How often are classes and how long for the average student? I understand that they differ from person to person but give me an estimate.
For three-credit classes at schools on a semester system, a common format is
MWF classes that are 50 minutes long and meet three times a week, e.g. 10:00-10:50
T-Th classes that are 75 minutes long and meet twice a week, e.g. 9:30-10:45
Or once a week classes for almost three hours, e.g. 4:00-6:45.
Note that all equal 150 minutes (there’s a expectation of a break in the middle of the 3 hour class). A full time student would take 15 credits a semester, so five variations of these types of classes.
Other schools may offer different types of schedules, including some where you only take one class at a time (but for more hours in a day), or classes worth different amounts of credit. If you go to the website of the school you’re interested in, there should be a link to “Schedule of Classes” that will give you more information.
Depends on the school. In many semester based programs you go to classes MWF for an hour, and TuTh for an hour and a half, so either three times a week or two times per week for each class. Most students take four to six classes. However, if you go to a school with trimesters or quarters, you may take fewer classes per term, and in the case of quarters might go a little more frequently to get the equivalent number of hours in class.
I go to a school on quarters, so I’ll offer some perspective there.
A typical class is 4 units, and usually this is broken down as having 3 hours of lecture and 1 hour of discussion each week. Some classes actually have less class time due to having large out of class components (the most common I see are extensive writing and extensive problem sets). Regardless, your typical class either meets for 50 minutes MWF or 80 minutes TTh, with a 50 minute discussion sometime during the week depending on the exact section you’re in.
Lab classes such as gen chem and intro bio are 5 units – 3 hours lecture, 1 hour discussion, and 3 hours lab. Lab times are in 3 hour blocks where each 3 hours counts as 1 unit. Some later courses (only taken if you’re majoring in something bio or chem related) have labs that you enroll in separately, but for the most part the intro classes have a lab time assigned to a specific discussion section.
And of course, there are some classes that are 1-3 units and have the corresponding number of lecture hours each week. Usually for these classes it’s either already discussion based (for smaller classes), or it’s all lectures with no discussion section.
Most students take 4 classes each quarter, around 15-17 units. People will usually have a few quarters where they take 12-14 units, for varying reasons, and it’s not a big deal as long as you take 15+ units most quarters. You can also make up the units during summer session.