Princeton advertises its “commitment to undergraduate education” extensively on its website, but the level of access that students have to professors and instructors varies widely across subjects. The Daily Princetonian analyzed 500 Fall 2023 course syllabi — broken down into humanities, social science, natural science, and engineering disciplines — from the Syllabus Library to see how the hours Princeton faculty offer for drop-in differs across disciplines.
The most common times for office hours across all disciplines were between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m., which coincides with some of the most common class times across campus. This may prevent students from attending office hours that are set during their other classes.
The most popular times for classes to host office hours are between 1 p.m. and 5 p.m.. Office hours are also often held between 10 a.m. and 12 p.m., the most common class block.
This can make it hard for students to take advantage of office hours. To further support students, many professors also list that students can meet with them “by appointment” on their syllabi.
Engineering courses offered the most amount of office hours in comparison to the amount of lecture hours, with one course providing up to 29 office hours per week. In comparison, the course with the largest number of office hours in the humanities offered 10 hours, with a maximum of nine hours for social sciences and 8.5 hours for natural sciences.
Engineering courses offer nearly two times more pre-set office hours per week than other disciplines. In non-engineering disciplines overall, for every two hours of lecture time, instructors offered one hour of office hours. However, there is a stark divide between this ratio and that of engineering courses, which offer nearly a 1:1 ratio of lecture time to office hours. Natural sciences courses offered the least amount of office hours in comparison to class time, with around a 3:1 ratio of lecture time to office hours.
However, the courses offering the most amount of office hours per capita were in the humanities under the Dance and Journalism departments. For the 12 and 15 students in DAN 319A: Choreography Workshop I and DAN 213: Introduction to Contemporary Dance, respectively, one instructor offered 10 office hours per week. For the 12 students in each of JRN 447: Politics and the Media: Foreign Policy, Public Opinion, and the Press and JRN 449: International News: Migration Reporting, one instructor offered six office hours per week. In contrast, the engineering course with the highest amount of office hours per capita was ORF 363: Computing and Optimization for the Physical and Social Sciences, which held 16 office hours between six instructors for 60 students. In natural science, this was four hours between two instructors for 45 MAT 335: Analysis II: Complex Analysis students. In the SPIA department, one instructor for SPI 401e: Unleashing Latin America’s Potential for Prosperity held three hours per week for 10 students, which was the highest amount among social science courses.
The courses that offered the highest number of office hours overall were the prerequisite computer science courses: COS 126: Computer Science: An Interdisciplinary Approach, COS 226: Algorithms and Data Structures, and COS 217: Introduction to Programming Systems. These courses each held more than 23 office hours per week, not including debugging lab TA office hours, which add an additional 30 hours of help per week.
The most popular days for office hours were Tuesdays and Wednesdays. The middle of the week was the most popular for instructors to set their hours, with 70 percent of office hours occurring between Tuesdays and Thursdays. By department, humanities and social science instructors offered more office hours on Wednesdays, whereas natural science instructors offered more on Tuesdays. Engineering hours were spread out relatively equally from Mondays to Thursdays.
Fridays and the weekends were the least popular choices for setting office hours, although engineering instructors were more willing to host office hours during this time. Only engineering courses set office hours on the weekends, with about three percent of office hours scheduled for Saturday and four percent scheduled for Sunday. Humanities courses offered the fewest office hours on Fridays.
These extra weekend engineering office hours may be explained by the fact that natural science and engineering courses are taught by double and triple the amount of instructors than humanities courses on average. Analyzed engineering courses had an average of three instructors per course compared to the 1.3 instructors per humanities course and 1.5 instructors per social science course. Natural science courses had an average of two instructors per course.
The most popular time for STEM (natural science and engineering) office hours was between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m., and the most popular humanities office hours were between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. Social science office hours were most likely to be set between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m.
90 percent of instructors opened up their offices from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., with few opting to open their doors before or after these times. Four percent of analyzed office hours were set between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m., and five percent of office hours were set after 6 p.m. across all disciplines. Lunchtime, right around noon, was also comparably unpopular within the 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. time frame. Engineering instructors were also more likely to offer evening office hours, with about 18 percent of hours set after 6 p.m.
The most popular block of time for office hours overall was Tuesdays between 2 p.m and 3 p.m. The next most popular blocks of time were Tuesdays and Wednesdays between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. and Thursdays between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. Three office hours were held between 8:30 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. ANT 201: Introduction to Anthropology offered hours on Wednesdays, and both POL 300: Migration and Forced Displacement and POL 392: American Foreign Policy offered hours on Friday mornings.
Humanities office hours were the most concentrated of all disciplines, with office hours distributed like a bell curve centered from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. Natural science courses offered the fewest office hours over the week and were the most fragmented. Engineering office hours were disproportionately held in the evening compared to other disciplines.
Although the numbers show that engineering courses provide the most amount of instructional time outside of lecture hours, the format of office hours also varies between departments. Office hours for smaller humanities courses may allow for more 1:1 support, whereas those for large introductory engineering courses may be more crowded and faster-paced. The use of virtual office hours, which are not differentiated from in-person hours within this data, can also be more or less supportive for different students depending on their learning styles and needs. Many instructors also offered to meet with students “by appointment,” which is not reflected in this data.
Erin Yoo is a staff Data writer for the ‘Prince.’
Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
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