The first couple months of my Columbia MBA experience have been intense, to say the least. I feel like I'm earning a Master's in Time Management more than anything else. Digesting the class reading material takes one to four hours per course.
Classes total three hours a day, either in the morning or in the afternoon.
Readings and problem sets take up to six hours of work each day. Group assignments to prepare case studies require weekly or biweekly team meetings that often last for an entire day. Life has changed quite a bit since the start of the semester. Although these sessions are optional, the attendance can sometimes be high depending on the complexity of the subjects reviewed. Most of my weekends since the start of the semester have been spent studying.