In my final year of formation. Our Diocese uses a 5 year formation with 4.5 of that (basically) being academics through St. Leo University. Honestly, I really didn’t expect that much studying and writing papers, etc. when I first applied. It’s a lot of work and a lot of time. Some of our class dropped out after the first year because of it. Like any college classes, some are exceptional and others were only “so-so”. It really depended on the professor
I will second Charybdis above and say that the relationships you make are very special. I routinely call and text a couple of my classmates everyday- even though they both live hours away from me and we had never met before formation. For me, it’s been a very spiritual and fantastic experience.