<p>I just had a question why some of my classes (math, bio, and physics) have lectures and discussions for more hours than the number of credit hours. Are discussions required or are they not mandatory as long as you have a good grasp of the material? Thank you!</p>
<p>Credit hours are defined as the number of hours you are in class per week. (I think this applies to labs as well). Hours spent in discussion are not included for that. Any class/discussion isn’t necessarily mandatory, but it would be your best intrest to go to all of them, especially if the instructor takes grades for attendence to classes/discussions. We are incoming freshman, so we don’t necessarily know how classes at UT will go. Even if you have a good hold on the material, it is still recommended that you go. You would have to meet with your instructor to know what is mandatory and what is not.</p>
<p>So here is what I have:
M 427L (Meets 5 hours a week)
M 110 (1 hr a week)
M 362K (3 hrs a week)
CH 328M (3 hrs a week)
CH 128K (4 hours a week)
PHY 303K/L (4 hours a week)
PHY 103M/N (2/3 hours a week)</p>
<p>My Chem lab has a one hour class with a three hour lab (hence the 1 hour credit). The Physics lab I’m pretty sure is 1 hour class followed by 1 hour lab, but it can be two hours of lab, as PHY 103N is an hour class with two hours of lab. I don’t have any discussion times for half my classes, so I’m basically just in class for the number of hours per class. This is just an example. Typically, the lower division classes or certain courses have discussion classes to split the classes into smaller groups or to review what was taught in class for the week. A lot of classes (like my organic Chem class and Probabilty class, both upper-divison courses) may not have the discussion hours. It all depends on the class.</p>
<p>I’m an incoming Math and Chemistry double major (freshman), planning to add ChE to that eventually.</p>
<p>That’s just the way it is, and many other universities do this as well. From my experience, discussion times aren’t counted into the number of credit hours, and most labs will only count as 1 hour of credit even though they can be up to 4 hours long. Required attendance to the attendance may vary between classes. I have not had a class with a discussion section in a while, but if I remember correctly, all the classes I had taken with a discussion took attendance as a grade. </p>
<p>I noticed that you are taking 17 credits with several of them being what I consider to be “hard” classes for freshman, which is pretty impressive. Usually I see freshmen taking 15 hours in their first semester, with 2 or 3 of them being “hard” classes, and the rest being “blow-off” classes that are required to graduate (fine arts, UGS, etc.)</p>
<p>I know you didn’t ask this, but unless you are an absolute genius, this schedule is extremely difficult. </p>
<p>PHY 303K takes many hours to complete the homework, as does organic chemistry and the second semester of calculus. </p>
<p>The hours in class does not count the hours it takes to do the homework.</p>
<p>My ChE major son was advised to take only one class that has a lab at a time. It takes hours to write the lab report.</p>
<p>Have you spoken with current students about this schedule? Are you aware of the time it takes to do the homework? Time is class is only a small aspect of college.</p>
<p>I think you were replying to the post below me. I’m taking general chemistry, not organic chem. I took AP Phys C, Ap Chem, AP Bio, and AP BC all together last year, so I’m ready to handle the coursework. I’m also doing pre-med which crunches my schedule a bit.</p>
<p>OK. I stand corrected. I thought it sounded like a tough schedule, but when I ran this by my son, he said it was reasonable – especially if you are good in math.</p>
<p>I am not sure the comparison to AP courses is valid, but you will find out.</p>
<p>Oh, that’s pretty good almost7famous. Usually I see students using their AP credit to jump straight into bio II and chem II, and then end up with not-so-great grades.</p>