At Hofstra University where I attended, a first semester student pursuing a BS in Chemistry with no prior credit in the following departments could have this schedule of 16 credits (all the courses listed below are required for a BS in Chemistry): Chemistry 3A: General Chemistry I- Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday 11:15 A.M.-12:10 P.M. Chemistry 3B: General Chemistry Lab I- Friday 2:20 P.M.-5:10 P.M. Physics 11A: General Physics- Monday and Friday 12:50 P.M.-2:15 P.M. and Wednesday 12:50 P.M.-1:45 P.M. Physics 11B: General Physics Lab- Tuesday 2:55 P.M.-5:45 P.M. Mathematics 71: Analytic Geometry and Calculus I- Monday, Wednesday, and Friday 8:00 A.M.-9:35 A.M. Writing Studies and Composition 1: Composition- Tuesday and Thursday 12:45 P.M.-2:10 P.M. Chemistry 3A is 3 credits, Chemistry 3B is 1 credit, Physics 11A is 4 credits, Physics 11B is 1 credit, Mathematics 71 is 4 credits, and Writing Studies and Composition 1 is 3 credits. The totals are 16 credits and 20 hours 40 minutes of time in class and labs. 20 hours 40 minutes in class is a lot, but it would be necessary to take that many credits to graduate in 4 years. Having long labs also makes the days unbalanced. Friday would have 405 minutes of class time, compared to 290 minutes for Wednesday and Thursday combined. At Hofstra, many labs meet for 170 minutes at a time and many classes meet for 85 minutes each on Tuesday and Thursday for a total of 170 minutes. How come the lab is done all at once rather than in two 85 minute sessions?
Science labs involve a lot of waiting. So even if the lab on paper lasts, say, 3 hours, in reality it involves only 2 hours of actual work, and 1 hour of waiting for the experiment to run. The more advanced the labs, the more time is spent waiting, too. So you can go out, have lunch, and come back by the time things start happening. I remember in particular a physical chemistry lab where you had to make crystals. On paper, it was six hours per week (two three-hour sessions). In reality, the first session was 10 minutes to get things ready, 10 minutes for seeding, 2.5 hours wait, and 10 minutes to transfer your seed. The second part of the lab was not much different. Matter of fact, it was boring monitoring those labs, because as the monitor, you had to stay in there the full three hours.
Where I went to school 50 minutes = 1 hour, 75 minutes = 1.5 hours (usually classes that meet twice weekly). It appears that at Hofstra that is 55 and 85 instead. But nevertheless, to answer your question as I recall hearing it explained: Labs are considered almost entirely in-class work. Classes are normally structured so that 1 credit hour will necessitate 2 hours of out of class required reading/coursework on average for the semester. Therefore a 3 Cr class theoretically requires 6 hours out of class for a total of 9 hours per week average work for that class. So you can extrapolate this out for your whole semester schedule where a standard "full-time" college student would expect to be spending 45 hours a week (save the chopped off time at the end of each "hour") between in-class time and expected out of class work for a 15 Credit hour schedule. Since labs are assumed to be done almost entirely within the allotted class time with little to no outside work, those combine to form the 3 hours (actually 2:50) of actual school work you're doing for each credit hour you earn. Of course, all of this is "in theory" as anyone who's been through a single minute of college can tell you that not all courses and majors are created equal. If there's a entry level survey course like "Intro to....", or your Writing and Comp I you'd be awfully stretched to actually find two hours worth of work without memorizing the books cover to cover. If you're taking an engineering or advanced Chem class (God bless your soul) you'll be damn lucky to spend 10-15 hours working out of class every single week on assignments for 3 credit hours. That, my friend, explains the difference between the pay of the graduates with different majors.
The reason Hofstra does 55 and 85 instead of 50 and 75 is because Hofstra's semesters last 13 weeks and other schools last 15 weeks. A 3 credit course that meets in 55 minute sessions at Hofstra meets for 2,145 minutes and a 3 credit course that meets in 85 minute sessions at Hofstra meets for 2,210 minutes. Both of those are fewer than 2,250 minutes for a class that meets 150 hours per week for 15 weeks (excluding time taking a final exam). All Hofstra students need at least one class with a lab. I chose Geology because I liked Earth Science in eighth grade and because the Geology course had fewer lecture hours and fewer lab hours than other introductory science department courses. The lab had a small amount of out of class writing but nowhere near twice as much as the time spent in class. The lack of out of class work explains the number of credits for a lab, although the downside to a lab is that a 1 credit lab that meets for 3 hours requires you to be in a specific place for those 3 hours, whereas 1/3rd of a 3 credit lecture requires you to be in class for 1 hour with you choosing what day and time you wanted to spend on homework.
I have a similar question: how often do your labs meet? When I went to school (old fart time), our science courses all had labs once a week. My daughter is now going to University of Rochester and her intro chem class has a lab once every two weeks. Is this now the norm?
I can't claim my experience is universal, but labs have been once a week at every place I've ever taught.
a simple answer is that the rule of thumb for non-lab classes in most disciplines is 2 hours work outside of class for each hour in the classroom. but lab work by definition is done all in the lab.
The lab I took at Hofstra in Fall 2003 required a few reports to be written at home, but it wasn't much (I would say fewer than 10 hours and the in class meeting time was 21 hours 50 minutes). On another note, I worked at a School of Social Work requiring Field Instruction internships. A 3 credit class met for 2 hours in class and 30 minutes on Moodle per week. If you triple that to account for the out of class work supposed to be double the in class work and multiply by 15 weeks, it was 112.5 hours of work per class which is 37.5 hours per credit. Field Instruction was 4 credits for a 300 hour internship, which is twice as many hours per credit as for a classroom course. Why?
I had a similar case with a journalism class that was similar to a lab for our profession. It was TV News Producing, and we met twice a week from 12 to 3:45, but it was 4 credits for 7.5 hours of classroom time. But to even that out there was little work outside the classroom and studio-- just some minor prep work and keeping on top of the news so that we knew what to cover. To me, it makes sense to have extended time with no extra credits if there's limited work to be done for it outside the lab.
What actually happens is the prof bills (you the student via the school) and indicates they are working for . X . number of hours a week. They then send a graduate student on $14K a year to teach the lab they are billing for. This will happen for one of two reasons, either 1/ write a book which nobody will read, so they indicate it is "assigned reading" for future classes or 2/ surf the internet and post in various forums endless manifesto's about why tenure is important.
jeez shelts, it took you three months to come up with that? fair enough; got to admit it took a great deal of imagination.
You're a moron, Do you know that? Wait. Of course you don't. Well, add that to the list of things you don't know. You can list it right behind your B.S. post above.