Many people who want to study hospitality or tourism and advance their careers are already working part time or full time in the industry.
For those who are already juggling work and family or other life commitments, the idea of adding study to your schedule can be a bit scary. But, don't let the idea of more hours put you off before you've even looked at the options.
Firstly, get informed about how many total hours are really involved in the hospitality or tourism course you're considering studying. That means:
- Not only hours spent in scheduled classes, but also
- Hours spent on self-directed learning and assignments outside the classroom, and
- Hours spent completing course-required work placements or internships.
Secondly, remember that you can choose between different course delivery options that will affect your weekly hours.
- A part-time course (available to domestic students only) will require fewer hours per week but will take longer to complete.
- An accelerated course can be completed much sooner but will require a bigger weekly commitment of time.
- Doing a course online can also save you some hours by cutting commuting and gaps between classes from your weekly schedule.
Although courses do differ across universities and colleges, most bachelor and diploma courses in hospitality and tourism follow a fairly standardised schedule across two semesters or three trimesters per year.
By breaking down the total weekly hours involved in hospitality and tourism courses at Torrens University Australia, you can get a fairly accurate picture of the hours involved in our diploma and bachelor courses. Let's look at four popular courses:
- Diploma of Business (Tourism Management)
- Diploma of Business (Hospitality Management)
- Bachelor of Business (Tourism Management)
- Bachelor of Business (Hospitality Management)
Rather than each course being a set number of hours per week, it's helpful to think of each course as a group of subjects you need to complete.
These subjects must all be successfully completed in order to get your qualification, but there is no one rule for how quickly you have to work through them: they can be completed at a pace that suits your weekly schedule. How many hours you work per week is entirely up to you and whether you choose an accelerated, full-time or part-time workload.
Diploma of Business (Tourism Management)
This course is made up of 8 subjects: 4 core business subjects, 3 specialised tourism subjects and 1 elective subject. Each subject has a value of 10 credit points. All eight must be completed to get the diploma, which requires a total of 80 credit points.
Each subject involves an average of 10 hours of study per week:
- 3 hours of scheduled classes, and
- 7 hours of self-directed study including assignments.
To be awarded Diploma of Business (Tourism Management), students can complete the 8 subjects over:
- Two trimesters with an accelerated course at a rate of 4 subjects per trimester, which equals 40 hours per week.
- One year full-time at a rate of 2.5 subjects per trimester, which equals 25 hours per week.
- Two years part-time (for domestic students only) at a rate of one subject per trimester, which equals 10 hours per week.
Diploma of Business (Hospitality Management)
This course is made up of 8 subjects: 4 core business subjects, 3 specialised hospitality subjects and 1 elective subject. Each subject has a value of 10 credit points. All eight must be completed to get the diploma, which requires a total of 80 credit points.
Each subject involves an average of 10 hours of study per week:
- 3 hours of scheduled classes, and
- 7 hours of self-directed study including assignments.
To be awarded Diploma of Business (Hospitality Management), students can complete the 8 subjects over:
- Two trimesters with an accelerated course at a rate of 4 subjects per trimester, which equals 40 hours per week.
- One year full-time at a rate of 2.5 subjects per trimester, which equals 25 hours per week.
- Two years part-time at a rate of 1 subject per trimester, which equals 10 hours per week.
Bachelor of Business (Tourism Management)
This course is made up of 24 subjects: 8 core business subjects, 10 specialised hospitality subjects (including 2 industry practicum subjects) and 6 elective subjects. Each subject has a value of 10 credit points.
A minimum of 800 hours of industry placement needs to be completed during the second year of the course, across the 2 industry placement subjects. This can be completed at a flexible pace, within the duration of your course. These hours can be completed through paid, part-time or casual work that you might already be doing.
Each subject (except for the industry practicum subjects) involves an average of 10 hours of study per week:
- 3 hours of scheduled classes, and
- 7 hours of self-directed study including assignments.
To be awarded the Bachelor of Business (Tourism Management), students can complete the 24 subjects over:
- Two years with an accelerated course at a rate of 4 subjects per trimester (12 per year), which equals 40 hours per week of learning, and 800 hours of placement per week in second year.
- Three years full-time at a rate of 2.5 subjects per trimester, which equals 25 hours per week of learning, and 800 hours of placement per week in second year.
- Six years part-time at a rate of at a rate of 1 subject per trimester, which equals 10 hours per week of learning, and 800 hours of placement per week in third year.
Bachelor of Business (Hospitality Management)
This course is made up of 24 subjects: 8 core business subjects, 10 specialised hospitality subjects (including 2 industry practicum subjects) and 6 elective subjects. Each subject has a value of 10 credit points.
A minimum of 800 hours of industry placement needs to be completed during the second year of the course, across the 2 industry placement subjects. This can be completed at a flexible pace, within the duration of your course.
Each subject (except for the industry practicum subjects) involves an average of 10 hours of study per week:
- 3 hours of scheduled classes, and
- 7 hours of self-directed study including assignments.
To be awarded the Bachelor of Business (Hospitality Management), students can complete the 24 subjects over:
- Two years with an accelerated course at a rate of 4 subjects per trimester (12 per year), which equals 40 hours per week of learning, and 800 hours of placement per week in second year.
- Three years full-time a rate of 2.5 subjects per trimester, which equals 25 hours per week of learning, and 800 hours of placement per week in second year.
- Six years part-time at a rate of at a rate of 1 subject per trimester, which equals 10 hours per week of learning, and 800 hours of placement per week in third year.
As you can see, the weekly hour workload for the accelerated, full-time and part-time options is the same across all four of these courses. This means that a full-time diploma involves the same weekly workload as a full-time bachelor course: it just takes a different amount of time to work through the course content.
The major difference is that with the bachelor course you also have to complete your industry placement hours, while completing your study.
The good news is that your part time or casual job in the industry you've been doing to help pay your way through study can also count as an industry placement.
If you're already working in the industry, you might already be doing enough hours to fulfil your placement obligations. Chat to your success coach about how you might be able to get credit for your part time job as part of the industry placement component of your bachelor course.
