Credit Hours/Workload
How will students have time to take elective courses?
With fewer required courses and modified majors that may require fewer courses, time for elective courses will be available. That was one of the goals of the faculty in adopting the new curriculum.
If courses will be worth four credits, is the instruction time for courses increasing?
Time in class may increase depending on the course. The usual class schedule of three fifty-minute classes or two seventy-five minute classes will remain the standard; but just as some language and mathematics classes currently meet four times a week for four credit hours and will continue to do so for four credits, some new classes may choose to adopt four class sessions per week.
What will be considered an underload or overload?
Less than twelve credits will be an underload and greater than eighteen will be an overload that will require permission and call for additional tuition charges.
What will be considered full-time enrollment?
The normal course load for a student will be sixteen (16) credits. A student registered for 12 credits will be considered full-time.
Will students have the time to complete a minor?
Yes. Minors will be redesigned as well to adapt to the new curriculum. Although a student will be taking fewer total courses in four years, with fewer required courses, a student will have more opportunity to take elective courses. And that could mean more access to academic minors.
Will the guidelines for the required amount of hours change for Directed Inquiries, Research courses, or Internships?
The current requirement is that for each one credit earned, forty-six hours of work, including outside readings, research, experiments, and conferences must be completed. That expectation will remain the same under the new curriculum. Credit assigned to such courses may range from one to six credits just as it is now; but one, two, or four credits will be the norm.
Will the out-of-class workload increase?
As courses change from three credit hours to four, faculty members may decide to require more of their students for each course. How the courses change will depend on the individual faculty member. But since students will be taking four courses as the usual load (and a five course load will be very rare), students will be able to spend more time on each course. Generally, a student with four courses can count on spending an average of 25 percent of his or her time on each course rather an average of 20 percent on five courses.
