What is a Semester Hour?

Question

I am looking at different colleges, and they say "A minimum of 6 semester hours in math" and stuff like that is required... what exactly IS a semester hour? Is it a regular hour of class? Only serious answers please....

Answer 1

Unlike high school, college courses are organized on a "credit hour" or "semester hour" basis. They don't all count the same, like in high school, where the only variation is that sometimes a school will offer a "half" course in something like band.

A semester is based on the idea that for each hour you spend in class, you get 1 hour's credit. Most courses are 3 semester (credit) hours--which means you'll go to that class for about 1 hour three days a week (or you might go 2 days for 1-1/2 hours--or even do the whole thing in one 3-hour session per week--but thats mostly for graduate courses).

Some courses willl be 2, 4, or rarely 5 hour classes. And that means pretty much the same--except you go to class that many hours and get that much credit. There is one thing that confuses this a bit--labs. Lab courses are usually just that--a science course (example physics) which are basically hand's on in a laboratory. These, however are (usually) 1-semester hour credit, but may require 2-3 hours of lab time to do th ework.

BTW--your grade point average depends on not only what grade you make, but on how many hours the course credit is--so a 4-hour course will affect your grade more than a 3 hourcourse.

And you mentioned that "6-semester hours of math" thing--since most courses are 3 hours, what its really saying is that 2 semesters (2 courses) in math are required.

Answer 2

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Most colleges put a cap on the number of hours a student can take in one semester. Twelve hours is the lowest number of hours you can take and be considered a full-time student; most full-time students take 14 or 15 hours per semester, because you don't get classified into the next academic year until you've completed hours in increments of 30 (30 hours to be a sophomore, 60 hours to be a junior, 90 hours to be a senior, 120 or more hours to graduate). I have taken 21 hours in a semester ... once. It requires a LOT of dedication and a whole lot of time management. You can't let anything get behind or try to put off an assignment "for a few more days." I've attended 4-year universities in 3 states, and so far every school has set either 21 or 22 hours as the maximum for a single semester. You have to be an exceptionally good student with an extreme necessity before schools will let you go above that limit.

Answer 3

What Is A Semester Hour

Answer 4

1 hour in class per week for each week in a semester = 1 semester hour, thus

1 hour on each: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for the duration of a semester = 3 semester hours.

Be warned, however, that labs throw a kink into the calculations; and there is not a set formula to factor this. A four hour class, such as Principles of Chemistry, might have 3 classroom hours per week and, in addition to that, one four hour lab.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

Answer 5

If a class is 3 hours it means that is how long you will be in class for a certain week.like if your english class is 3 credit hours it will be on mon, wed, and fri for an hour each day. usually a class is 3 credit hours and usually most people take about 12-15 hours per semester

Answer 6

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What is a Semester Hour?
I am looking at different colleges, and they say "A minimum of 6 semester hours in math" and stuff like that is required... what exactly IS a semester hour? Is it a regular hour of class? Only serious answers please....

Answer 7

What they said... The hours add on and usually you need a certain amount of hours to graduate. For example UT degrees for the most part, are 120 hours.