Geez, that’s true…it always takes more time that you expected. I tried to ration my time, but always was falling behind my wish-list “schedule”. I tend to burn a bunch of hours at a time…Sunday nights like 5 or 6 hours at a time, easy to do when building a couple of structures, for instance.
It will be interesting to kinda see what the average time is for people who post here. I’ll take a stab at it at some point.
I spend about 2 to 4 hours a week on my layout. I got some track layed and my switch machines in place. I am in the process of wiring. Nothing running yet.
When I worked a full-time job, 12 hours a week was a good average for the last few years before getting laid off. Then I went back to school. In the three yeasr I took to finish my undergrad degree (kids, don’t drop out of school! You’ll regret when you get old…especially if you decide to go back [xx(]) I had basically a 0 hour average, although I may have done a little on the layout over the 2 summers I didn’t go to summer school.
Fortunately, my hard work paid off. I stayed here at Illinois because I really couldn’t have found a better group of people to work with given the subject matter of my dissertation for my graduate degree. But I also had to be good enough, as our History Dept. is highly competitive in terms of the quality of grad school applications they have to choose from. With the “job security” of a commitment at Illinois for the next few years it takes to get a PhD, I started working on the layout again.
In contrast to a lot of people, I actually get more done during the summer, becasue I have more time. Time for the layout makes up most of my modeling time, as I decided to keep my huge stock of craftsman kits on the shelf to concentrate on getting the layout up and running. I finished with most of the tracklaying and wiring at the end of the second summer of grad school. The last two years have been spottier, since things only get more crazy until you get done with prelim exams. I can work anywhere from 0 to 15 hours a week, depending on what else is going on, during the semester.
Thus a shout out to Dave V., as I finished my oral prelim exam just this morning and am now ABD!
[swg]
Being in the service while in grad school is an even more difficult task, but will be worth it for Dave, I’m sure.
If you have time for it, working on the layout helps to destress and clear the mind when you’ve been writing too long (like this post [:-^]). And I
Congrats, Mike! My oral prelims are 4 June. I passed my 2-day written prelims back in January.
Fortunately, while the Air Force has given me just 3 years they’ve made the PhD program my full-time job. So other than a few nuisance additional duties from time-to-time, I’m a full-time student.
I recon on average 1-2 hours a week but last week i did about 10 hours. i have to fit it round looking after the children and the wife who works nights and afternoon’s.
Mike, that’s a pretty impressive comeback story…congrats on your achievement!
watch a little tv shawnee but not a whole lot.hours not spent on the layout are spent taking care of aquariums and playing slot machines[yeah]…terry…
I’m 10-15 hours per week. I really need to find a way to pick up the pace. I’ve planned out a 10x20 doubledecker and at the rate I’m going it’s going to take another 4 years (I’m about 1.5 years into it).
I recently bought a TV for the garage to encourage me to spend more time out there. That has probably been the biggest impediment to spending more time on the layout. The layout is in a detached garage and going out there after work is tough (especially since with commute I work an 8am to 8pm schedule). In the house I can work on structures and there I’m ahead of schedule with many structures built for portions of the layout where track hasn’t even been laid. However, that mismatch can’t go on forever.
At some point, I may try building a section in the house and then installing it in the garage so that I have more in-house work to do.
Thanks, Dave and all, for the congrats.
And good luck on your exam, Dave. It’s a good feeling to get past that.
Good to hear that the AF is supporting you all the way. It’s somewhat easier like that. My dad got his MBA through the AFIT program in 69-71 at Indiana, our only post really near home. And it was a non-stop two years!