College while trucking

1.I've heard good things about UND engineering programs. Due to not having properly accredited engineering or good science majors in my local geographic area, UND was one of the Universities I researched and I liked what I found.
2. Everyone is different in regards to working and taking college courses. I found I actually did better working full-time and taking evening courses than just taking classes. Seems the momentum and inertia of keeping myself busy helped me. I also had a job (electronics technician) that didn't physically exhaust me and make it difficult to have the extra energy needed to attend evening classes.
3. I accumulated about 80 hours of credits before my efforts ended. My advice is to try and get in college stuff before kids. Once I became a parent, I wasn't able to keep going.
4. I found it was VERY important for me to maintain a balance while juggling so much. I played on a dart league which 'forced' me to go out once a week to 'have fun'. It started by an unexpected and poorly planned situation, but I discovered it was actually essential to keeping everything going. The balance was what it brought and what I found critically essential.

Unsure if any of that is helpful, but it is my experience and lessons learned. Best of Luck to You!!!

 

I read all week during my downtime, complete assignments as soon as I get home. Realistically 1-2hrs of time, per credit hour, per week. Expect a heavier workload the week of midterms and finals, normally will have projects due as well.

 

I don't know much about your program but if they have an online option take that one. With three days off a week you would easily be able to keep up. If you have to actually go to class then it will be a different and only you can decide how easy or hard it will be. A 4 year degree isn't meant to be easy, it takes determination and a lot of energy to get it done. I can't answer how much study time you need because I'm not you, for me I need roughly an hour a day. That doesn't mean I actually spend an hour a day, just averaged out.

You can speed up the time by CLEPing most of your Gen Ed. You need to ask how many CLEP credits your school allows. Most schools allow 10 or so. That is a whole year off your schedule. If you can do shortened semesters then that will shorten it significantly.

For me, school is simply doing the work. Every week, 2 forums, 4 replies and the requisite citations and whatever else is needed that week. Sometimes a couple of quizzes, sometimes a research paper....sometimes 2 research papers. I'll be done in a year with my degree.

Have you been in the military?

 

Finals week can be extremely stressful. For instance, last semester I had to do a 10 page research paper for one class and write four essays for another. It was brutal!

Make sure you have the right idea about a research paper. Writing it is easy, but for a 10 pager you need about 7 to 10 citations and most professors don't take .com ones. That means you have to find sources that are academically acceptable and that part takes a long, long time because you have to read so much.

 

I personally find taking one to two 7-8 week courses at a time worked best for me and you can just run them without a break. To me it's easier to focus on just a couple things when you work a lot instead of 4-5 like a normal class schedule works. I was putting in 70 hour weeks and never felt like I was in a bind. I did skip a project here or there to spend time with family but I was still able to get A's doing that. Luckily, I can listen to lectures without taking notes and learn just fine which helps being a driver.

I'm not sure if I'll ever actually get a degree though. I just take things I want to learn without any structure towards a degree. Mostly astrophysics and I'm not sure if I have the motivation or the brains to get a masters or doctorate to make that worthwhile.