Time is a critical resource that you must carefully manage.
Setting proper goals are essential for long-term success. A goal to learn is more important than a goal to complete school quickly.
Instructional designer Charles Reigeluth (1999) writes that "When an educational or training system holds time constant, achievement must vary... The alternative is to allow time to vary – to give each learner the time he or she needs to reach the learning goals" (p. 18). Traditional semesters have fixed beginning and ending dates that seemingly "hold time constant."
Weber State's FLEX courses relax the beginning and ending dates to give you the time needed to "reach the learning goals."
However, students in non-FLEX courses can still control their learning time by creating appropriate schedules. Begin by allocating time for tasks beyond your control: work, family, community, sleep, etc. Add class and study time. Notice that you control your per-class study time by deciding how many classes to take each semester.
In 2017, Cornell College suggested that "To read a page of text for simply understanding the basic concepts and memorizing (what you probably did in high school) you will spend 1-2 minutes per page. To read a course textbook thoroughly and for the purpose of understanding its nuances and relation to other course material, the average reader will need to spend 4-6 minutes per page. A slow reader may need to double that time."
There is a well-known rule of thumb for allocating study time: For every one credit hour in which you enroll, you will spend approximately two to three hours outside of class studying. For CS 1410, that means 4 (class or equivalent for online) + 12 (study) = 16 hours / week.
Some discount this rule. For example, an article in USA Today suggests that students study an average of 17 hours a week. And student Tkconger commented in an online discussion that, "You don't really need a formula. Just do the work involved and if you feel you have a good grasp on the concepts then you are good. If you don't understand what's going on then study. It's not too hard to figure out."
There are two problems with the "if you don't understand what's going on then study" approach. First, you need to build your schedule before classes begin. Second, the time you need to study each week may vary over the semester. The old rule of thumb is only an estimate, perhaps an overestimate, but it is a beneficial planning tool. It is better to have some unexpected free time than being forced to drop a course after the refund period or accepting a poor return on your educational investment.
Reigeluth, C. M. (1999). What is instructional-design theory and how is it changing? In C. M. Reigeluth (Ed.), Instructional-Design Theories and Models: A New Paradigm of Instructional Theory (Vol. 2, pp. 5-29). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.