Course Selection
Course
Loads | Suggested Workload | Course
Levels
Course Loads
Twelve credit hours is considered full-time status for undergraduates.
An undergraduate student must be enrolled for a minimum of 12 hours
to qualify for full-time certification to any organization.
Undergraduates normally
take five courses per semester. Since a majority of courses carry three
semester hours of credit with some carrying four hours of credit, a
normal course load is 15 or 16 hours per semester. To complete most
undergraduate degrees in four years, students should plan to carry 15
or 16 hours per semester.
Undergraduates may
not take more than 19 hours per semester except with the approval of
Student Academic Services. Students who have cumulative grade point
averages of 3.0 may be authorized, in special circumstances and at the
discretion of the Director of Student Academic Services, to carry a
maximum of 21 semester hours of course work.
Suggested Academic
Workload Guidelines
Students should be aware that academic excellence and scholastic achievement
usually require a significant investment of time in study, research,
and out-of-class projects. To provide guidance to students in planning
their academic and work schedules, the following recommendations are
offered:
1. In general,
students should plan to devote between 2-3 hours outside of class
for each hour in class. Thus, students with a 15-hour course load
should schedule between 30-45 hours weekly for completing outside-of-class
reading, study, and homework assignments.
2. Students who
are employed more than 5-10 hours each week should consider reducing
their course loads (credit hours), depending upon their study habits,
learning abilities and course work requirements.
Course Levels
Course level numbers are structured as follows:
|
100-199 |
intended
primarily for freshmen |
|
200-299 |
intended
primarily for sophomores |
|
300-399 |
intended
primarily for juniors |
|
400-499 |
intended
primarily for seniors |
|
500-599 |
intended
for advanced undergraduates and graduate students; these courses
are NOT open to freshmen and sophomores |
|
600-749 |
restricted
to students who are classified as graduate students |
|
750-799 |
restricted
to students admitted to doctoral programs |
The Undergraduate
Bulletin lists complete course descriptions for courses numbered
100 through 599. See individual departmental listings. Please see The
Graduate School Bulletin for information on 600- and 700-level
graduate courses. |
