higher Education (CSHE) in Berkeley, as reported on inside highered.com

In the survey of all nine of the university’s undergraduate campuses in the spring of 2008 and completed by 63,600 students, students reported getting six-and-a-half hours of sleep each night and spending 41 hours a week on social and leisure activities. Meanwhile, students said they spent a little more than 28 hours each week combined on classes and homework.

Of the averaged 41.1 hours each week on social and leisure activities, 10.7 went to non-academic computer use, 10.5 to socializing with friends, 6.0 to recreational or creative interests, 5.4 to physical exercise and sports, 5.0 to watching TV and 3.5 to attending entertainment events.

Recession can have changed habits

According to Steven Brint, a professor of sociology and Associate Dean of the College of Humanities/Arts, Arts, and Social Sciences at UC Riverside, there has been a longtime increase in leisure time at every type of institution, in every major, and in every demographic group.

»There’s something about the college experience as something that has to do with friends, social life, organizational involvement, recreation and not just academics,« he says.

California’s universities and the state of California have been hardhit by the global economic recession. The data was collected before the recession hit California’s institutions and families, with its economic instability, budget cuts and tuition hikes, the study’s authors admit.

uni-avis@adm.ku.dk