When I was in school, you enrolled in the classes and for the most part went to the labs to get your work done when needed. Now it looks like they are required to enroll in the classes and then a separate 3 hour lab once a week that does not count towards credit hours? (computer major).
I don’t know about CS, but chem and bio lab courses have always been pretty much just what you describe, except they weren’t for zero credit hours. Lab courses are worth some fraction of lecture hours. Thus a 3 or 4 hour chem lab might be worth one credit hour.
At the university where I used to work, classes with a required lab were linked together so that students could not registered for one without registering for the other. Usually all the credit hours were associated with the lecture, but the total credit hours reflected the time spent in the mandatory labs.
At my school some labs are 0 credits (just part of the class as a whole) and some are worth 1, 2, or 3 credits (technically a separate class). The MATLAB class I’m taking next semester is the former.
At many LACs, labs are scheduled as a separate weekly commitment away from class time. You don’t get extra credits for taking them. The class has the same credits (3 or 1 depending on the system the college uses).
Labs can be part of the course or a course by themselves. Son’s CS lab time came with the lecture and they had to do some work on the lab computers- one way of proving they did the work themselves. Credits given usually account for lecture/discussion lab hours. I would never call them zero credits- you do the work to get your grade.
Chemistry labs are notorious for time- think 2 sessions per week for 2 credits for organic totaling 8 and 9 hours for the first and second ones. Time was needed to run experiments- distillations et al. General Chemistry labs depended on the course- eg Honors or other. Hands on instead of just problem sets or theory is one reason to do a lab science.
There are some classes where lecture hours equal credits. In math I guess the problem sets take the time and don’t need in class time. For those with a lot of reading and papers likewise no facilities are needed.
They’re mostly retrievers.
My son’s school has separate lab times that you sign up for, in addition to class time. Bio and Chem intro classes are 3 credit courses with the labs being 1 credit. For some reason, Physics and the lab are tied together for credit purposes at 4 credits, but you still sign up separately for the lab. Because of scheduling, my son took Chem without the lab one semester, and picked up the lab next semester. He couldn’t have done that with Physics.
Bottom line - this seems to be highly dependent on the school
Thanks everyone! So if they have a 3 hour lab then do they typically spend all 3 hours in the lab or just as they need it?
^^^There is no one answer for every school/course/prof. but your child should expect to spend the full three hours in the lab. In addition, there is typically work to do outside of the lab period (ex. prepare lab write-ups, study for lab exams etc.) which again can vary by school/course/prof.
For things like physics and chemistry, you can usually expect to stay the whole time. Possibly extra, like happy1 said. Orgo lab involved running data on the NMR and IR machines outside of class time. Pchem lab involved staying very late to do experiments and data processing. Both involved long lab reports.
We’ll see how CS goes for me in the fall…
And if you’re taking astronomy, all the labs are at night, often very late!
Thanks everyone. I was just curious as the format seems to have changed. I can see the labs being valuable to ensure they do the actual work, but also to give them set time to work on things. I used the labs alot (even worked in one) but it was just a use it as you want. In fact, when I worked i picked the hours most wouldn’t use the lab so I could do my homework.
My kid’s lab sections had their own homework. They were also no more credit than non-lab courses.
But that credit bit varies by school, at many a lab science might be 4 credits when a non-lab course is 3, for instance.
When I was a student in the 1980s at BU, labs I took in biology, chemistry, and physics were all scheduled. Every week I went to my lab section on the same day/time. Some labs for a particular course met twice a week. A TA was present to teach the lab, answer questions, etc. It was not possible to just stop by and do the lab work. It was all at a certain time, and that makes sense from a safety perspective. Similarly, when I taught in the 1990s, the labs were scheduled as well, and an instructor (professor or TA) was present.