<p>Back in my day, 5 classes was typical with 3 credits each class or 4 cr if course had a lab. Some of the course books we have been looking at have a typical schedule of 4 "units"/semester. I can't wrap my head around this enough to understand it all. Are the schools with 4 classes per term equivalent to a 4 credit course?</p>
<p>Trying to compare/contrast amongst schools, for example Ohio Wes vs. Pitt.</p>
<p>A 4 class schedule works very well for one student I am helping who has time management issues and problems switching gears. While another student I am helping wants to embrace college and study as many subjects as possible. Would the 4 course schedule feel too limiting for her?</p>
<p>Colleges all look at credits differently. It depends on if you are working with semesters or quarters. Some college have all classes 1 “unit” each. People at my college take an average of 5. Some take 4 and some take 6. </p>
<p>I am a freshmen Television-Radio major and we are assigned 2 classes at the beginning of the year. A big 200+ person lecture which is three credits and then one of the intro production courses which are worth 4 credits. Students can choose 2-3 classes. I took 14 credits last semester since I withdrew from a class halfway through the semester do to a bad choice in the beginning. </p>
<p>This semester I am taking 16 credits. One class is worth 4 credits and then the other is 3 credits. If I planned it out right this will always be my schedule. In my concentration we take one production course which is always 4 credits and then another class in our major and our electives.</p>
<p>During Orientation my advisor said you should take an average of 15 credits a semester if you want to graduate in 4 years. </p>
<p>Could the student try 5 classes and drop one if she doesn’t like it/or feel like it is too much? It really depends on your class load and how much you can handle.</p>
<p>You are correct: some schools operate on a 3-credit per class system, while others use a 4-credit system. Therefore, the typical course schedule would be either 15 credits (5 3-cr classes) or 16 credits (4 4-cr ones). Of course, just to make things interesting, some classes at 3-credit schools are listed as 4 credits (labs, studio classes). Or you might have a 1- or 2-credit tutorial or practicum. All of this is usually based on the number of contact hours per class (e.g. one hour of class per each credit hour/unit).</p>
<p>At Michigan, most of the 100 and 200 level classes in LSA (Arts and Sciences) are 4 credits. As you get into the 300 and 400 level classes, however, I believe most are 3 credits. I have been lucky enough to have taken only 4-credit (or even 5-credit) classes so far, thus I have taken exactly 4 classes a semester, for a total of 66 credits accumulated in 4 semesters.</p>
<p>PackMom - I wasn’t suggesting 12 credits per semester. Your kid’s state school system is what I am used to. I am trying to compare a school like that to Ohio Wes where the “typical” schedule is 4 “units” with a max of 5.5 “units” Taking 4 units/semester keeps on course for graduating in 4 years.</p>
<p>On top of the finances, we’re examing the depth vs breadth for a student who wants it all.</p>
<p>D2 is at a 4-course school, and tends to overload each semester. On top of that, she has music lessons and occasionally ensembles that she participates in but can’t receive credit because she’s maxxed out. (Of course, her overloads are in her areas of interest, and now she’s running into difficulties because she’s avoided taking things like the required math class…)</p>
<p>D3 is at a 5-course school, but has a mixed bag of course credits - basic academic classes are 3 credits, as a music major her lessons count for 4 credits but orchestra only for 2, etc etc. She’s also overloaded.</p>
<p>I teach at a 5-course school. Most of my classes are 3 credits, but I also teach one 4-credit class that meets for a longer time than the “regular” ones and supervise several 1-credit practica that operate more like independent study. You are correct that it’s a balance between breadth and depth. I’m not sure it would be the major deciding factor for most students, but the higher credit courses do seem to involve more writing and possibly more intensive workloads…but campus culture could also play a role there.</p>
This student might also enjoy a quarter system with 3 courses/quarter, or even a one-course-at-a-time block schedule (Cornell College in Iowa or Colorado College come to mind).</p>
<p>^^ Agree I think this is a distinction that isn’t often discussed on these forums with the exception of the block colleges. I know we carefully considered that with one of our sons. All through high school it felt like there was always one class “in the hole gradewise” that he had to pull himself out of. It was always like one class tipped the scales for him. But he picked a college with 3 credit hour classes and 1 credit hour labs. I noticed this all through college during the semesters he took 5 3 credit hour classes vs. the semesters he took 4 or 4 plus a lab. 4 classes he’d pull all As, the semesters he took 5 there was always a B and one semester I think a C. He would also complain during the 5class semesters that he would get behind and have to cram…something he despises. I often think he would have done well at a quarter system college with 3 courses per quarter (which is what my college was like). For a kid that has trouble mentally focussing and juggling a bunch of classes a 4 class 4-credit hour school might be beneficial. The quarter system works similarly…with the addition of speed - 10 weeks goes fast which doesn’t work as well for some kids but works well for kids who feel fractured with too many different classes. I still think my son would have loved the quarter system, I know I did. We’re both super speedy readers so the heavy reading volume in short time periods would not have been an issue.</p>
<p>And some schools have a mixture of 3 and 4 credit courses (where one is supposed to average 15 credits per term). Someone taking all or mostly 3 credit courses would normally take 5 courses, while someone taking all of mostly 4 credit courses would normally take 4 courses. Of course, schools with differing numbers of credits for the courses may also have 0.5, 1, 2, 5, or 6 credit courses (including 0.5 or 1 credit PE activities courses, though other 1 credit courses could also be offered).</p>
<p>However, the credit units may not necessarily be proportional to the amount of work the course is. A student may be able to take 20+ credits in a term where s/he has no courses with labs, lots of computer programming, or large term projects while doing no more work than having 12 credits of courses which all have labs, lots of computer programming, or large term projects.</p>
<p>I’m not sure there is a “typical” college classes per semester. DS was a music major. He sometimes had as many as 7 or 8 classes…several were one or two credit ensemble classes that were required (and took tons of hours despite their low credit count).</p>
<p>DD’s school was on the quarter system. Some of her classes were 3 credits, some 4 credits and some 5 credits. She regularly took 20 or 21 credits per term. Her school (unlike Stradmom’s kiddo’s school) allowed students in music ensembles to take them at NO course overload charge (18 was the max typically for the full time fee per quarter). They did not want kids to drop out of the music ensembles because of the cost…so they was no charge if those were your “overload” courses.</p>
<p>Look at graduation requirements.
For instance Reed requires 30 units of academic work ( plus 6 qtrs of PE)
each semester of a full time class is one credit- some which are much more time intensive both in class & out are 1 & 1/2 credits ( HUM110 - which has 18 required texts just in the 1st semester)</p>
<p>Credits do not always reflect the work in or out of class.
I have taken vocational arborist courses, at a community college- for 3qtr credits which were a huge amount of out of class intensive study.</p>
<p>Courses in the arts also take a lot of out of class time, my daughter had to drop a dance class she was taking for fun that was just a couple qtr credits. because they had many rehearsals for end of term performance- if it is your major you are going to have to make time however.
;)</p>
<p>Harvard works on the 1 credit systems, and a typical load is 4 courses per semester. I took 5 most semesters, but usually had one that was pass/fail. (Sometimes because it was an independent study not because I chose to take in pass/fail.) I also often audited a 6th course. I did take a lot of studio art courses which met for six hours a week. There was no charge for taking extra courses.</p>
<p>At my alma marter, which was on a semester schedule, courses ranged from 1 to 5 credits, depending on contact hours/how often the met (e.g., a one credit class met 50 minutes once a week=15 contact hours , a three credit class met either three times a week for 50 minutes or twice a week for 120 minutes=45 contact hours). Twelve credits per semester was the minimum for full-time, and 120 credits were needed to graduate in most majors (education majors required more, I think), which averaged to 15 credits a semester. Tuition was the same for anything 12 credits or above (the official cap was 21, but as long as an advisor signed off on it, you could take as many as you could fit in your schedule, at no extra charge). Most classes were 3 or 4 credits, introductory language classes were 5, and freshman seminars were 1.</p>
<p>My D is doing a double major in music performance and education. Because she has to do one full semester of practice teaching she ends up having only 7 semestres to complete all other requirements of an LAC. Also because we are from Canada she does not have the AP classes to have helped. She is in her 4th semester and has not had less than 23 credit hours/semester which includes class time and 3 ensembles. Right now she is taking 25 credit hours. She has been told that most students doing this double major take 5 years but she wants to be finished in 4. As long as she can handle it we are OK but we worry a bit about her. Her over all GPA for the last 3 semestres is 3.93 so I guess she is doing OK. Most of her classes are 2 or 3 credits</p>
<p>I agree that the number of credit hours might not correspond with the degree of difficulty. For my oldest it was the focus required. If you are taking a math class and a language class and a science class and an English class and a philosophy class each requires a certain focus and “jumping” from one to the other wrapping your mind about that particular subject could be daunting. It’s a function similar to multi-tasking and I think each individual has a limit to how many things they can juggle at one time and do those all those tasks well.</p>
<p>Smith’s average Courseload is 16 credits per semester, which breaks down to 4 classes of 4 credits each. Minimum course-load is 12 credits and I think maximum is 22 credits, unless you get special permission. Some courses are not a full four credits, like dance classes, labs, exercise classes, music lessons, theater tech, etc. so you tend to pick up a few extra credits here and there, but in terms of academic classes, most take four.</p>