How many hours of homework is normal in college?

A common rule of thumb is two to three hours outside class per credit hour per week, so about 30 to 45 hours for a 15-credit semester. It varies a lot by course.

How can I see my hardest week in Canvas?

Count assignments by week using your Canvas calendar, or paste your Canvas link into the free Cooked Score at lum9a.com/cooked to see it instantly.

What is a Cooked Score?

A free score from 0 to 100 that estimates how heavy the rest of your semester is, based on how many things are due and when.

How Cooked Is Your Semester? How to Tell If Your Workload Is Too Much

Some semesters feel fine until week 10, when everything is due at once. The good news: you can see that week coming from day one if you look at your due dates the right way.

How much work is normal?

A common rule of thumb in US colleges is about two to three hours of work outside class for every credit hour each week. For a 15-credit semester, that's roughly 30 to 45 hours a week on top of class. Real courses vary a lot, but if you're far above that most weeks, it's not just you.

Signs your semester is too heavy

More than 8 to 10 things due in a single week, more than once.
Two or more exams in the same week, plus projects.
You're regularly starting assignments the night they're due.
Sleep is the first thing you cut every week.

Find your hardest week before it arrives

Get every due date in one place. Your Canvas Calendar Feed link has all of them.
Count by week, not by day. A day with 4 small quizzes is easier than a week with 3 papers and an exam.
Mark the peaks. Find the two heaviest weeks and start the big work in them two weeks early.

Get your Cooked Score

We built a free tool that does this for you. Paste your Canvas link into the Cooked Score and it shows how much is due this semester, your hardest week and day, a rough estimate of hours left, and how your school compares with others. Your link is used once and not saved.

What to do if you're cooked

Front-load the peaks. Move effort from your hardest week into the quieter weeks before it.
Talk to professors early. Asking for an extension two weeks ahead goes much better than asking the night before.
Use office hours and tutoring for the class that eats the most time.
Consider dropping or switching to pass/fail if your school allows it and one course is sinking everything else. Check the deadline with your advisor.
Plan one week at a time. A 15-minute Sunday plan beats a perfect semester plan. Here's how to plan your week in 15 minutes.

Make it lighter day to day

Break big assignments into small tasks you can finish in one sitting, and check them off as you go. lum9a pulls in your Canvas assignments, lets you split them up, and grows a tiny world every time you finish one, so a heavy week still has small wins.