7.3 Understanding Credit Hours

Student Success and Credit Hours

When you first enrolled in college, you likely noticed a difference between how classes were listed compared to high school. In high school, a year-long ELA or English class, for example, typically earns one credit toward graduation. In college, you will see far more variation in credit hours. ENGL 1181, for example, is listed as four credit hours, but if you are taking ENGL 1170, the co-requisite support class for ENGL 1181, you'll see that class listed as one credit hour. You might have wondered what that all means. 

There are several ways that credit hours will impact your workload. 

In-class Time

The first connection between the credit hour and your workload is the amount of time spent in class. If you sign up for a four-credit hour in-person class, you can expect to spend roughly four hours a week in class. For hybrid and asynchronous online classes, however, this connection is less clear. But usually, you can expect to spend about the same amount of time going over class materials such as lectures, additional readings, and resources. 

None of this, however, accounts for individual learning time. That gets into the next important connection between your workload and credit hours. 

Independent Learning Time

In college, students are expected to take more responsibility for learning independently. This can include reading assigned readings, studying, reviewing class notes, writing papers, and completing assignments and projects. Since college is designed to focus more heavily on independent learning time than high school, class time is increased and the students are expected to increase the amount of time studying outside of class. The professor's core responsibility is to help guide students through this independent learning by curating materials, readings, resources, lectures, and assignments to help support student learning. 

However, this shift in learning is rarely explicitly explained to students. Colleges don't typically have an "Introduction to College" class, and there isn't a clear place to cover this information. Additionally, students are typically (and understandably) hesitant to pay for and spend the time on an additional class.

So, where do credit hours come into this? On the independent learning side of college, credit hours roughly translate into the amount of time students should expect to spend outside of class on a subject, as well. The traditional equation works out to roughly three hours of work for every one credit hour of a class. Using this equation, a 12-15 hour class load translates to 36-45 hours a week. This equation is also why 12-15 credit hours is considered a full-time student load. 

In practice, however, that number can vary quite a bit. Along with different workloads, some students will find certain subjects take longer than others. For example, one student may write faster than another; another student may be able to complete math equations and work through problems faster. 

Additionally, first-year classes typically have a lower workload than upper-level classes, but even that will vary by discipline. And within the semester, there will be additional variation. Some weeks you may need to spend closer to the upper end, and other weeks you may be closer to the lower end. 

Even still, students often underestimate the amount of time that should be spent studying, reading, and on assignments each week. To be successful, students need to be able to estimate the amount of time that needs to be dedicated to their coursework. Otherwise, it can be easy to register for too many classes or try to work too many hours at the same time as a full-time load.  As you might imagine, taking 15 credit hours while trying to work 40 hours a week, if those 15 credit hours need to include another 15-45 hours of work is difficult and often unsustainable for most students. 

Estimating Independent Learning Time

Based on my experience teaching first-year writing classes, feedback from my students, and conversations with other instructors, most first-year classes will likely vary between one and three extra hours per credit hour depending on the week. For example, a four-credit hour class will likely require between four and twelve hours of work per week.

There may be weeks, like the first week of class, that require less time, and there may be weeks, like when a major paper is due, where you need to spend more time on class. The important thing is to set aside enough time to be successful in this class. 

With all that in mind, for an in-person 16-week ENGL 1181, you should plan to spend four to ten hours a week outside of class on independent study, such as reading, pre-writing, writing, completing assignments, reviewing class notes, learning concepts, and revising. When you have a major essay or assignment due, that will likely be on the higher end or may even require more time. And if you are taking an 8-week online class, which is accelerated, that time should be doubled! 

It's also a good idea to calculate your overall workload for all your classes. Below is a calculator to help you with this calculation. Since labs (such as a Biology lab) shouldn't have additional homework, don't count those in your overall credit hours in the first field.