How much time will this actually take each week?

How Much Time Will This Actually Take Each Week?

Underneath this question is usually a bigger one — can I actually fit this into a life that already has work, or kids, or both? That's a completely fair thing to want settled before you commit, so let's separate what's fixed from what flexes.

What's fixed: Five Branches runs on a trimester calendar, and full-time coursework meets on weekdays during the day — this is structural, not subject to term-by-term change. What flexes: you don't have to do it full-time. Tuition is billed per term, so you can genuinely pace yourself — full-time, part-time, or even one course at a time as a non-degree-seeking (NDS) student to test the rhythm before enrolling in a degree.

Here's what each track adds up to in total hours, as Five Branches' own program catalogs state it (last checked 07/2026):

Two things worth noticing in that table: the DAOM meets in monthly 3–4 day weekend intensives rather than a steady weekly rhythm, so its "weekly" load looks completely different from the entry-level programs. And none of these catalogs spells out an exact hours-per-week figure for a given term — the honest answer is that it depends on which trimester and which electives you're in, so rather than invent a number, the place to see the actual weekly grid for the current term is the school's own academic schedule page.

If you'd rather feel out the pace before deciding anything, NDS lets you take a single course per term first — no pressure, and no full schedule to plan around yet. Is it the full-time pace you're weighing, or trying to fit this in part-time around something else?