<p>Bump....My sister ran into this recently when she had to complete a form for her medical insurance company verifying that her freshman D was a full time student. The company had a difficult time understanding that 4 credits/courses at her D's LAC could be full time. The standard form for the ins. company said they required the student to be taking 12 credits. They required them to get a letter from the LAC stating 4 credits was considered full time at that institution.</p>
<p>At my SLAC, we use course units rather than credit hours. 4 course units a semester is the norm, and only seniors are allowed to take 5 units without getting permission or paying extra. </p>
<p>It seems that the lab science and art students get the short end of the stick. They have to spend far more time in class for the same amount of credit as other students.</p>
<p>Re LAC engineering -- Swarthmore has engineering as well.</p>
<p>I don't think that number of credits one gets from the course necessarily reflects the degree of difficulty (or time requirement). At Stanford, for example, many introductory classes are 5 units, so freshmen often end up taking 20 credits, which looks very impressive ;). The more advanced classes that meet less often, but require infinite amounts of work, are often 3 credits (or 4 at most, if you do some extra work) - so juniors and seniors will often have 13-16 credits at most, but they work much harder for them.</p>
<p>At Swarthmore all courses are 1 credit (except for honors seminars that are 2). Four credits are a full load. Taking 5 is common, but the "extra" one is often music, chorus, etc.</p>
<p>At D's school, LAC, they take just 4 courses and need to get permission to take 5. That's because just about all the courses require outside hours weekly, not just science labs. Foreign Language requires movie watching with a written review, an hour or 2 of one-on-one with a native TA, and then meeting for dinner when the target language only is spoken. This, plus time at the language lab, takes immense time. Virtually every class D has taken has outside hourly requirements beyond the classroom. This, plus studying...heavy load. Some of her friends have done 5 courses, and most say they wouldn't do it again. The time crunch was incredible! Each course is one unit, same for science as for all others.</p>
<p>At my D's lac they take four courses per semester as the norm. From what I hear at her school and other lac's to keep class size down it's tough for kids to get into many of the courses. Because of the size of the school and the number of profs and the limited number of courses per semester offered at the typical lac as compared to a typical university the lacs would be hard pressed to require their students to take five or six courses per semester. There wouldn't be enough courses or profs to accommodate the requirement. Just a random thought.</p>
<p>Dana's Dad</p>
<p>Thanks, I didn't understand why my D at a LAC had one credit per class! She is in various music ensembles, all of which seem to give fractions of credits. After the busyness of HS plus working, she felt she could handle more than a normal course load, so is taking 5 classes plus the music this semester. Last semester she felt she wanted more challenge. Hopefully she'll keep her head above water with all the activity.</p>
<p>While the vast majority of LACs operate on the semester system and generally support the standard 8 courses/year offering, Carleton is an exception with its trimester system offering 3 courses/term, 9 courses/year. In addition to these, partial credit lab courses, pass-fail weekly seminars, and performance music classes, for example, can be added on (if you dare). I suppose this would translate to the heavy 17-20 credit course loads previous posters have alluded to occasionally seeing pursued at larger schools. The 3x3 system at Carleton is probably most closely approximated at the uni level by Dartmouth.</p>
<p>If you like the idea of lots of dabbling, the two private unis that most come to mind are Midwestern neighbors of Carleton. Northwestern requires 45 courses to graduate. With its trimester system and 4 courses/term allowed (more with special permission), 48+ courses in four years are certainly doable. Chicago has a slightly lower 42 course graduation requirement. Also trimestered, one is capable here as well of completing 48 come graduation time.</p>
<p>With regard to the question of workload, there will be little difference between LACs, private u's, and state u's of similar academic reputation within a given major. Numbers of courses required per term will tell you little about a colleges rigor. There will certainly be schools in each category at extreme ends of the Bell curve work-wise. But kids at Swarthmore taking "only" four courses per semester would unlikely be designated as slackers.</p>
<p>I'm a current engineering student at a LAC. I can see how it may seem that some students might get the short end of the stick when it comes to credit in relation to how much time we put in, but in the end I don't think it matters. We might get more credit, but we'd still have to take the same number of classes. We'd graduate with around 200 credits, but we'd still be right where we are today in terms of number of classes taken. No one'll let us out the door with 3/4 a degree! ;)</p>
<p>With that said, I'm still bummed about certain engineering labs that, while required, carry no credit value!</p>
<p>I'm currently at a big state university. I came in with a semester's worth of credits so can afford to take this semester a little lighter (schedule-wise, not hours-wise). Last semester, here's my schedule:</p>
<p>3 hours for bioethics
3 hours for chemistry 2
3 hours for intro to psych
3 hours for international relations
1 hour for leadership
1 hour for honors seminar about pharmacology
1 hour for freshman orientation</p>
<p>this semester i have
4 hours for pathobiology
3 hours for honors chemistry 3
3 hours for honors psych
3 hours for honors research (through bio dept, cancer center, and vet school)
3 hours for american government (should have taken AP!)
1 hour for leadership</p>
<p>both chemistry classes have 3 hours of lab and 2 hours of lecture per week.</p>
<p>but you see, i only have at max 2 classes each day, with only one on friday and a lab on thursday afternoons. i have plenty of time to devote to each course and am taking classes that i really want to take.</p>
<p>i guess my point is, courseloads my vary, but it seems like college kids are finally getting the message that they should take whatever interests them most. at least...that's what i'm figuring out!</p>
<p>
[quote]
Northwestern requires 45 courses to graduate.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>There's one exeption--engineering students need 48 courses to graduate and they don't know what "weekends" mean.</p>
<p>D's school is the traditional 4 courses a semester LAC, 12 hours a semester for full-time status. Usual courseload for a science kid appears to be 16-17 even 18 (labs).</p>
<p>But, and this may be common, they cheat. :) While her classes usually have the traditional one hour in class a week / credit hour, they "give" some/many tests over the intranet (is that the right word?) so that classroom time is not used. (Big honor system school.) Maybe this is real common but I'd never heard of it. </p>
<p>Like ejr1, that doesn't count required "outside" lectures and events which I think is the norm.</p>