<p>I recently learned that many colleges use the 4 credit class system whereas mine uses the 3 credit class system. In the 3 credit system, students generally take 5 3-credit courses per semester for a total of 15 credits. In the 4-credit system, students generally take 4 4-credit courses per semester for a total of 16 credits. Taking this amount of courses per semester allows the student to graduate on time.</p>
<p>My question is this. Don;t students in the 4-credit course system have it much easier than their counterparts? Taking 4 classes per semester is obviously easier than taking 5 classes, especially when you are taking multiple difficult courses each semester, is it not? I am not talking about the difference in classroom hours here. I understand that while the classroom hours might be different (by only an hour though it seems), would the actual amount of coursework (assignments, exams, and overall level of difficulty) in a 4 credit course be the exact same as that of a 3 credit course? If so, it seems the 4 credit system is much more beneficial to the student in my opinion.</p>
<p>Just curious to hear others opinions out there.</p>
<p>That’s a good question! In theory, 4-credit classes are supposed to assign more work than 3-credit classes. In practice, it’s difficult to evaluate whether that actually happens.</p>
<p>It seems that several other factors (such as selectivity, staffing and teaching philosophy) have a much greater impact on workload than the credit system. I studied at three different 4-credit colleges as as undergraduate. Let’s call them colleges A, B and C. In the upper-level coursework for my major, college C consistently assigned twice as much work as college A. College B was somewhere in between. That pattern held across several instructors at each college, so it’s probably not just a coincidence. With so much variation between 4-credit colleges, I am not sure what I would take as a baseline of a “4-credit workload” to compare against 3-credit colleges.</p>
<p>You have a good point that 4-credit systems might make it easier for students to graduate on time than 3-credit systems. Workload aside, taking fewer classes reduces scheduling conflicts and allows students to focus their attention on fewer distinct tasks.</p>
<p>My school has 2, 3, 4, and 5 unit classes. Depending on your major, you may end up with mostly 4-unit classes or more of a mix. In my experience, 3-unit classes can be a lot harder than 4-unit classes. It usually just means the class doesn’t have a discussion, but that just makes it even harder without necessarily lowering the workload. </p>
<p>But I’m on the quarter system, so I can’t really compare it to a semester system.</p>
That seems to be an idiosyncrasy of your particular university and probably doesn’t generalize elsewhere. </p>
<p>Strict “4-credit systems” often count ‘units’ instead of ‘credit hours’. Most courses would carry 1 unit. The standard course load is 4 units per semester or 32 units to graduate.</p>
<p>That is a great point about how there was not even any standardization between the 3 4-credit systems you attended, and it echoes something I have thought for a long time. College courses really depend on your professor, and the overall level of the difficulty hinges on not only the course material but a large part on the specific professor you have for the course as well.</p>
<p>Even within my own school, pretty standard freshmen courses like calculus are harder or easier depending on your professor. This is at the same school and the same class, and the difficulty changes. However, you will always have some goods professors and some bad (harder?) ones each semester. That won’t change. This will average out for you throughout your 4 years of college. This is mainly why I simply believe that the 4-credit system is much easier. In both the 3-credit system and the 4-credit system, your overall degree of difficulty for each class/professor you have will average out to be the same. However, in the 4-credit system, you take 4 classes per semester, and in the 3-credit system you take 5 classes per semester. You take one less class EVERY semester of your college career. I know my life would be much easier taking 4 classes per semester rather than 5. Seems a little unfair to me :)</p>
<p>I don’t know any credit systems that are strictly 3 or 4…every college I’ve been to has been 1-5. </p>
<p>Most of my classes do come at 4 units at my new institution, it just depends what class you take. My major is mostly 4 unit classes. </p>
<p>Before this college: any general ed was worth 3, any science class was worth 5, math classes varied from 3-5 units. For instance, Linear Algebra and Differential Equations were both 4 credits while Calc I-III were 5 units. College Algebra was worth 3, Statistics worth 4, Pre-Cal 5. The algebra-based physics courses were 3 credits each as opposed to the calc-based courses at 5. Biology classes could range from 3-5 units.</p>
<p>And jacob, what? I know I can take up to 20 units a semester if I wanted. 5 classes.</p>
<p>Well, technically they’re two classes, but most lab sciences have the lab section count as one credit and the lecture count as three.</p>
<p>But I’ve also taken two courses that were four credits (intro to micro and intro to macroeconomics) and didn’t seem any harder than three credit classes. Same amount of time each week too.</p>
<p>As others have said, it’s unusaual for every/almost every class at a university to be 3 credits or to be 4 credits. It’s a lot more common as a difference between departments within a university than of two universities.</p>
I disagree, for the last time. There are many private colleges that count courses instead of credits, with the standard course load being 4 courses per semester / 32 to graduate. That’s the “4-credit system.”</p>
<p>The “3-credit system” is the normal credit hour system you’ll find most often at public universities. Courses carry a variable number of credits. However, the “average” number of credits seems to be less than 4 and most students need to take more than 4 courses in at least some semesters in order to graduate on time.</p>
<p>Yeah I am not talking about those type of schools. I am talking about the standard 4-credit system and standard 3-credit system schools like the above poster mentions. These type of schools definitely exist, and there are many of them. In fact, they are the only two types of schools I know, and I have not heard of schools with varying credits for classes (disregarding some classes that might have a discussion or lab requiring an extra credit).</p>
<p>Speaking of only these standard credit schools, am I correct in saying the 4-credit school students have it MUCH MUCH MUCH easier than the 3-credit students?</p>
Stanford assigns variable number of credits to classes for no obvious reason. However, I think that the “typical” class still has 3-4 credits (meaning strictly less than 4).</p>
<p>I have taught the same class as both a 3 credit and a 4 credit class. Besides the obvious extra hour in class for the 4 credit class, there was also more homework and reading expected. </p>
<p>Ultimately, if you graduate with 120 credits, you will have the opportunity to take approximately 10 more classes under the 3 credit system. That may offer you the chance to explore a wider variety of topics (meterology? the french revolution? skydiving?) but your overall knowledge would end up being somewhat less in depth on any one of those topics than your friend who took the same class as a 4 credit option.</p>
<p>I just feel that taking 4 classes as opposed to 5 every semester is a HUGE advantage to the GPA. Maybe I am in the minority in this opinion though.</p>
<p>I’ve wondered this for awhile…I was hoping this thread would clear it up but it seems that there’s a general sense of confusion haha!</p>
<p>At my college, we have 3 credit lecture courses & classes that have an additional lab or studio art component are 4 credit hours. Typical course load ranges from 12-16 hours usually.</p>
<p>At my school, most classes are 3 credits, but a few are 4 credits. For example I am taking a 3 credit Organic Chemistry course right now with a 1 credit, separate lab course- but in the past I have taken a 4 credit Spanish 101 class and a 4 credit calculus 1 class. For the classes at 4 credits, there was more homework assigned, and for the calc class there was an extra hour in-class (so 4 50-minute classes per week) that was used as a problem session.</p>
<p>We even have a special class that I took a couple years ago for freshmen at my school to get rid of a bunch of different credits. It is a 6 credit class, 2 semesters, so 12 total, but each semester it is just one class worth 6 credits. A special case at my school, as pretty much all classes are 3 credits. However this 6 credit class was the same workload as a 3 credit class. Really makes you wonder. I still maintain the opinion that the standard 4 credit system puts the student at a great advantage.</p>
Let’s compare GPAs then. Here are a few numbers I found on gradeinflation.com. I only looked at highly-selective colleges to minimize the impact of selectivity on GPAs.</p>