2 answers
jennel
Student
21
Questions
Asked
978 views
What are credits in college, what are they for?
#future lawyer #attorney
Login to comment
2 answers
Doc Frick
Career Coach and Mentor
1590
Answers
California, CA
Updated
Doc’s Answer
WHAT ARE COLLGE CREDITS
College credit is the standard measurement of a student’s academic competency. Essentially, it represents how much effort you, the student, put into a single course over a semester (15 weeks). This effort is most often represented by hours of work.
• 1 college credit represents approximately 1 hour spent in a classroom and 2 hours spent on homework each week.
• Most single-semester college courses are worth 3 credits, or 9 hours of work per week.
If you’re hoping to graduate in 4 years, you’ll need to average 15 credits (roughly 5 courses) a semester. By this estimate, that’s 45 hours of work per week. You must complete 120* semester college credits to earn a bachelor’s degree. That’s about 40 classes, which most people assume you can complete in 4 years. But it’s more complicated than that. You can’t just register for 40 random courses and expect to walk away with a bachelor’s degree. The kinds of credit you take is very important. That’s what enables you to actually qualify for graduation.
* If your college uses a quarter system rather than a semester system, you’ll need to complete a minimum of 180 quarter credits to earn an accredited bachelor’s degree.
GENERAL EDUCATION REQUIREMENTS • 60 CREDITS
To encourage a broad education, your college will require you to take up to 60 credits of low-level courses spanning a variety of general subjects. While you get to choose which choose which specific courses you take, you must pick from within your college’s requirements. In most cases, more than half of a bachelor’s degree consists of general education or liberal arts courses in areas such as English, critical thinking, psychology, history and mathematics.
FREE ELECTIVES • 20 CREDITS
This may be the most fun section of your degree (and may be the reason so many people get the idea that a bachelor’s degree is a highly customizable type of education). In this section, your college will allow you to complete up to 30 credits of any course you want.
The free electives you choose may have nothing to do with your major, and that’s fine! You can choose from the college’s myriad of available courses, choosing up to 10 that truly are whatever you want to learn. This is a great way to give you, the student, that bit of freedom to try new things, think divergently, and not get too pigeon-holed in whatever major you chose.
YOUR MAJOR • 40 CREDITS
This final selection of credits will consist of the specific courses required by your major. Generally, many of these courses will be upper-level courses (meaning they’re more specific, more intense, and more time-consuming than the rest of your bachelor’s degree). The bachelor’s degree remains the standard for entry into many professional careers. Getting a bachelor’s degree can be the ticket to a more promising career. In most cases, you cannot attend a professional graduate school in law, medicine, or teacher education unless you hold a bachelor’s degree. That means you will almost always need a bachelor’s before enrolling in a master’s program to open the door to even more career opportunities. A bachelor’s degree is the first step towards some of today’s hottest professions. It can allow you to work in an occupation while you decide whether to pursue a graduate degree to become qualified for the highest level jobs in that require graduate study.
TYPES OF BACHELO’S DEGREES
A bachelor's degree program is an undergraduate program that usually takes four years to complete. Enrolling in a bachelor's degree program requires that students choose a major area of study, such as finance, history, communications, or biology. Graduates from a bachelor's degree program are qualified to work in entry- or management-level positions, depending on the field. A bachelor's degree is also usually required for admittance into a graduate program. The different types of degrees available in a bachelor's degree program include the following:
• Bachelor of Arts (B.A.)
• Bachelor of Science (B.S.)
• Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA)
• Bachelor of Applied Science (BAS)
Jennel if time is of the essence and you need a bachelor’s degree as fast as possible, then you should consider attending an online school that has flexible enrollment periods. This allows for students to take their courses on their own time instead of within the confines of a traditional semester or quarter.
Hope this was Helpful Jennel
Advanced Placement (AP) Examination – You’re likely aware of whether or not your school has AP classes. If you’re advanced in any particular subject, you’ll have the option of taking an Advanced Placement course. But to earn college credit for completing that course, you have to take and pass an AP exam. In total, there are 38 AP exams that you can take for college credit.
Local College Enrollment – Some colleges and universities allow high school students to enroll in separate college courses. Local college enrollment means you’re enrolled in both high school courses and college courses independently. You’ll earn high school credits for the classes you take at high school and college credits for those that you take at the local college. You won’t earn high school and college credits from the same courses.
College credit is the standard measurement of a student’s academic competency. Essentially, it represents how much effort you, the student, put into a single course over a semester (15 weeks). This effort is most often represented by hours of work.
• 1 college credit represents approximately 1 hour spent in a classroom and 2 hours spent on homework each week.
• Most single-semester college courses are worth 3 credits, or 9 hours of work per week.
If you’re hoping to graduate in 4 years, you’ll need to average 15 credits (roughly 5 courses) a semester. By this estimate, that’s 45 hours of work per week. You must complete 120* semester college credits to earn a bachelor’s degree. That’s about 40 classes, which most people assume you can complete in 4 years. But it’s more complicated than that. You can’t just register for 40 random courses and expect to walk away with a bachelor’s degree. The kinds of credit you take is very important. That’s what enables you to actually qualify for graduation.
* If your college uses a quarter system rather than a semester system, you’ll need to complete a minimum of 180 quarter credits to earn an accredited bachelor’s degree.
GENERAL EDUCATION REQUIREMENTS • 60 CREDITS
To encourage a broad education, your college will require you to take up to 60 credits of low-level courses spanning a variety of general subjects. While you get to choose which choose which specific courses you take, you must pick from within your college’s requirements. In most cases, more than half of a bachelor’s degree consists of general education or liberal arts courses in areas such as English, critical thinking, psychology, history and mathematics.
FREE ELECTIVES • 20 CREDITS
This may be the most fun section of your degree (and may be the reason so many people get the idea that a bachelor’s degree is a highly customizable type of education). In this section, your college will allow you to complete up to 30 credits of any course you want.
The free electives you choose may have nothing to do with your major, and that’s fine! You can choose from the college’s myriad of available courses, choosing up to 10 that truly are whatever you want to learn. This is a great way to give you, the student, that bit of freedom to try new things, think divergently, and not get too pigeon-holed in whatever major you chose.
YOUR MAJOR • 40 CREDITS
This final selection of credits will consist of the specific courses required by your major. Generally, many of these courses will be upper-level courses (meaning they’re more specific, more intense, and more time-consuming than the rest of your bachelor’s degree). The bachelor’s degree remains the standard for entry into many professional careers. Getting a bachelor’s degree can be the ticket to a more promising career. In most cases, you cannot attend a professional graduate school in law, medicine, or teacher education unless you hold a bachelor’s degree. That means you will almost always need a bachelor’s before enrolling in a master’s program to open the door to even more career opportunities. A bachelor’s degree is the first step towards some of today’s hottest professions. It can allow you to work in an occupation while you decide whether to pursue a graduate degree to become qualified for the highest level jobs in that require graduate study.
TYPES OF BACHELO’S DEGREES
A bachelor's degree program is an undergraduate program that usually takes four years to complete. Enrolling in a bachelor's degree program requires that students choose a major area of study, such as finance, history, communications, or biology. Graduates from a bachelor's degree program are qualified to work in entry- or management-level positions, depending on the field. A bachelor's degree is also usually required for admittance into a graduate program. The different types of degrees available in a bachelor's degree program include the following:
• Bachelor of Arts (B.A.)
• Bachelor of Science (B.S.)
• Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA)
• Bachelor of Applied Science (BAS)
Jennel if time is of the essence and you need a bachelor’s degree as fast as possible, then you should consider attending an online school that has flexible enrollment periods. This allows for students to take their courses on their own time instead of within the confines of a traditional semester or quarter.
Hope this was Helpful Jennel
Doc recommends the following next steps:
Thank You Alison, for your continued support. Life doesn't provide warranties and guarantees, it only provides possibilities and opportunities for those who dare to make best use of it.
Doc Frick
charles crowder
Attorney
25
Answers
Santa Ana, California
Updated
charles’s Answer
Credits in college typically represent the number of hours per week that a student spends in class studying a specific course. (Students can generally test out of some required courses by scoring high on Advanced Placement tests.) For example, a 4-credit class requires four hours per week of in-class instruction; a 3-credit course requires 3 hours, etc. Depending upon one's college major, course credits in specific subjects are required, calculated either by the number of hours, or the courses necessary to graduate with a major in that department. So for example, in my case, to graduate from a liberal arts college with a Government major, I had to take a set number of units (hours) in various government courses; such as Political Philosophy, American Politics and Comparative Government. In addition, I was required to complete 3 courses (12 credits) in the hard sciences (Math, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Astronomy, etc.); plus take 3 courses in a foreign language, as well as at least 3 courses in the Humanities (Literature, Music History, Art History, Drama, etc). I obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree with a Government major after completing 128 units (the equivalent of four 4-unit courses each semester). Students were also required to take 3 semesters of a physical education class. My collegiate education, which included elective courses in history and literature, many papers, and predominantly essay questions on tests, provided an excellent foundation for law school and for my (to date) 36-year career as a lawyer.