Hi College Confidential community. I don’t know much about college life in terms of the durations of each class and number of classes. Please inform me…
How many hours is each class? How much of your time/days do you spend in college? How many classes do you have to take? I read about core classes please tell me about that…
@Michuniverse You can Google stuff like this pretty easily (and/or go to a certain university’s course catalog).
For my classes at least, I typically take around four per semester. Each class meets anywhere from 3 to 6 hrs/week. Including homework and studying, I have spent anywhere from 3 to 20+ hrs/week per class.
It depends. Depends if you are on a quarter, trimester, or semester system. In the quarter system you might take fewer classes than in a semester, example 3 courses versus 5 or 6, and you might meet more often depending on the length of the quarter. Most colleges are on a semester system and the average number of credits for full time status seems to be about 12 to 17 per semester. In college you spend less time in class and tend to spend triple or more time working on the class outside of the classroom.
These are things you’ll learn about during your college’s orientation/pre-registration session. You can also easily Google this, as this differs based on number of credits, days met, type of class, and individual college basis. Don’t worry about this if you’re still in high school. Core classes will also vary by college.
I don’t find information regarding the amount of hours and amount of classes online. None of the admissions department talk about this until you are ready to begin classes or until orientation yet I want to know beforehand.
You may need to get creative with your searches. I recall that it was not particularly easy to find the class schedule format at Dartmouth – and even then it was a rather complicated one to understand. You would be batter off posting in the fora for schools you are interested in, since, as NorthernMom61 noted, it varies from school to school. There is not one uniform answer.
For example, you last posted in the UMiami forum. Googling “university of Miami” + “class schedule” brings up this site: https://canelink.miami.edu/psc/PUMIAJ/EMPLOYEE/HRMS/c/COMMUNITY_ACCESS.CLASS_SEARCH.GBL.
Input a subject, and all the classes offered will pop up with the times/days per week they are offered. Again: this is information that varies by school. There is really no reason you need to be concerned about this before you even enroll in a college.
It depends on the system, college, state, etc, but just to give you an idea:
I’ve had classes that last 1:15 hrs and are twice a week. There are classes that are 3-times/week and the lecture is 50 mins. And classes that are only once a week but last around 2 hrs and 40 mins.
I only have 4 classes this semester and I don’t have gaps in between my classes, so I only go to school 3 days per week (I live off-campus).
Homework? I had a lot for two of my classes, so I had to spend hours doing it. I’d say I did hw for like 2 hrs/day.
I also didn’t know any of these things before college so I didn’t know what to expect, hope this helps you.
At my university, most students take 4-6 courses. We use a unit system where 1 unit = 3.5 credits on the semester system, with most courses being 1 unit. A 1 unit course meets typically meets for 2 hrs and 40 min a week, but that can be divided up many ways, such as class 3 times a week, 2 times a week, or 1 time a week.
Core classes, also known as general education requirements (gen eds), are categories of courses, usually fairly broad, that everyone in your college needs to complete.
For example, at my university everyone must complete:
-Four semester’s equivalent of a single foreign language. I’m taking 4th semester german next semester.
-Two First Year Seminars (1 each semester). I took a film music FYS and a medical anthropology FYS.
-Historical Studies (1 unit). I got credit through AP USH
-Literary Studies (1 unit). I’m planning on taking greek and roman mythology
-Natural Science (1 unit). I’m planning on taking forensic chemistry.
-Social Analysis (1 unit). I’m planning on taking intro women, gender, and sexuality studies.
-Symbolic Reasoning (1 unit). This is covered a ton for me (I’m a math/CS major).
-Visual and Performing Arts (1 unit). Also covered a ton for me (I’m a music/dance minor).
-Alcohol Education and 2 additional wellness topics (3 total, these don’t carry any credit)
Because I’m a double major, double minor, I am always way overloaded on credits. I usually take 5 academic classes a semester (5 units) plus an additional 1.75-2.5 units (6-9 credits) of applied music and ensembles. This fall, I had 6 academic classes, but two were .5 units, so I had my usual number of credits.
@Michuniverse at MIT, most undergrads take around 4 or 5 courses for a total of 48-60 units (MIT uses a units system).
Each course has three numbers associated with it, E.g. 3-3-6. This means that it is a 3+3+6 = 12 unit course, and students typically spend up to 3 hours in lecture, 3 hours in lab/recitation, and 6 hours on homework in a week (assuming the student attends!). It’s not immediately obvious just from the course catalog but MIT has a page that explains how everything works.