US students on architecture college courses put in more extra hours than those taking any other subject, a recent survey has found.
Architecture majors put in an average of 22.2 hours a week of study outside their classes, according to Indiana University's National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) as reported by The Tab.
This is 2.5 hours more than chemical engineering students, who came in second. Other engineering and science subjects make up the majority of the top 10 hardest working.
Courses relating to communications, sports and management all came in towards the bottom, with 11 extra hours as the lowest figure.
Across the board, the average overtime was calculated at just under 15 hours – seven less than a typical architecture student.
The NSSE collected the data from thousands of freshman and senior students taking 86 different majors across the US.
Among a long list of questions about their studies, they were asked how many extra hours they spent studying, reading, writing, and doing homework or lab work out of timetabled hours.
The Tab then averaged the results and compiled them into a ranking order.
The amount of time spent working has previously been linked to a high rate of depression and other related disorders in architecture students.
Results of a survey last year found that more than a quarter of those studying the subject in the UK reported mental health issues caused or affected by their studies, with workload among the leading contributing factors.
In the wake of these findings, the head of The Bartlett – one of the world's top architecture schools – called for an overhaul of architecture education and accreditation in the UK.